Preparation only in this cell: read the three text files, and perform some light processing on them.
#import nltk
#nltk.download()
import codecs
import nltk
CORPUS_FOLDER = '/home/spenteco/0/corpora/muncie_public_library_corpus/PG_no_backmatter_fiction/'
texts = [
{'file_name': 'Bront_Charlotte_Jane_Eyre_An_Autobiography_PG_1260.txt',
'raw_text': '', 'tokens': [], 'text_obj': None},
{'file_name': 'Dickens_Charles_David_Copperfield_PG_766.txt',
'raw_text': '', 'tokens': [], 'text_obj': None},
{'file_name': 'Thackeray_William_Makepeace_Vanity_Fair_PG_599.txt',
'raw_text': '', 'tokens': [], 'text_obj': None},
]
for t in texts:
t['raw_text'] = codecs.open(CORPUS_FOLDER + t['file_name'], 'r', encoding='utf-8').read()
t['tokens'] = nltk.word_tokenize(t['raw_text'])
t['text_obj'] = nltk.Text(t['tokens'])
print 'Done!'
Done!
#!conda install -y spacy==1.9.0
#!python -m spacy download en
import spacy
nlp = spacy.load('en')
print spacy.__version__
1.9.0
import re
from collections import defaultdict, Counter
for t in texts:
cleaned_text = re.sub('\s+', ' ', t['raw_text'])
doc = nlp(cleaned_text)
word_dependency_counts = defaultdict(int)
n_subjs = 0
n_subjs_printed = 0
for s in doc.sents:
for token in s:
if token.dep_ in ['nsubj', 'nsubjpass']:
n_subjs += 1
if token.pos_ in ['NOUN'] and token.text.lower() not in ['who', 'what']:
word_dependency_counts[(token.text.lower())] += 1
n_subjs_printed += 1
#else:
# word_dependency_counts[(token.pos_)] += 1
print
print t['file_name'], 'n_subjs', n_subjs, 'n_subjs_printed', n_subjs_printed, \
'% printed', ('%.2f' % (float(n_subjs_printed) / float(n_subjs) * 100.0))
print
for row in Counter(word_dependency_counts).most_common(100):
print '\t', row[0], '\t\t', row[1], \
'\t\t', '% subjs', ('%.2f' % (float(row[1]) / float(n_subjs) * 100.0))
Bront_Charlotte_Jane_Eyre_An_Autobiography_PG_1260.txt n_subjs 22454 n_subjs_printed 4331 % printed 19.29 one 50 % subjs 0.22 heart 39 % subjs 0.17 eye 38 % subjs 0.17 man 38 % subjs 0.17 eyes 34 % subjs 0.15 voice 32 % subjs 0.14 face 30 % subjs 0.13 words 30 % subjs 0.13 nothing 30 % subjs 0.13 door 29 % subjs 0.13 girl 27 % subjs 0.12 ladies 27 % subjs 0.12 people 26 % subjs 0.12 wind 24 % subjs 0.11 lady 24 % subjs 0.11 woman 23 % subjs 0.10 life 23 % subjs 0.10 fire 22 % subjs 0.10 hand 22 % subjs 0.10 house 20 % subjs 0.09 light 20 % subjs 0.09 father 19 % subjs 0.08 gentlemen 19 % subjs 0.08 day 19 % subjs 0.08 master 17 % subjs 0.08 time 17 % subjs 0.08 name 17 % subjs 0.08 world 17 % subjs 0.08 girls 16 % subjs 0.07 sisters 16 % subjs 0.07 sun 15 % subjs 0.07 night 15 % subjs 0.07 bell 15 % subjs 0.07 love 15 % subjs 0.07 mother 14 % subjs 0.06 half 14 % subjs 0.06 moon 14 % subjs 0.06 spirit 14 % subjs 0.06 wife 14 % subjs 0.06 men 13 % subjs 0.06 none 13 % subjs 0.06 room 13 % subjs 0.06 thing 13 % subjs 0.06 matter 13 % subjs 0.06 mind 13 % subjs 0.06 clock 13 % subjs 0.06 air 13 % subjs 0.06 person 13 % subjs 0.06 head 13 % subjs 0.06 something 13 % subjs 0.06 uncle 13 % subjs 0.06 birds 13 % subjs 0.06 word 12 % subjs 0.05 hour 12 % subjs 0.05 rain 12 % subjs 0.05 nature 12 % subjs 0.05 hair 12 % subjs 0.05 servants 12 % subjs 0.05 servant 12 % subjs 0.05 children 11 % subjs 0.05 answer 11 % subjs 0.05 gentleman 11 % subjs 0.05 child 11 % subjs 0.05 feelings 11 % subjs 0.05 sense 10 % subjs 0.04 reader 10 % subjs 0.04 nurse 10 % subjs 0.04 candle 10 % subjs 0.04 soul 10 % subjs 0.04 curtain 10 % subjs 0.04 glance 9 % subjs 0.04 things 9 % subjs 0.04 others 9 % subjs 0.04 conversation 9 % subjs 0.04 figure 9 % subjs 0.04 tears 9 % subjs 0.04 fortune 9 % subjs 0.04 idea 9 % subjs 0.04 event 9 % subjs 0.04 sound 8 % subjs 0.04 school 8 % subjs 0.04 dew 8 % subjs 0.04 blood 8 % subjs 0.04 strength 8 % subjs 0.04 dog 8 % subjs 0.04 teachers 8 % subjs 0.04 thoughts 8 % subjs 0.04 step 8 % subjs 0.04 silence 8 % subjs 0.04 nobody 8 % subjs 0.04 thought 8 % subjs 0.04 rest 8 % subjs 0.04 horse 8 % subjs 0.04 fear 7 % subjs 0.03 daughter 7 % subjs 0.03 arms 7 % subjs 0.03 smile 7 % subjs 0.03 work 7 % subjs 0.03 arm 7 % subjs 0.03 spirits 7 % subjs 0.03 Dickens_Charles_David_Copperfield_PG_766.txt n_subjs 40743 n_subjs_printed 5965 % printed 14.64 aunt 325 % subjs 0.80 mother 153 % subjs 0.38 man 96 % subjs 0.24 face 75 % subjs 0.18 eyes 64 % subjs 0.16 nothing 62 % subjs 0.15 time 58 % subjs 0.14 people 53 % subjs 0.13 house 51 % subjs 0.13 one 50 % subjs 0.12 friend 46 % subjs 0.11 gentleman 40 % subjs 0.10 name 40 % subjs 0.10 nobody 40 % subjs 0.10 love 39 % subjs 0.10 traddles 36 % subjs 0.09 heart 36 % subjs 0.09 woman 32 % subjs 0.08 boy 32 % subjs 0.08 day 32 % subjs 0.08 wife 31 % subjs 0.08 sister 29 % subjs 0.07 thing 28 % subjs 0.07 waiter 28 % subjs 0.07 wind 27 % subjs 0.07 matter 26 % subjs 0.06 father 26 % subjs 0.06 head 25 % subjs 0.06 hair 25 % subjs 0.06 brother 25 % subjs 0.06 somebody 24 % subjs 0.06 family 23 % subjs 0.06 child 23 % subjs 0.06 lady 23 % subjs 0.06 boys 22 % subjs 0.05 words 22 % subjs 0.05 life 21 % subjs 0.05 place 21 % subjs 0.05 light 21 % subjs 0.05 door 20 % subjs 0.05 things 20 % subjs 0.05 word 19 % subjs 0.05 mind 19 % subjs 0.05 carrier 19 % subjs 0.05 hand 19 % subjs 0.05 men 18 % subjs 0.04 room 18 % subjs 0.04 anybody 18 % subjs 0.04 anything 18 % subjs 0.04 figure 18 % subjs 0.04 son 18 % subjs 0.04 manner 17 % subjs 0.04 sun 17 % subjs 0.04 voice 17 % subjs 0.04 person 17 % subjs 0.04 papa 17 % subjs 0.04 girl 17 % subjs 0.04 letter 16 % subjs 0.04 night 16 % subjs 0.04 everything 16 % subjs 0.04 something 16 % subjs 0.04 fact 16 % subjs 0.04 tears 16 % subjs 0.04 mama 15 % subjs 0.04 dear 15 % subjs 0.04 coach 15 % subjs 0.04 daughter 14 % subjs 0.03 idea 14 % subjs 0.03 feeling 14 % subjs 0.03 influence 14 % subjs 0.03 thought 14 % subjs 0.03 fellow 14 % subjs 0.03 eye 13 % subjs 0.03 creature 13 % subjs 0.03 anyone 13 % subjs 0.03 part 13 % subjs 0.03 fire 13 % subjs 0.03 everybody 13 % subjs 0.03 hands 13 % subjs 0.03 children 12 % subjs 0.03 master 12 % subjs 0.03 thoughts 12 % subjs 0.03 ma'am 12 % subjs 0.03 doen't 12 % subjs 0.03 bell 12 % subjs 0.03 opinion 12 % subjs 0.03 birds 12 % subjs 0.03 husband 12 % subjs 0.03 rest 12 % subjs 0.03 ladies 12 % subjs 0.03 theer 11 % subjs 0.03 air 11 % subjs 0.03 dinner 11 % subjs 0.03 remembrance 11 % subjs 0.03 doctor 11 % subjs 0.03 money 11 % subjs 0.03 arms 10 % subjs 0.02 way 10 % subjs 0.02 power 10 % subjs 0.02 work 10 % subjs 0.02 Thackeray_William_Makepeace_Vanity_Fair_PG_599.txt n_subjs 30459 n_subjs_printed 7395 % printed 24.28 man 166 % subjs 0.54 lady 122 % subjs 0.40 people 104 % subjs 0.34 father 102 % subjs 0.33 woman 98 % subjs 0.32 gentleman 89 % subjs 0.29 ladies 85 % subjs 0.28 mother 78 % subjs 0.26 friend 76 % subjs 0.25 wife 75 % subjs 0.25 men 66 % subjs 0.22 everybody 59 % subjs 0.19 boy 59 % subjs 0.19 carriage 52 % subjs 0.17 heart 51 % subjs 0.17 family 51 % subjs 0.17 husband 50 % subjs 0.16 house 49 % subjs 0.16 eyes 45 % subjs 0.15 girl 44 % subjs 0.14 women 42 % subjs 0.14 name 42 % subjs 0.14 face 39 % subjs 0.13 son 37 % subjs 0.12 child 33 % subjs 0.11 brother 32 % subjs 0.11 gentlemen 32 % subjs 0.11 friends 32 % subjs 0.11 girls 31 % subjs 0.10 regiment 31 % subjs 0.10 money 30 % subjs 0.10 truth 28 % subjs 0.09 nobody 28 % subjs 0.09 fellow 28 % subjs 0.09 reader 27 % subjs 0.09 news 27 % subjs 0.09 sisters 27 % subjs 0.09 life 25 % subjs 0.08 world 25 % subjs 0.08 voice 24 % subjs 0.08 time 24 % subjs 0.08 fact 24 % subjs 0.08 place 23 % subjs 0.08 one 23 % subjs 0.08 person 23 % subjs 0.08 letter 22 % subjs 0.07 widow 22 % subjs 0.07 horses 22 % subjs 0.07 children 21 % subjs 0.07 door 21 % subjs 0.07 company 21 % subjs 0.07 servants 21 % subjs 0.07 sister 21 % subjs 0.07 love 20 % subjs 0.07 pair 20 % subjs 0.07 day 20 % subjs 0.07 conversation 20 % subjs 0.07 captain 18 % subjs 0.06 aunt 18 % subjs 0.06 maid 18 % subjs 0.06 servant 18 % subjs 0.06 everything 17 % subjs 0.06 head 17 % subjs 0.06 soul 17 % subjs 0.06 marriage 17 % subjs 0.06 party 17 % subjs 0.06 daughter 16 % subjs 0.05 lordship 16 % subjs 0.05 anybody 16 % subjs 0.05 anything 16 % subjs 0.05 lord 15 % subjs 0.05 officer 15 % subjs 0.05 persons 15 % subjs 0.05 nothing 15 % subjs 0.05 governess 15 % subjs 0.05 papa 15 % subjs 0.05 hair 15 % subjs 0.05 boys 14 % subjs 0.05 grandfather 14 % subjs 0.05 creature 14 % subjs 0.05 bell 14 % subjs 0.05 parents 14 % subjs 0.05 butler 14 % subjs 0.05 spinster 14 % subjs 0.05 lad 13 % subjs 0.04 mind 13 % subjs 0.04 latter 13 % subjs 0.04 sun 13 % subjs 0.04 part 13 % subjs 0.04 others 13 % subjs 0.04 words 13 % subjs 0.04 army 12 % subjs 0.04 arms 12 % subjs 0.04 room 12 % subjs 0.04 master 12 % subjs 0.04 folks 12 % subjs 0.04 night 12 % subjs 0.04 dinner 12 % subjs 0.04 brothers 12 % subjs 0.04 coach 12 % subjs 0.04
for t in texts:
n_printed = 0
print
print t['file_name'], '\t', 'len(t[\'tokens\'])', len(t['tokens'])
print
cleaned_text = re.sub('\s+', ' ', t['raw_text'])
doc = nlp(cleaned_text)
word_dependency_counts = defaultdict(int)
for s in doc.sents:
for token in s:
if token.dep_ in ['nsubj', 'nsubjpass']:
if token.pos_ in ['NOUN']:
print s.text
n_printed += 1
if n_printed > 10:
break
break
Bront_Charlotte_Jane_Eyre_An_Autobiography_PG_1260.txt len(t['tokens']) 228761
JANE EYRE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY CHARLOTTE BRONTE ILLUSTRATED BY F. H. TOWNSEND London SERVICE & PATON 5 HENRIETTA STREET 1897 The Illustrations in this Volume are the copyright of SERVICE & PATON, London TO W. M. THACKERAY, ESQ., This Work IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR PREFACE A preface to the first edition of "Jane Eyre" being unnecessary, I gave none: this second edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark.
JANE EYRE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY CHARLOTTE BRONTE ILLUSTRATED BY F. H. TOWNSEND London SERVICE & PATON 5 HENRIETTA STREET 1897 The Illustrations in this Volume are the copyright of SERVICE & PATON, London TO W. M. THACKERAY, ESQ., This Work IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR PREFACE A preface to the first edition of "Jane Eyre" being unnecessary, I gave none: this second edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark.
My thanks are due in three quarters.
To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to an obscure aspirant.
To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unrecommended Author.
The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to them, i.e. , to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.
The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to them, i.e. , to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.
The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to them, i.e. , to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.
Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked.
I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as "Jane Eyre:" in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry -- that parent of crime -- an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth.
I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as "Jane Eyre:" in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry -- that parent of crime -- an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth.
Conventionality is not morality.
Self-righteousness is not religion.
To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.
These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue.
Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ.
The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth -- to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines.
It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose -- to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it -- to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.
There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital -- a mien as dauntless and as daring.
Is the satirist of "Vanity Fair" admired in high places?
Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day -- as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent.
He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does.
His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer- cloud does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb.
NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION I avail myself of the opportunity which a third edition of "Jane Eyre" affords me, of again addressing a word to the Public, to explain that my claim to the title of novelist rests on this one work alone.
If, therefore, the authorship of other works of fiction has been attributed to me, an honour is awarded where it is not merited; and consequently, denied where it is justly due.
This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already have been made, and to prevent future errors.
We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.
A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there.
Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day.
I returned to my book -- Bewick's History of British Birds: the letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank.
They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of "the solitary rocks and promontories" by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape -- "Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls, Boils round the naked, melancholy isles Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.
" Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with "the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space, -- that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold."
The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.
I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the hour of eventide.
Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.
The breakfast- room door opened. "
Madam Mope!" cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty. "Where the dickens is she!" he continued. "
Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain -- bad animal!" "It is well I drew the curtain," thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once -- "She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack.
He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month or two, "on account of his delicate health."
Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining after home.
He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near.
There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back. Habitually obedient to John
, I came up to his chair: he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly.
I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair.
Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult.
"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense.
Now, I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years.
I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it.
The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded. "
Aid was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot.
What a fury to fly at Master John!" "Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!"
Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.
The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather out of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths. "
How is he my master? Am I a servant?"
" 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. "
This preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a little of the excitement out of me.
"I've told Missis often my opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me.
" I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind.
This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear: very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible.
Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away.
The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion.
A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany.
Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.
This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered.
The house-maid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room -- the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur.
Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the undertaker's men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration had guarded it from frequent intrusion.
My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room.
yes: no jail was ever more secure.
Returning, I had to cross before the looking- glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed.
All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers.
Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal present.
Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected.
Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged.
Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault.
John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still "her own darling.
My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium. "Unjust! -- unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression -- as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.
What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon!
How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection!
Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought!
They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment.
I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child -- though equally dependent and friendless -- Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery.
Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o'clock, and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight.
I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sank.
My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire.
It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family group.
A singular notion dawned upon me.
I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed face, bending over me with strange pity.
No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head.
I can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some one across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world.
My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort.
Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered. "
Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come.
"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."
Let her go," was the only answer. "Loose Bessie's hand, child: you cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured.
I abhor artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show you that tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer, and it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall liberate you then."
This violence is all most repulsive:" and so, no doubt, she felt it.
I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness closed the scene.
The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick black bars.
Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before.
In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved: I knew quite well that I was in my own bed, and that the red glare was the nursery fire.
It was night: a candle burnt on the table; Bessie stood at the bed- foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near my pillow, leaning over me.
I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed.
Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised the face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for herself and the children she employed a physician.
"Well, who am I?" he asked.
Having given some further directions, and intimates that he should call again the next day, he departed; to my grief: I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair near my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, all the room darkened and my heart again sank: inexpressible sadness weighed it down. "
Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might be rough.
Bessie, what is the matter with me?
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," etc.
At last both slept: the fire and the candle went out.
For me, the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; strained by dread: such dread as children only can feel.
No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red- room; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the reverberation to this day.
I felt physically weak and broken down: but my worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed.
This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them agreeably.
Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a tart on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird of paradise, nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine it more closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a privilege.
This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it.
Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from the library.
This book I had again and again perused with delight.
I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves, having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my creed, solid parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other.
Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand -- when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find -- all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions.
Meantime she sang: her song was -- "In the days when we went gipsying, A long time ago.
But now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness.
"My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary; Long is the way, and the mountains are wild; Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary Over the path of the poor orphan child.
Why did they send me so far and so lonely, Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled?
Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child.
Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing, Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild, God, in His mercy, protection is showing, Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.
Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing, Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled, Still will my Father, with promise and blessing, Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.
There is a thought that for strength should avail me, Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled; Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me; God is a friend to the poor orphan child."
What, already up!" said he, as he entered the nursery.
Come here, Miss Jane: your name is Jane, is it not?" "Yes, sir, Jane Eyre."
why, she is too old for such pettishness." I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false charge, I answered promptly, "I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the carriage.
The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled.
I was standing before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and grey; not very bright, but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking face.
Having considered me at leisure, he said -- "What made you ill yesterday?" "She had a fall," said Bessie, again putting in her word.
As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang for the servants' dinner; he knew what it was.
Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall. "The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?" pursued Mr. Lloyd when Bessie was gone.
Are you afraid now in daylight?" "No: but night will come again before long: and besides, -- I am unhappy, -- very unhappy, for other things." "What other things?
Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words.
" Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced -- "But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red-room."
"Pooh! you can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?" "If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman." "Perhaps you may -- who knows?
Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.
" I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste. "
Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise: John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed's tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie's accounts of school-discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies were, I thought, equally attractive.
She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of French books they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened.
Besides, school would be a complete change: it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.
Well, well! who knows what may happen?
"The child ought to have change of air and scene," he added, speaking to himself; "nerves not in a good state.
" Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling up the gravel-walk.
In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume, from after-occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to recommend my being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt readily enough adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the subject with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, "Missis was, she dared say, glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who always looked as if she were watching everybody, and scheming plots underhand.
On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot's communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.
Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, "Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot." "Yes," responded Abbot; "if she were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that."
From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported conference between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near, -- I desired and waited it in silence.
It tarried, however: days and weeks passed: I had regained my normal state of health, but no new allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded.
Mrs. Reed surveyed me at times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed me: since my illness, she had drawn a more marked line of separation than ever between me and her own children; appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself, condemning me to take my meals alone, and pass all my time in the nursery, while my cousins were constantly in the drawing-room.
Not a hint, however, did she drop about sending me to school: still I felt an instinctive certainty that she would not long endure me under the same roof with her; for her glance, now more than ever, when turned on me, expressed an insuperable and rooted aversion.
I had indeed levelled at that prominent feature as hard a blow as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that either that or my look daunted him, I had the greatest inclination to follow up my advantage to purpose; but he was already with his mama.
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. "
I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed as if my tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their utterance: something spoke out of me over which I had no control.
"What?" said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold composed grey eye became troubled with a look like fear; she took her hand from my arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child or fiend.
November, December, and half of January passed away.
Christmas and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given.
From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety consisted in witnessing the daily apparelling of Eliza and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawing-room, dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ringletted; and afterwards, in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room door opened and closed.
But Bessie, as soon as she had dressed her young ladies, used to take herself off to the lively regions of the kitchen and housekeeper's room, generally bearing the candle along with her.
I then sat with my doll on my knee till the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure that nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers sank to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings as I best might, and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib.
To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow.
It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doated on this little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation
. Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie's step on the stairs: sometimes she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her scissors, or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper -- a bun or a cheese-cake -- then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed me, and said, "Good night, Miss Jane."
She was pretty too, if my recollections of her face and person are correct.
It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o'clock in the morning: Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been summoned to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm garden-coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she was fond: and not less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper and hoarding up the money she thus obtained.
Having spread the quilt and folded my night-dress, I went to the window-seat to put in order some picture-books and doll's house furniture scattered there; an abrupt command from Georgiana to let her playthings alone (for the tiny chairs and mirrors, the fairy plates and cups, were her property) stopped my proceedings; and then, for lack of other occupation, I fell to breathing on the frost-flowers with which the window was fretted, and thus clearing a space in the glass through which I might look out on the grounds, where all was still and petrified under the influence of a hard frost.
From this window were visible the porter's lodge and the carriage-road, and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver-white foliage veiling the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates thrown open and a carriage roll through.
I watched it ascending the drive with indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of the house, the door-bell rang loudly, the new-comer was admitted.
All this being nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found livelier attraction in the spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and chirruped on the twigs of the leafless cherry-tree nailed against the wall near the casement.
The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the table, and having crumbled a morsel of roll, I was tugging at the sash to put out the crumbs on the window-sill, when Bessie came running upstairs into the nursery. "
Have you washed your hands and face this morning?" I gave another tug before I answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its bread: the sash yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone sill, some on the cherry-tree bough, then, closing the window, I replied -- "No, Bessie; I have only just finished dusting." "Troublesome, careless child! and what are you doing now?
" I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great a hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand, inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face and hands with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying me to the top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in the breakfast-room.
I would have asked who wanted me: I would have demanded if Mrs. Reed was there; but Bessie was already gone, and had closed the nursery-door upon me. I slowly descended.
For nearly three months, I had never been called to Mrs. Reed's presence; restricted so long to the nursery, the breakfast, dining, and drawing-rooms were become for me awful regions, on which it dismayed me to intrude.
I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast-room door, and I stopped, intimidated and trembling.
What a miserable little poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of me in those days!
I feared to return to the nursery, and feared to go forward to the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated hesitation; the vehement ringing of the breakfast-room bell decided me; I must enter.
"Who could want me?" I asked inwardly, as with both hands I turned the stiff door-handle, which, for a second or two, resisted my efforts. "
What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment? -- a man or a woman?" The handle turned, the door unclosed, and passing through and curtseying low, I looked up at -- a black pillar! -- such, at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow,
sable-clad shape standing erect on the rug: the grim face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft by way of capital.
Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a signal to me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the stony stranger with the words: "This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to you." He , for it was a man, turned his head slowly towards where I stood, and having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking grey eyes which twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in a bass voice, "Her size is small: what is her age?" "Ten years."
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. "
" Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: my little world held a contrary opinion: I was silent.
No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl.
And what is hell?
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.
"I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever having been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent benefactress."
"Benefactress! benefactress!" said I inwardly: "they all call Mrs. Reed my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable thing."
I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a gingerbread-nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh! the verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;' says he, 'I wish to be a little angel here below;' he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety."
"Psalms are not interesting," I remarked.
" I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which that operation of changing my heart was to be performed, when Mrs. Reed interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to carry on the conversation herself. "
Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I wrote to you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite the character and disposition I could wish: should you admit her into Lowood school, I should be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard against her worst fault, a tendency to deceit.
Well might I dread, well might I dislike Mrs. Reed; for it was her nature to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence; however carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my efforts were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences as the above.
Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart; I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope from the new phase of existence which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye into an artful, noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?
"Nothing, indeed," thought I, as I struggled to repress a sob, and hastily wiped away some tears, the impotent evidences of my anguish. "
Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child," said Mr. Brocklehurst; "it is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in the lake burning with fire and brimstone; she shall, however, be watched, Mrs. Reed.
"I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects," continued my benefactress; "to be made useful, to be kept humble: as for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them always at Lowood." "Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam," returned Mr. Brocklehurst.
"Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that especial care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them.
My second daughter, Augusta, went with her mama to visit the school, and on her return she exclaimed: 'Oh, dear papa, how quiet and plain all the girls at Lowood look, with their hair combed behind their ears, and their long pinafores, and those little holland pockets outside their frocks -- they are almost like poor people's children! and,' said she, 'they looked at my dress and mama's, as if they had never seen a silk gown before.'" "This is the state of things I quite approve," returned Mrs. Reed; "had I sought all England over, I could scarcely have found a system more exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre.
Consistency, my dear Mr. Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things." "Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has been observed in every arrangement connected with the establishment of Lowood: plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations, hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house and its inhabitants." "Quite right, sir. I may then depend upon this child being received as a pupil at Lowood, and there being trained in conformity to her position and prospects?"
I shall return to Brocklehurst Hall in the course of a week or two: my good friend, the Archdeacon, will not permit me to leave him sooner.
Little girl, here is a book entitled the 'Child's Guide,' read it with prayer, especially that part containing 'An account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G -- -, a naughty child addicted to falsehood and deceit.'"
Mrs. Reed and I were left alone: some minutes passed in silence; she was sewing, I was watching her.
Mrs. Reed might be at that time some six or seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame, square-shouldered and strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout, not obese: she had a somewhat large face, the under jaw being much developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and prominent, mouth and nose sufficiently regular; under her light eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of ruth; her skin was dark and opaque, her hair nearly flaxen; her constitution was sound as a bell -- illness never came near her; she was an exact, clever manager; her household and tenantry were thoroughly under her control; her children only at times defied her authority and laughed it to scorn; she dressed well, and had a presence and port calculated to set off handsome attire.
What had just passed; what Mrs. Reed had said concerning me to Mr. Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of their conversation, was recent, raw, and stinging in my mind; I had felt every word as acutely as I had heard it plainly, and a passion of resentment fomented now within me.
Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers at the same time suspended their nimble movements. "
My look or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with extreme though suppressed irritation.
I gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence -- "I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I." Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine. "
" she asked, rather in the tone in which a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily used to a child.
That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had.
. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty."
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.
Because it is the truth: p30.jpg} Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt.
It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped- for liberty.
Not without cause was this sentiment: Mrs. Reed looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting her face as if she would cry. "
Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you?
You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a deceitful disposition; and I'll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and what you have done."
"Jane, you don't understand these things: children must be corrected for their faults." "Deceit is not my fault!" I cried out in a savage, high voice.
First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my pulses.
A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction.
A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed: the same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have represented as meetly my subsequent condition, when half-an-hour's silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position.
Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.
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 could make no sense of the subject; my own thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually found fascinating.
I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds.
I leaned against a gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheep were feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched.
It was a very grey day; a most opaque sky, "onding on snaw," canopied all; thence flakes felt it intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea without melting.
It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light step came tripping down the path. "You naughty little thing!" she said.
" Bessie's presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat cross.
The fact is, after my conflict with and victory over Mrs. Reed, I was not disposed to care much for the nursemaid's transitory anger; and I was disposed to bask in her youthful lightness of heart.
The action was more frank and fearless than any I was habituated to indulge in: somehow it pleased her.
And won't you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?" "What does Bessie care for me?
My mother said, when she came to see me last week, that she would not like a little one of her own to be in your place. --
What makes you so venturesome and hardy?" "Why, I shall soon be away from you, and besides" -- I was going to say something about what had passed between me and Mrs. Reed, but on second thoughts I considered it better to remain silent on that head. "
How coolly my little lady says it!
That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the evening Bessie told me some of her most enchanting stories, and sang me some of her sweetest songs.
CHAPTER V Five o'clock had hardly struck on the morning of the 19th of January, when Bessie brought a candle into my closet and found me already up and nearly dressed.
I was to leave Gateshead that day by a coach which passed the lodge gates at six a.m. Bessie was the only person yet risen; she had lit a fire in the nursery, where she now proceeded to make my breakfast.
Few children can eat when excited with the thoughts of a journey; nor could I. Bessie, having pressed me in vain to take a few spoonfuls of the boiled milk and bread she had prepared for me, wrapped up some biscuits in a paper and put them into my bag; then she helped me on with my pelisse and bonnet, and wrapping herself in a shawl, she and I left the nursery.
The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern, whose light glanced on wet steps and gravel road sodden by a recent thaw.
Raw and chill was the winter morning: my teeth chattered as I hastened down the drive.
There was a light in the porter's lodge: when we reached it, we found the porter's wife just kindling her fire: my trunk, which had been carried down the evening before, stood corded at the door.
It wanted but a few minutes of six, and shortly after that hour had struck, the distant roll of wheels announced the coming coach; I went to the door and watched its lamps approach rapidly through the gloom. "
The coach drew up; there it was at the gates with its four horses and its top laden with passengers: the guard and coachman loudly urged haste; my trunk was hoisted up; I was taken from Bessie's neck, to which I clung with kisses. "
Ay, ay!" was the answer: the door was slapped to, a voice exclaimed "All right," and on we drove.
I remember but little of the journey; I only know that the day seemed to me of a preternatural length, and that we appeared to travel over hundreds of miles of road.
We passed through several towns, and in one, a very large one, the coach stopped; the horses were taken out, and the passengers alighted to dine.
I was carried into an inn, where the guard wanted me to have some dinner; but, as I had no appetite, he left me in an immense room with a fireplace at each end, a chandelier pendent from the ceiling, and a little red gallery high up against the wall filled with musical instruments.
Here I walked about for a long time, feeling very strange, and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured in Bessie's fireside chronicles.
At last the guard returned; once more I was stowed away in the coach, my protector mounted his own seat, sounded his hollow horn, and away we rattled over the "stony street" of L-.
The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty: as it waned into dusk, I began to feel that we were getting very far indeed from Gateshead: we ceased to pass through towns; the country changed; great grey hills heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, we descended a valley, dark with wood, and long after night had overclouded the prospect, I heard a wild wind rushing amongst trees.
Lulled by the sound, I at last dropped asleep; I had not long slumbered when the sudden cessation of motion awoke me; the coach-door was open, and a person like a servant was standing at it: I saw her face and dress by the light of the lamps.
I answered "Yes," and was then lifted out; my trunk was handed down, and the coach instantly drove away.
Rain, wind, and darkness filled the air; nevertheless, I dimly discerned a wall before me and a door open in it; through this door I passed with my new guide: she shut and locked it behind her.
There was now visible a house or houses -- for the building spread far -- with many windows, and lights burning in some; we went up a broad pebbly path, splashing wet, and were admitted at a door; then the servant led me through a passage into a room with a fire, where she left me alone.
I was puzzling to make out the subject of a picture on the wall, when the door opened, and an individual carrying a light entered; another followed close behind.
The first was a tall lady with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale and large forehead; her figure was partly enveloped in a shawl, her countenance was grave, her bearing erect. "The child is very young to be sent alone," said she, putting her candle down on the table.
The lady I had left might be about twenty-nine; the one who went with me appeared some years younger: the first impressed me by her voice, look, and air.
Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in complexion, though of a careworn countenance; hurried in gait and action, like one who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand: she looked, indeed, what I afterwards found she really was, an under-teacher.
Seen by the dim light of the dips, their number to me appeared countless, though not in reality exceeding eighty; they were uniformly dressed in brown stuff frocks of quaint fashion, and long holland pinafores.
It was the hour of study; they were engaged in conning over their to-morrow's task, and the hum I had heard was the combined result of their whispered repetitions.
Four tall girls arose from different tables, and going round, gathered the books and removed them.
Miss Miller again gave the word of command -- "Monitors, fetch the supper-trays!" The tall girls went out and returned presently, each bearing a tray, with portions of something, I knew not what, arranged thereon, and a pitcher of water and mug in the middle of each tray.
The portions were handed round; those who liked took a draught of the water, the mug being common to all.
The meal over, prayers were read by Miss Miller, and the classes filed off, two and two, upstairs. Overpowered by this time with weariness
, I scarcely noticed what sort of a place the bedroom was, except that, like the schoolroom, I saw it was very long.
To-night I was to be Miss Miller's bed-fellow; she helped me to undress: when laid down I glanced at the long rows of beds, each of which was quickly filled with two occupants; in ten minutes the single light was extinguished, and amidst silence and complete darkness I fell asleep.
The night passed rapidly.
I was too tired even to dream; I only once awoke to hear the wind rave in furious gusts, and the rain fall in torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken her place by my side.
When I again unclosed my eyes, a loud bell was ringing; the girls were up and dressing; day had not yet begun to dawn, and a rushlight or two burned in the room.
Again the bell rang: all formed in file, two and two, and in that order descended the stairs and entered the cold and dimly lit schoolroom: here prayers were read by Miss Miller; afterwards she called out -- "Form classes!"
A great tumult succeeded for some minutes, during which Miss Miller repeatedly exclaimed, "Silence!" and "Order!"
A pause of some seconds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum of numbers; Miss Miller walked from class to class, hushing this indefinite sound.
A distant bell tinkled: immediately three ladies entered the room, each walked to a table and took her seat.
Business now began, the day's Collect was repeated, then certain texts of Scripture were said, and to these succeeded a protracted reading of chapters in the Bible, which lasted an hour.
By the time that exercise was terminated, day had fully dawned.
The indefatigable bell now sounded for the fourth time: the classes were marshalled and marched into another room to breakfast: how glad I was to behold a prospect of getting something to eat!
The refectory was a great, low-ceiled, gloomy room; on two long tables smoked basins of something hot, which, however, to my dismay, sent forth an odour far from inviting.
I saw a universal manifestation of discontent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils of those destined to swallow it; from the van of the procession, the tall girls of the first class, rose the whispered words -- "Disgusting!
The porridge is burnt again!" "Silence!" ejaculated a voice; not that of Miss Miller, but one of the upper teachers, a little and dark personage, smartly dressed, but of somewhat morose aspect, who installed herself at the top of one table, while a more buxom lady presided at the other
. I looked in vain for her I had first seen the night before; she was not visible: Miss Miller occupied the foot of the table where I sat, and a strange, foreign-looking, elderly lady, the French teacher, as I afterwards found, took the corresponding seat at the other board.
A long grace was said and a hymn sung; then a servant brought in some tea for the teachers, and the meal began.
Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my portion without thinking of its taste; but the first edge of hunger blunted, I perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess; burnt porridge is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over it.
The spoons were moved slowly: I saw each girl taste her food and try to swallow it; but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished.
Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted.
Thanks being returned for what we had not got, and a second hymn chanted, the refectory was evacuated for the schoolroom.
I was one of the last to go out, and in passing the tables, I saw one teacher take a basin of the porridge and taste it; she looked at the others; all their countenances expressed displeasure, and one of them, the stout one, whispered -- "Abominable stuff!
" A quarter of an hour passed before lessons again began, during which the schoolroom was in a glorious tumult; for that space of time it seemed to be permitted to talk loud and more freely, and they used their privilege.
The whole conversation ran on the breakfast, which one and all abused roundly.
Miss Miller was now the only teacher in the room: a group of great girls standing about her spoke with serious and sullen gestures.
A clock in the schoolroom struck nine; Miss Miller left her circle, and standing in the middle of the room, cried -- "Silence!
To your seats!" Discipline prevailed: in five minutes the confused throng was resolved into order, and comparative silence quelled the Babel clamour of tongues.
The upper teachers now punctually resumed their posts: but still, all seemed to wait.
Ranged on benches down the sides of the room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect; a quaint assemblage they appeared, all with plain locks combed from their faces, not a curl visible; in brown dresses, made high and surrounded by a narrow tucker about the throat, with little pockets of holland (shaped something like a Highlander's purse) tied in front of their frocks, and destined to serve the purpose of a work-bag: all, too, wearing woollen stockings and country-made shoes, fastened with brass buckles.
I was still looking at them, and also at intervals examining the teachers -- none of whom precisely pleased me; for the stout one was a little coarse, the dark one not a little fierce, the foreigner harsh and grotesque, and Miss Miller, poor thing! looked purple, weather-beaten, and over-worked -- when, as my eye wandered from face to face, the whole school rose simultaneously, as if moved by a common spring.
What was the matter?
Ere I had gathered my wits, the classes were again seated: but as all eyes were now turned to one point, mine followed the general direction, and encountered the personage who had received me last night.
Miss Miller approaching, seemed to ask her a question, and having received her answer, went back to her place, and said aloud -- "Monitor of the first class, fetch the globes!" While the direction was being executed, the lady consulted moved slowly up the room.
I suppose I have a considerable organ of veneration, for I retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes traced her steps.
Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked tall, fair, and shapely; brown eyes with a benignant light in their irids, and a fine pencilling of long lashes round, relieved the whiteness of her large front; on each of her temples her hair, of a very dark brown, was clustered in round curls, according to the fashion of those times, when neither smooth bands nor long ringlets were in vogue; her dress, also in the mode of the day, was of purple cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish trimming of black velvet; a gold watch (watches were not so common then as now) shone at her girdle.
Let the reader add, to complete the picture, refined features; a complexion, if pale, clear; and a stately air and carriage, and he will have, at least, as clearly as words can give it, a correct idea of the exterior of Miss Temple -- Maria Temple, as I afterwards saw the name written in a prayer-book intrusted to me to carry to church.
The superintendent of Lowood (for such was this lady) having taken her seat before a pair of globes placed on one of the tables, summoned the first class round her, and commenced giving a lesson on geography; the lower classes were called by the teachers: repetitions in history, grammar, &c., went on for an hour; writing and arithmetic succeeded, and music lessons were given by Miss Temple to some of the elder girls.
The duration of each lesson was measured by the clock, which at last struck twelve.
The superintendent rose -- "I have a word to address to the pupils," said she.
The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth, but it sank at her voice.
She went on -- "You had this morning a breakfast which you could not eat; you must be hungry: -- I have ordered that a lunch of bread and cheese shall be served to all." The teachers looked at her with a sort of surprise. "
The bread and cheese was presently brought in and distributed, to the high delight and refreshment of the whole school.
The order was now given "To the garden!"
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.
The stronger among the girls ran about and engaged in active games, but sundry pale and thin ones herded together for shelter and warmth in the verandah; and amongst these, as the dense mist penetrated to their shivering frames, I heard frequently the sound of a hollow cough.
As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice of me; I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed; it did not oppress me much.
My reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit record: I hardly yet knew where I was; Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance; the present was vague and strange, and of the future I could form no conjecture.
I looked round the convent-like garden, and then up at the house -- a large building, half of which seemed grey and old, the other half quite new.
The new part, containing the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect; a stone tablet over the door bore this inscription: -- "Lowood Institution. --
This portion was rebuilt A.D. -- -, by Naomi Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county."
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."
I read these words over and over again: I felt that an explanation belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate their import.
I was still pondering the signification of "Institution," and endeavouring to make out a connection between the first words and the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a cough close behind me made me turn my head.
I saw a girl sitting on a stone bench near; she was bent over a book, on the perusal of which she seemed intent: from where I stood I could see the title -- it was "Rasselas;" a name that struck me as strange, and consequently attractive.
In turning a leaf she happened to look up, and I said to her directly -- "Is your book interesting?" I had already formed the intention of asking her to lend it to me some day.
I hardly know where I found the hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial.
I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were less taking than the title: "Rasselas" looked dull to my trifling taste; I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright variety seemed spread over the closely-printed pages.
I returned it to her; she received it quietly, and without saying anything she was about to relapse into her former studious mood: again I ventured to disturb her -- "Can you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door means?
What is Lowood Institution?" "This house where you are come to live."
Both died before I can remember." "Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and this is called an institution for educating orphans."
Do they keep us for nothing?" "We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each."
"Who subscribes?" "Different benevolent-minded ladies and gentlemen in this neighbourhood and in London."
"Who was Naomi Brocklehurst?" "The lady who built the new part of this house as that tablet records, and whose son overlooks and directs everything here."
"Why?" "Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment." "Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a watch, and who said we were to have some bread and cheese?" "To Miss Temple?
"Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple?" "Yes." "And what are the other teachers called?" "The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the work, and cuts out -- for we make our own clothes, our frocks, and pelisses, and everything; the little one with black hair is Miss Scatcherd; she teaches history and grammar, and hears the second class repetitions; and the one who wears a shawl, and has a pocket-handkerchief tied to her side with a yellow ribband, is Madame Pierrot: she comes from Lisle, in France, and teaches French."
"Have you been long here?" "Two years." "Are you an orphan?" "My mother is dead."
But at that moment the summons sounded for dinner; all re-entered the house.
The odour which now filled the refectory was scarcely more appetising than that which had regaled our nostrils at breakfast: the dinner was served in two huge tin-plated vessels, whence rose a strong steam redolent of rancid fat.
I found the mess to consist of indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked together.
Of this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful was apportioned to each pupil.
I ate what I could, and wondered within myself whether every day's fare would be like this.
The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with whom I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace by Miss Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to stand in the middle of the large schoolroom.
The punishment seemed to me in a high degree ignominious, especially for so great a girl -- she looked thirteen or upwards.
Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I am sure they do not see it -- her sight seems turned in, gone down into her heart: she is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not at what is really present.
Half-an-hour's recreation succeeded, then study; then the glass of water and the piece of oat-cake, prayers, and bed.
The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by rushlight; but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the ceremony of washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen.
A change had taken place in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen north-east wind, whistling through the crevices of our bedroom windows all night long, had made us shiver in our beds, and turned the contents of the ewers to ice.
Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible-reading was over, I felt ready to perish with cold.
Breakfast-time came at last, and this morning the porridge was not burnt; the quality was eatable, the quantity small.
How small my portion seemed!
At first, being little accustomed to learn by heart, the lessons appeared to me both long and difficult; the frequent change from task to task, too, bewildered me; and I was glad when, about three o'clock in the afternoon, Miss Smith put into my hands a border of muslin two yards long, together with needle, thimble, &c., and sent me to sit in a quiet corner of the schoolroom, with directions to hem the same.
At that hour most of the others were sewing likewise; but one class still stood round Miss Scatcherd's chair reading, and as all was quiet, the subject of their lessons could be heard, together with the manner in which each girl acquitted herself, and the animadversions or commendations of Miss Scatcherd on the performance.
It was English history: among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah: at the commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the top of the class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some inattention to stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom.
Even in that obscure position, Miss Scatcherd continued to make her an object of constant notice: she was continually addressing to her such phrases as the following: -- "Burns" (such it seems was her name: the girls here were all called by their surnames, as boys are elsewhere), "Burns, you are standing on the side of your shoe; turn your toes out immediately."
"Burns, I insist on your holding your head up; I will not have you before me in that attitude," &c. &c. A chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed and the girls examined.
The lesson had comprised part of the reign of Charles I., and there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage and ship- money, which most of them appeared unable to answer; still, every little difficulty was solved instantly when it reached Burns: her memory seemed to have retained the substance of the whole lesson, and she was ready with answers on every point.
Burns made no answer: I wondered at her silence. "Why," thought I, "does she not explain that she could neither clean her nails nor wash her face, as the water was frozen?
" My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a skein of thread: while she was winding it, she talked to me from time to time, asking whether I had ever been at school before, whether I could mark, stitch, knit, &c.; till she dismissed me, I could not pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd's movements.
When I returned to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order of which I did not catch the import; but Burns immediately left the class, and going into the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one end.
Not a tear rose to Burns' eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary expression. "Hardened girl!" exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; "nothing can correct you of your slatternly habits: carry the rod away."
The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction of the day at Lowood: the bit of bread, the draught of coffee swallowed at five o'clock had revived vitality, if it had not satisfied hunger: the long restraint of the day was slackened; the schoolroom felt warmer than in the morning -- its fires being allowed to burn a little more brightly, to supply, in some measure, the place of candles, not yet introduced: the ruddy gloaming, the licensed uproar, the confusion of many voices gave one a welcome sense of liberty.
On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog her pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables and laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely: when I passed the windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked out; it snowed fast, a drift was already forming against the lower panes; putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from the gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan of the wind outside.
Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace! as it was, I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour.
What is your name besides Burns?" "Helen."
"I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future."
I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it would be of no use going away until I have attained that object." "But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?"
It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil." "
This is all very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and particular."
At the utterance of Miss Temple's name, a soft smile flitted over her grave face. "
One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight."
I observed you in your class this morning, and saw you were closely attentive: your thoughts never seemed to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you.
Sometimes I think I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I hear round me are the bubbling of a little brook which runs through Deepden, near our house; -- then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be awakened; and having heard nothing of what was read for listening to the visionary brook, I have no answer ready."
"Yet how well you replied this afternoon." "It was mere chance; the subject on which we had been reading had interested me.
This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what a pity it was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he could see no farther than the prerogatives of the crown.
If he had but been able to look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age was tending!
Yes, his enemies were the worst: they shed blood they had no right to shed.
And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?" "No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is often just what I wished to gain."
"Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?" "Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me.
"A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you.
If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse.
When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should -- so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again."
"But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly.
It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved."
"How? I don't understand." "It is not violence that best overcomes hate -- nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury." "What then?" "Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example."
What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart!
No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings.
Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.
We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, -- the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man -- perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph!
No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest -- a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss.
Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end."
Helen's head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished this sentence.
She was not allowed much time for meditation: a monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up, exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent -- "Helen Burns, if you don't go and put your drawer in order, and fold up your work this minute, I'll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at it!"
Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor without reply as without delay.
CHAPTER VII My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age either; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks.
The fear of failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot; though these were no trifles.
During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but within these limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air.
Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold: we had no boots, the snow got into our shoes and melted there: our ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet: I remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this cause every evening, when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes in the morning.
Then the scanty supply of food was distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid.
From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion.
Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger.
We had to walk two miles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated.
At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.
I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said, "like stalwart soldiers."
The other teachers, poor things, were generally themselves too much dejected to attempt the task of cheering others.
But, to the little ones at least, this was denied: each hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row of great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores.
A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of bread -- a whole, instead of a half, slice -- with the delicious addition of a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath.
The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness.
A frequent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some half-dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half dead.
The remedy was, to thrust them forward into the centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished.
Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sank together in a heap; they were then propped up with the monitors' high stools.
I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first month after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the archdeacon: his absence was a relief to me.
One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure just passing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline; and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose en masse , it was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted.
A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead.
All along I had been dreading the fulfilment of this promise, -- I had been looking out daily for the "Coming Man," whose information respecting my past life and conversation was to brand me as a bad child for ever: now there he was.
I listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of what he said: its import relieved me from immediate apprehension.
"I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do; it struck me that it would be just of the quality for the calico chemises, and I sorted the needles to match
. You may tell Miss Smith that I forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she shall have some papers sent in next week; and she is not, on any account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil: if they have more, they are apt to be careless and lose them.
I wish the woollen stockings were better looked to! -- when I was here last, I went into the kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying on the line; there was a quantity of black hose in a very bad state of repair: from the size of the holes in them I was sure they had not been well mended from time to time.
Your directions shall be attended to, sir," said Miss Temple. "
And, ma'am," he continued, "the laundress tells me some of the girls have two clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the rules limit them to one."
"Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance occur too often.
And there is another thing which surprised me; I find, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch, consisting of bread and cheese, has twice been served out to the girls during the past fortnight.
I looked over the regulations, and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned.
Who introduced this innovation? and by what authority?"
"I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir," replied Miss Temple: "the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not possibly eat it; and I dared not allow them to remain fasting till dinner-time." "Madam, allow me an instant.
You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying.
Should any little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish, the incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with something more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and obviating the aim of this institution; it ought to be improved to the spiritual edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude under temporary privation.
A brief address on those occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor would take the opportunity of referring to the sufferings of the primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs; to the exhortations of our blessed Lord Himself, calling upon His disciples to take up their cross and follow Him; to His warnings that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God; to His divine consolations, "If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye."
Miss Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her; but she now gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale as marble, appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that material; especially her mouth, closed as if it would have required a sculptor's chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into petrified severity.
Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled or shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents than he had hitherto used -- "Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what -- what is that girl with curled hair?
Red hair, ma'am, curled -- curled all over?"
And extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.
Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she conform to the world so openly -- here in an evangelical, charitable establishment -- as to wear her hair one mass of curls?" "Julia's hair curls naturally," returned Miss Temple, still more quietly. "
Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish these girls to be the children of Grace: and why that abundance?
Miss Temple, that girl's hair must be cut off entirely; I will send a barber to-morrow: and I see others who have far too much of the excrescence -- that tall girl, tell her to turn round.
Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth away the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order, however, and when the first class could take in what was required of them, they obeyed.
Leaning a little back on my bench, I could see the looks and grimaces with which they commented on this manoeuvre: it was a pity Mr. Brocklehurst could not see them too; he would perhaps have felt that, whatever he might do with the outside of the cup and platter, the inside was further beyond his interference than he imagined.
These words fell like the knell of doom -- "All those top-knots must be cut off.
" Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate. "Madam," he pursued, "I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of -- " Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, now entered the room.
The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen and seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled; the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with ermine, and she wore a false front of French curls.
These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs. and the Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the top of the room.
They now proceeded to address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who was charged with the care of the linen and the inspection of the dormitories: but I had no time to listen to what they said; other matters called off and enchanted my attention.
To this end, I had sat well back on the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst.
A careless girl!" said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after -- "It is the new pupil, I perceive."
Let the child who broke her slate come forward!"
Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but the two great girls who 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 counsel -- "Don't be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be punished.
" The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger. "
Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," thought I; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded in my pulses at the conviction.
Fetch that stool," said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one from which a monitor had just risen: it was brought. "
"Ladies," said he, turning to his family, "Miss Temple, teachers, and children, you all see this girl?"
Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses against my scorched skin.
"You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character.
Who would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in her?
Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case.
" A pause -- in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked, must be firmly sustained.
"My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos, "this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is a little castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and an alien.
Teachers, you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut -- this girl is -- a liar!"
Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two younger ones whispered, "How shocking!" Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.
"This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity: she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the waters to stagnate round her." With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button of his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose, bowed to Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in state from the room.
Turning at the door, my judge said -- "Let her stand half-an-hour longer on that stool, and let no one speak to her during the remainder of the day.
" There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room, was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy.
What my sensations were no language can describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes.
What a strange light inspired them!
How the new feeling bore me up!
It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit.
Helen Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she again went by.
Such is the imperfect nature of man!
such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.
CHAPTER VIII Ere the half-hour ended, five o'clock struck; school was dismissed, and all were gone into the refectory to tea.
The spell by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve; reaction took place, and soon, so overwhelming was the grief that seized me, I sank prostrate with my face to the ground.
Now I wept: Helen Burns was not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards. I had meant to be so good, and to do so much at Lowood: to make so many friends, to earn respect and win affection.
While sobbing out this wish in broken accents, some one approached: I started up -- again Helen Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed her coming up the long, vacant room; she brought my coffee and bread.
"Come, eat something," she said; but I put both away from me, feeling as if a drop or a crumb would have choked me in my present condition.
I was the first who spoke -- "Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a liar?"
Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you called so, and the world contains hundreds of 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."
Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies, declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared.
Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere long appear so much the more evidently for their temporary suppression.
Well, Helen?" said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my fingers gently to warm them, and went on -- "If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends." "No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others don't love me I would rather die than live -- I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen.
Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest -- " "Hush, Jane!
you think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you.
Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence (if innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward.
Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness -- to glory?
We had not sat long thus, when another person came in.
Some heavy clouds, swept from the sky by a rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light, streaming in through a window near, shone full both on us and on the approaching figure, which we at once recognised as Miss Temple. "
We went; following the superintendent's guidance, we had to thread some intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we reached her apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful.
And now tell me who is the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?" "
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.
Say whatever your memory suggests is true; but add nothing and exaggerate nothing.
Exhausted by emotion, my language was more subdued than it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and mindful of Helen's warnings against the indulgence of resentment, I infused into the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary.
In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come to see me after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful episode of the red-room: in detailing which, my excitement was sure, in some degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften in my recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark and haunted chamber.
I had finished: Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes in silence; she then said -- "I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his reply agrees with your statement, you shall be publicly cleared from every imputation; to me, Jane, you are clear now.
And the pain in your chest?" "It is a little better.
She rang her bell. "Barbara," she said to the servant who answered it, "I have not yet had tea; bring the tray and place cups for these two young ladies."
And a tray was soon brought.
How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the scent of the toast! of which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was beginning to be hungry) discerned only a very small portion: Miss Temple discerned it too.
And as the girl withdrew she added, smiling, "Fortunately, I have it in my power to supply deficiencies for this once." Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before each of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel of toast, she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake. "
We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on the delicate fare she liberally supplied.
Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire; we sat one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed between her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted to hear.
Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state in her mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which chastened the pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her, by a controlling sense of awe; and such was my feeling now: but as to Helen Burns, I was struck with wonder.
The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these, something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers within her.
Then her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source I cannot tell.
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.
Then they seemed so familiar with French names and French authors: but my amazement reached its climax when Miss Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the Latin her father had taught her, and taking a book from a shelf, bade her read and construe a page of Virgil; and Helen obeyed, my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding line.
She had scarcely finished ere the bell announced bedtime! no delay could be admitted; Miss Temple embraced us both, saying, as she drew us to her heart -- "God bless you, my children!" Helen she held a little longer than me: she let her go more reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from her cheek.
My things were indeed in shameful disorder," murmured Helen to me, in a low voice: "I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot."
Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece of pasteboard the word "Slattern," and bound it like a phylactery round Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and benign-looking forehead.
The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of which she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart.
About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss Temple, who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared that what he said went to corroborate my account.
Miss Temple, having assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry had been made into the charges alleged against Jane Eyre, and that she was most happy to be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every imputation.
The teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a murmur of pleasure ran through the ranks of my companions.
Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work afresh, resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty: I toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts; my memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practice; exercise sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class; in less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing.
I examined, too, in thought, the possibility of my ever being able to translate currently a certain little French story which Madame Pierrot had that day shown me; nor was that problem solved to my satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep.
Well has Solomon said -- "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened.
Spring drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated.
My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.
I discovered, too, that a great pleasure, an enjoyment which the horizon only bounded, lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls of our garden: this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble summits girdling a great hill-hollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a bright beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies.
How different had this scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky of winter, stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow! -- when mists as chill as death wandered to the impulse of east winds along those purple peaks, and rolled down "ing" and holm till they blended with the frozen fog of the beck!
That beck itself was then a torrent, turbid and curbless: it tore asunder the wood, and sent a raving sound through the air, often thickened with wild rain or whirling sleet; and for the forest on its banks, that showed only ranks of skeletons.
April advanced to May: a bright serene May it was; days of blue sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales filled up its duration.
And now vegetation matured with vigour; Lowood shook loose its tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its great elm, ash, and oak skeletons were restored to majestic life; woodland plants sprang up profusely in its recesses; unnumbered varieties of moss filled its hollows, and it made a strange ground-sunshine out of the wealth of its wild primrose plants: I have seen their pale gold gleam in overshadowed spots like scatterings of the sweetest lustre.
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.
Semi-starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils to receive infection: forty-five out of the eighty girls lay ill at one time.
Classes were broken up, rules relaxed.
The few who continued well were allowed almost unlimited license; because the medical attendant insisted on the necessity of frequent exercise to keep them in health: and had it been otherwise, no one had leisure to watch or restrain them.
Miss Temple's whole attention was absorbed by the patients: she lived in the sick-room, never quitting it except to snatch a few hours' rest at night.
The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and making other necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and willing to remove them from the seat of contagion.
While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls; while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells, the drug and the pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of mortality, that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and beautiful woodland out of doors.
Its garden, too, glowed with flowers: hollyhocks had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had opened, tulips and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and crimson double daisies; the sweetbriars gave out, morning and evening, their scent of spice and apples; and these fragrant treasures were all useless for most of the inmates of Lowood, except to furnish now and then a handful of herbs and blossoms to put in a coffin.
But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the beauties of the scene and season; they let us ramble in the wood, like gipsies, from morning till night; we did what we liked, went where we liked: we lived better too.
Mr. Brocklehurst and his family never came near Lowood now: household matters were not scrutinised into; the cross housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear of infection; her successor, who had been matron at the Lowton Dispensary, unused to the ways of her new abode, provided with comparative liberality.
Besides, there were fewer to feed; the sick could eat little; our breakfast-basins were better filled; when there was no time to prepare a regular dinner, which often happened, she would give us a large piece of cold pie, or a thick slice of bread and cheese, and this we carried away with us to the wood, where we each chose the spot we liked best, and dined sumptuously.
My favourite seat was a smooth and broad stone, rising white and dry from the very middle of the beck, and only to be got at by wading through the water; a feat I accomplished barefoot.
The stone was just broad enough to accommodate, comfortably, another girl and me, at that time my chosen comrade -- one Mary Ann Wilson; a shrewd, observant personage, whose society I took pleasure in, partly because she was witty and original, and partly because she had a manner which set me at my ease.
Some years older than I, she knew more of the world, and could tell me many things I liked to hear: with her my curiosity found gratification: to my faults also she gave ample indulgence, never imposing curb or rein on anything I said.
Surely the Mary Ann Wilson I have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance: she could only tell me amusing stories, and reciprocate any racy and pungent gossip I chose to indulge in; while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, she was qualified to give those who enjoyed the privilege of her converse a taste of far higher things.
How could it be otherwise, when Helen, at all times and under all circumstances, evinced for me a quiet and faithful friendship, which ill-humour never soured, nor irritation never troubled?
One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late with Mary Ann in the wood; we had, as usual, separated ourselves from the others, and had wandered far; so far that we lost our way, and had to ask it at a lonely cottage, where a man and woman lived, who looked after a herd of half-wild swine that fed on the mast in the wood.
Mary Ann remarked that she supposed some one must be very ill, as Mr. Bates had been sent for at that time of the evening.
This done, I lingered yet a little longer: the flowers smelt so sweet as the dew fell; it was such a pleasant evening, so serene, so warm; the still glowing west promised so fairly another fine day on the morrow; the moon rose with such majesty in the grave east.
I was noting these things and enjoying them as a child might, when it entered my mind as it had never done before: -- "How sad to be lying now on a sick bed, and to be in danger of dying!
This world is pleasant -- it would be dreary to be called from it, and to have to go who knows where?"
And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what had been infused into it concerning heaven and hell; and for the first time it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing behind, on each side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf: it felt the one point where it stood -- the present; all the rest was formless cloud and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of tottering, and plunging amid that chaos.
This phrase, uttered in my hearing yesterday, would have only conveyed the notion that she was about to be removed to Northumberland, to her own home.
I experienced a shock of horror, then a strong thrill of grief, then a desire -- a necessity to see her; and I asked in what room she lay. "She is in Miss Temple's room," said the nurse.
It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come in; you'll catch the fever if you stop out when the dew is falling."
The nurse closed the front door; I went in by the side entrance which led to the schoolroom: I was just in time; it was nine o'clock, and Miss Miller was calling the pupils to go to bed.
It might be two hours later, probably near eleven, when I -- not having been able to fall asleep, and deeming, from the perfect silence of the dormitory, that my companions were all wrapt in profound repose -- rose softly, put on my frock over my night-dress, and, without shoes, crept from the apartment, and set off in quest of Miss Temple's room.
It was quite at the other end of the house; but I knew my way; and the light of the unclouded summer moon, entering here and there at passage windows, enabled me to find it without difficulty.
An odour of camphor and burnt vinegar warned me when I came near the fever room: and I passed its door quickly, fearful lest the nurse who sat up all night should hear me.
Having descended a staircase, traversed a portion of the house below, and succeeded in opening and shutting, without noise, two doors, I reached another flight of steps; these I mounted, and then just opposite to me was Miss Temple's room.
A light shone through the keyhole and from under the door; a profound stillness pervaded the vicinity.
My eye sought Helen, and feared to find death.
I saw the outline of a form under the clothes, but the face was hid by the hangings: the nurse I had spoken to in the garden sat in an easy-chair asleep; an unsnuffed candle burnt dimly on the table.
I advanced; then paused by the crib side: my hand was on the curtain, but I preferred speaking before I withdrew it.
She stirred herself, put back the curtain, and I saw her face, pale, wasted, but quite composed: she looked so little changed that my fear was instantly dissipated.
" I got on to her crib and kissed her: her forehead was cold, and her cheek both cold and thin, and so were her hand and wrist; but she smiled as of old.
While I tried to devour my tears, a fit of coughing seized Helen; it did not, however, wake the nurse; when it was over, she lay some minutes exhausted; then she whispered -- "Jane, your little feet are bare; lie down and cover yourself with my quilt.
We all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest.
What is God?" "My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created.
"You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven, and that our souls can get to it when we die?" "I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to Him without any misgiving.
"Where is that region?
That last fit of coughing has tired me a little; I feel as if I could sleep: but don't leave me, Jane; I like to have you near me."
"I'll stay with you, dear Helen: no one shall take me away."
When I awoke it was day: an unusual movement roused me; I looked up; I was in somebody's arms; the nurse held me; she was carrying me through the passage back to the dormitory.
I was not reprimanded for leaving my bed; people had something else to think about; no explanation was afforded then to my many questions; but a day or two afterwards I learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns's shoulder, my arms round her neck.
Her grave is in Brocklebridge churchyard: for fifteen years after her death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a grey marble tablet marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word "Resurgam."
I am only bound to invoke Memory where I know her responses will possess some degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of eight years almost in silence: a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links of connection.
When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till its virulence and the number of its victims had drawn public attention on the school.
Inquiry was made into the origin of the scourge, and by degrees various facts came out which excited public indignation in a high degree.
The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and quality of the children's food; the brackish, fetid water used in its preparation; the pupils' wretched clothing and accommodations -- all these things were discovered, and the discovery produced a result mortifying to Mr. Brocklehurst, but beneficial to the institution.
Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribed largely for the erection of a more convenient building in a better situation; new regulations were made; improvements in diet and clothing introduced; the funds of the school were intrusted to the management of a committee.
Mr. Brocklehurst, who, from his wealth and family connections, could not be overlooked, still retained the post of treasurer; but he was aided in the discharge of his duties by gentlemen of rather more enlarged and sympathising minds: his office of inspector, too, was shared by those who knew how to combine reason with strictness, comfort with economy, compassion with uprightness.
The school, thus improved, became in time a truly useful and noble institution.
During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy, because it was not inactive.
I had the means of an excellent education placed within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies, and a desire to excel in all, together with a great delight in pleasing my teachers, especially such as I loved, urged me on: I availed myself fully of the advantages offered me.
Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendent of the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best part of my acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continual solace; she had stood me in the stead of mother, governess, and, latterly, companion.
I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed better regulated feelings had become the inmates of my mind.
But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between me and Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step into a post-chaise, shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise mount the hill and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my own room, and there spent in solitude the greatest part of the half-holiday granted in honour of the occasion.
I imagined myself only to be regretting my loss, and thinking how to repair it; but when my reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the afternoon was gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned on me, namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Temple -- or rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been breathing in her vicinity -- and that now I was left in my natural element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions.
It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquillity was no more.
My world had for some years been in Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.
My eye passed all other objects to rest on those most remote, the blue peaks; it was those I longed to surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed prison-ground, exile limits.
I recalled the time when I had travelled that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill at twilight; an age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought me first to Lowood, and I had never quitted it since.
My vacations had all been spent at school: Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had ever been to visit me.
I had had no communication by letter or message with the outer world: school-rules, school-duties, school-habits and notions, and voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and antipathies -- such was what I knew of existence.
I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change, stimulus: that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space: "Then," I cried, half desperate, "grant me at least a new servitude!"
Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me downstairs.
I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till bedtime: even then a teacher who occupied the same room with me kept me from the subject to which I longed to recur, by a prolonged effusion of small talk.
How I wished sleep would silence her.
It seemed as if, could I but go back to the idea which had last entered my mind as I stood at the window, some inventive suggestion would rise for my relief.
Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman, and till now her habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any other light than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deep notes with satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my half-effaced thought instantly revived. "
Any one may serve: I have served here eight years; now all I want is to serve elsewhere.
Is not the thing feasible?
Yes -- yes -- the end is not so difficult; if I had only a brain active enough to ferret out the means of attaining it.
How do people do to get a new place?
There are many others who have no friends, who must look about for themselves and be their own helpers; and what is their resource?
" I could not tell: nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain to find a response, and quickly.
It worked and worked faster: I felt the pulses throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in chaos; and no result came of its efforts.
Feverish with vain labour, I got up and took a turn in the room; undrew the curtain, noted a star or two, shivered with cold, and again crept to bed.
A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required suggestion on my pillow; for as I lay down, it came quietly and naturally to my mind. -- "Those who want situations advertise; you must advertise in the -- -shire Herald ."
"How? I know nothing about advertising." Replies rose smooth and prompt now: -- "You must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it under a cover directed to the editor of the Herald ; you must put it, the first opportunity you have, into the post at Lowton; answers must be addressed to J.E., at the post-office there; you can go and inquire in about a week after you send your letter, if any are come, and act accordingly."
With earliest day, I was up: I had my advertisement written, enclosed, and directed before the bell rang to rouse the school; it ran thus: -- "A young lady accustomed to tuition" (had I not been a teacher two years?) "is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private family where the children are under fourteen" (I thought that as I was barely eighteen, it would not do to undertake the guidance of pupils nearer my own age). "
" This document remained locked in my drawer all day: after tea, I asked leave of the new superintendent to go to Lowton, in order to perform some small commissions for myself and one or two of my fellow-teachers; permission was readily granted; I went.
It was a walk of two miles, and the evening was wet, but the days were still long; I visited a shop or two, slipped the letter into the post-office, and came back through heavy rain, with streaming garments, but with a relieved heart.
The succeeding week seemed long: it came to an end at last, however, like all sublunary things, and once more, towards the close of a pleasant autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton.
My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of shoes; so I discharged that business first, and when it was done, I stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the shoemaker's to the post-office: it was kept by an old dame, who wore horn spectacles on her nose, and black mittens on her hands.
She peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a drawer and fumbled among its contents for a long time, so long that my hopes began to falter.
Various duties awaited me on my arrival.
Even when we finally retired for the night, the inevitable Miss Gryce was still my companion: we had only a short end of candle in our candlestick, and I dreaded lest she should talk till it was all burnt out; fortunately, however, the heavy supper she had eaten produced a soporific effect: she was already snoring before I had finished undressing.
There still remained an inch of candle: I now took out my letter; the seal was an initial F.; I broke it; the contents were brief. "If J.E., who advertised in the -- -shire Herald of last Thursday, possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a position to give satisfactory references as to character and competency, a situation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little girl, under ten years of age; and where the salary is thirty pounds per annum.
" I examined the document long: the writing was old-fashioned and rather uncertain, like that of an elderly lady.
This circumstance was satisfactory: a private fear had haunted me, that in thus acting for myself, and by my own guidance, I ran the risk of getting into some scrape; and, above all things, I wished the result of my endeavours to be respectable, proper, en regle .
I now felt that an elderly lady was no bad ingredient in the business I had on hand.
-shire was seventy miles nearer London than the remote county where I now resided: that was a recommendation to me.
Not that my fancy was much captivated by the idea of long chimneys and clouds of smoke -- "but," I argued, "Thornfield will, probably, be a good way from the town."
Here the socket of the candle dropped, and the wick went out.
Next day new steps were to be taken; my plans could no longer be confined to my own breast; I must impart them in order to achieve their success.
Having sought and obtained an audience of the superintendent during the noontide recreation, I told her I had a prospect of getting a new situation where the salary would be double what I now received (for at Lowood I only got 15 pounds per annum); and requested she would break the matter for me to Mr. Brocklehurst, or some of the committee, and ascertain whether they would permit me to mention them as references.
The next day she laid the affair before Mr. Brocklehurst, who said that Mrs. Reed must be written to, as she was my natural guardian.
A note was accordingly addressed to that lady, who returned for answer, that "I might do as I pleased: she had long relinquished all interference in my affairs.
" This note went the round of the committee, and at last, after what appeared to me most tedious delay, formal leave was given me to better my condition if I could; and an assurance added, that as I had always conducted myself well, both as teacher and pupil, at Lowood, a testimonial of character and capacity, signed by the inspectors of that institution, should forthwith be furnished me.
I now busied myself in preparations: the fortnight passed rapidly.
I had not a very large wardrobe, though it was adequate to my wants; and the last day sufficed to pack my trunk, -- the same I had brought with me eight years ago from Gateshead.
The box was corded, the card nailed on.
In half-an-hour the carrier was to call for it to take it to Lowton, whither I myself was to repair at an early hour the next morning to meet the coach.
I had brushed my black stuff travelling-dress, prepared my bonnet, gloves, and muff; sought in all my drawers to see that no article was left behind; and now having nothing more to do, I sat down and tried to rest.
A phase of my life was closing to-night, a new one opening to-morrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being accomplished.
"Miss," said a servant who met me in the lobby, where I was wandering like a troubled spirit, "a person below wishes to see you." "The carrier, no doubt," I thought, and ran downstairs without inquiry.
I was passing the back-parlour or teachers' sitting-room, the door of which was half open, to go to the kitchen, when some one ran out -- "It's her, I am sure! -- I could have told her anywhere!" cried the individual who stopped my progress and took my hand.
By the fire stood a little fellow of three years old, in plaid frock and trousers. "
"I live at the lodge: the old porter has left." "Well, and how do they all get on?
She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there everybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her: but his relations were against the match; and -- what do you think? --
"Well, and what of John Reed?" "Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish.
He went to college, and he got -- plucked, I think they call it: and then his uncles wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such a dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think."
"What does he look like?" "He is very tall: some people call him a fine-looking young man; but he has such thick lips." "
And Mrs. Reed?" "Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she's not quite easy in her mind: Mr. John's conduct does not please her -- he spends a deal of money." "Did she send you here, Bessie?" "No, indeed: but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heard that there had been a letter from you, and that you were going to another part of the country, I thought I'd just set off, and get a look at you before you were quite out of my reach." "I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie."
I said this laughing: I perceived that Bessie's glance, though it expressed regard, did in no shape denote admiration. "
I smiled at Bessie's frank answer: I felt that it was correct, but I confess I was not quite indifferent to its import: at eighteen most people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an exterior likely to second that desire brings anything but gratification. "
It is as fine a picture as any Miss Reed's drawing-master could paint, let alone the young ladies themselves, who could not come near it: and have you learnt French?" "Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it."
I knew you would be: you will get on whether your relations notice you or not.
"Well, you know Missis always said they were poor and quite despicable: and they may be poor; but I believe they are as much gentry as the Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to Gateshead and wanted to see you; Missis said you were at school fifty miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, for he could not stay: he was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the ship was to sail from London in a day or two.
He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe he was your father's brother." "What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?" "An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine -- the butler did tell me -- " "Madeira?" I suggested.
We parted finally at the door of the Brocklehurst Arms there: each went her separate way; she set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me to new duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Millcote.
CHAPTER XI A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe.
All this is visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen hours' exposure to the rawness of an October day: I left Lowton at four o'clock a.m., and the Millcote town clock is now just striking eight.
Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind.
I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some one to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden steps the "boots" placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced, and to see some description of carriage waiting to convey me to Thornfield.
Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.
It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted.
The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half-an-hour elapsed and still I was alone.
"Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?" I asked of the waiter who answered the summons. "
He vanished, but reappeared instantly -- "Is your name Eyre, Miss?" "Yes." "Person here waiting for you.
" I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the inn-passage: a man was standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit street I dimly saw a one-horse conveyance.
"This will be your luggage, I suppose?" said the man rather abruptly when he saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage. "Yes."
Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I was content to be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I meditated much at my ease.
" I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude, much larger than Lowton.
The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two hours; at last he turned in his seat and said -- "You're noan so far fro' Thornfield now.
" Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet.
About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed to behind us.
We now slowly ascended a drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed from one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark.
The car stopped at the front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went in. "
said the girl; and I followed her across a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable picture presented itself to my view.
A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high- backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little elderly lady, in widow's cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron; exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder looking.
She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the beau-ideal of domestic comfort.
A more reassuring introduction for a new governess could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me. "
" She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so much trouble. "Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with cold.
Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are the keys of the storeroom."
I'm sure last winter (it was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don't think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt it confining.
In spring and summer one got on better: sunshine and long days make such a difference; and then, just at the commencement of this autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite gay.
" My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish that she might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated.
If you have got your feet well warmed, I'll show you your bedroom.
First she went to see if the hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the way upstairs.
The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a house.
A very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style.
The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart, and I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me before it was earned.
My couch had no thorns in it that night; my solitary room no fears.
The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and a carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view.
Externals have a great effect on the young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils.
My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir.
However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frock -- which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety -- and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy.
Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing.
Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little accustomed to grandeur.
The hall-door, which was half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold.
It was a fine autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion.
It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not a nobleman's seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look.
Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation.
A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district stood nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the house and gates.
I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady appeared at the door. "
What! out already?" said she.
Yes," she said, "it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come and reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor." "Mr. Rochester!
Of course I did not -- I had never heard of him before; but the old lady seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.
To be sure I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother's side, or at least my husband was; he was a clergyman, incumbent of Hay -- that little village yonder on the hill -- and that church near the gates was his.
The present Mr. Rochester's mother was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on the connection -- in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and I expect nothing more." "And the little girl -- my pupil!" "She is Mr. Rochester's ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for her.
" The enigma then was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame; but a dependant like myself.
The equality between her and me was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part: so much the better -- my position was all the freer.
As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her attendant, came running up the lawn.
I looked at my pupil, who did not at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist. "
Come and speak to the lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day."
C'est la ma gouverante!" said she, pointing to me, and addressing her nurse; who answered -- "Mais oui, certainement."
"The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I believe, never left it till within six months ago.
She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English.
And Mademoiselle -- what is your name?" "Eyre -- Jane Eyre."
Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite daylight, at a great city -- a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel.
A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it.
It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little his desertion has affected her.
The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was: at least I thought so.
Was it your mama who taught you that piece?
Now shall I dance for you?" "No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you say, with whom did you live then?" "With Madame Frederic and her husband: she took care of me, but she is nothing related to me.
Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one bookcase left open containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me amply for the present; compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and information.
I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she had not been used to regular occupation of any kind.
I felt it would be injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse.
She was in a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in when she addressed me.
It was a large, stately apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast window rich in slanted glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded.
Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard. "What a beautiful room!" I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never before seen any half so imposing. "
I have just opened the window, to let in a little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments that are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault."
Yet it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in rich contrast crimson couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and fire. "In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!" said I. "No dust, no canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were inhabited daily."
"Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester's visits here are rare, they are always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness."
Is he generally liked?" "Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here.
Almost all the land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the Rochesters time out of mind." "Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him?
What, in short, is his character?" "Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose.
There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons or things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my queries puzzled, but did not draw her out.
The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs' heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust.
All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory.
Do the servants sleep in these rooms?
No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt."
" "None that I ever heard of," returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling. "
Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white.
No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing.
When I turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and over which I had been gazing with delight.
While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region, a laugh, struck my ear.
I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low.
The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an odd murmur. "Grace!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.
I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid.
However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.
The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out, -- a woman of between thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face: any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely be conceived.
She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid's work," continued the widow; "not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but she does well enough.
The conversation, thus turned on Adele, continued till we reached the light and cheerful region below.
Adele came running to meet us in the hall, exclaiming -- "Mesdames, vous etes servies!" adding, "J'ai bien faim, moi!" We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax's room.
CHAPTER XII The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer acquaintance with the place and its inmates.
My pupil was a lively child, who had been spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes wayward; but as she was committed entirely to my care, and no injudicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans for her improvement, she soon forgot her little freaks, and became obedient and teachable.
She made reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay prattle, and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.
This, par parenthese , will be thought cool language by persons who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth.
Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-line -- that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen -- that then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach.
I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adele; but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to behold.
Who blames me?
Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.
Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it -- and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended -- a tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence.
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot.
Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth.
Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.
Her appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no point to which interest could attach.
I made some attempts to draw her into conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply usually cut short every effort of that sort.
The other members of the household, viz.
One afternoon in January, Mrs. Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adele, because she had a cold; and, as Adele seconded the request with an ardour that reminded me how precious occasional holidays had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it, deeming that I did well in showing pliability on the point.
It was a fine, calm day, though very cold; I was tired of sitting still in the library through a whole long morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a letter which was waiting to be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak and volunteered to carry it to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a pleasant winter afternoon walk.
The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation.
It was three o'clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding and pale-beaming sun.
I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose.
If a breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path.
Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.
This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the middle, I sat down on a stile which led thence into a field.
Gathering my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel the cold, though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice covering the causeway, where a little brooklet, now congealed, had overflowed after a rapid thaw some days since.
From my seat I could look down on Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall was the principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose against the west.
I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, and sank crimson and clear behind them.
On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost in trees, sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a mile distant, but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs of life.
My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks threading their passes.
A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, which effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid mass of a crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong on the foreground, efface the aerial distance of azure hill, sunny horizon, and blended clouds where tint melts into tint.
The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the lane yet hid it, but it approached.
I was just leaving the stile; yet, as the path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by.
In those days I was young, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could give.
As this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie's tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a "Gytrash," which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me.
It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct object against the trees.
The horse followed, -- a tall steed, and on its back a rider.
The man, the human being, broke the spell at once.
Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form.
He passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned: a sliding sound and an exclamation of "What the deuce is to do now?" and a clattering tumble, arrested my attention.
The dog came bounding back, and seeing his master in a predicament, and hearing the horse groan, barked till the evening hills echoed the sound, which was deep in proportion to his magnitude.
His efforts were so vigorous, I thought he could not be much hurt; but I asked him the question -- "Are you injured, sir?"
This was finally fortunate; the horse was re-established, and the dog was silenced with a "Down, Pilot!"
The traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and leg, as if trying whether they were sound; apparently something ailed them, for he halted to the stile whence I had just risen, and sat down.
"Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones, -- only a sprain;" and again he stood up and tried his foot, but the result extorted an involuntary "Ugh!"
Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I could see him plainly.
His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur collared and steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced the general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest.
He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth, but had not reached middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five.
If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me when I addressed him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with thanks, I should have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my ease: I retained my station when he waved to me to go, and announced -- "I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse." He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes in my direction before.
"From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when it is moonlight: I will run over to Hay for you with pleasure, if you wish it: indeed, I am going there to post a letter." "You live just below -- do you mean at that house with the battlements?" pointing to Thornfield Hall, on which the moon cast a hoary gleam, bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods that, by contrast with the western sky, now seemed one mass of shadow. "Yes, sir."
"Whose house is it?" "
" he repeated; "deuce take me, if I had not forgotten!
The governess!" and again my raiment underwent scrutiny.
In two minutes he rose from the stile: his face expressed pain when he tried to move.
The traveller waited and watched for some time, and at last he laughed.
{I was mortally afraid of its trampling forefeet: p107.jpg} "I see," he said, "the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain; I must beg of you to come here.
Excuse me," he continued: "necessity compels me to make you useful."
A touch of a spurred heel made his horse first start and rear, and then bound away; the dog rushed in his traces; all three vanished, "Like heath that, in the wilderness, The wild wind whirls away.
The incident had occurred and was gone for me: it was an incident of no moment, no romance, no interest in a sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life.
My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to have done something; trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive.
The new face, too, was like a new picture introduced to the gallery of memory; and it was dissimilar to all the others hanging there: firstly, because it was masculine; and, secondly, because it was dark, strong, and stern.
When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked round and listened, with an idea that a horse's hoofs might ring on the causeway again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like Newfoundland dog, might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a pollard willow before me, rising up still and straight to meet the moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when I glanced down in the direction of the murmur, my eye, traversing the hall-front, caught a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was late, and I hurried on. I did not like re-entering Thornfield.
To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only, was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk, -- to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating.
I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backwards and forwards on the pavement; the shutters of the glass door were closed; I could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy house -- from the grey-hollow filled with rayless cells, as it appeared to me -- to that sky expanded before me, -- a blue sea absolved from taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march; her orb seeming to look up as she left the hill-tops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below her, and aspired to the zenith, midnight dark in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; and for those trembling stars that followed her course; they made my heart tremble, my veins glow when I viewed them.
Little things recall us to earth; the clock struck in the hall; that sufficed; I turned from moon and stars, opened a side- door, and went in.
The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the high-hung bronze lamp; a warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the oak staircase.
This ruddy shine issued from the great dining-room, whose two- leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the grate, glancing on marble hearth and brass fire-irons, and revealing purple draperies and polished furniture, in the most pleasant radiance.
It revealed, too, a group near the mantelpiece: I had scarcely caught it, and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling of voices, amongst which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adele, when the door closed.
It was so like it that I went forward and said -- "Pilot" and the thing got up and came to me and snuffed me.
I caressed him, and he wagged his great tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone with, and I could not tell whence he had come.
With master -- Mr. Rochester -- he is just arrived." "Indeed! and is Mrs. Fairfax with him?" "Yes, and Miss Adele; they are in the dining-room, and John is gone for a surgeon; for master has had an accident; his horse fell and his ankle is sprained."
"Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?" "Yes, coming down-hill; it slipped on some ice." "Ah!
Bring me a candle will you Leah?"
Leah brought it; she entered, followed by Mrs. Fairfax, who repeated the news; adding that Mr. Carter the surgeon was come, and was now with Mr. Rochester: then she hurried out to give orders about tea, and I went upstairs to take off my things.
When he did come down, it was to attend to business: his agent and some of his tenants were arrived, and waiting to speak with him.
A fire was lit in an apartment upstairs, and there I carried our books, and arranged it for the future schoolroom.
I discerned in the course of the morning that Thornfield Hall was a changed place: no longer silent as a church, it echoed every hour or two to a knock at the door, or a clang of the bell; steps, too, often traversed the hall, and new voices spoke in different keys below; a rill from the outer world was flowing through it; it had a master: for my part, I liked it better.
Adele was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go downstairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library, where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry, and made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her "ami, Monsieur Edouard Fairfax de Rochester," as she dubbed him (I had not before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he had brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that when his luggage came from Millcote, there would be found amongst it a little box in whose contents she had an interest. "
Et cela doit signifier," said she, "qu'il y aura la dedans un cadeau pour moi, et peut-etre pour vous aussi, mademoiselle.
Monsieur a parle de vous: il m'a demande le nom de ma gouvernante, et si elle n'etait pas une petite personne, assez mince et un peu pale.
" I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax's parlour; the afternoon was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the schoolroom.
Left alone, I walked to the window; but nothing was to be seen thence: twilight and snowflakes together thickened the air, and hid the very shrubs on the lawn.
I let down the curtain and went back to the fireside.
In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I remembered to have seen of the castle of Heidelberg, on the Rhine, when Mrs. Fairfax came in, breaking up by her entrance the fiery mosaic I had been piercing together, and scattering too some heavy unwelcome thoughts that were beginning to throng on my solitude. "
"When is his tea-time?" I inquired. "
Here is a candle."
" This additional ceremony seemed somewhat stately; however, I repaired to my room, and, with Mrs. Fairfax's aid, replaced my black stuff dress by one of black silk; the best and the only additional one I had, except one of light grey, which, in my Lowood notions of the toilette, I thought too fine to be worn, except on first-rate occasions.
I let Mrs. Fairfax precede me into the dining-room, and kept in her shade as we crossed that apartment; and, passing the arch, whose curtain was now dropped, entered the elegant recess beyond.
Two wax candles stood lighted on the table, and two on the mantelpiece; basking in the light and heat of a superb fire, lay Pilot -- Adele knelt near him.
Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester, his foot supported by the cushion; he was looking at Adele and the dog: the fire shone full on his face.
"Let Miss Eyre be seated," said he: and there was something in the forced stiff bow, in the impatient yet formal tone, which seemed further to express, "What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be there or not?
A reception of finished politeness would probably have confused me: I could not have returned or repaid it by answering grace and elegance on my part; but harsh caprice laid me under no obligation; on the contrary, a decent quiescence, under the freak of manner, gave me the advantage.
Besides, the eccentricity of the proceeding was piquant: I felt interested to see how he would go on.
He went on as a statue would, that is, he neither spoke nor moved.
Mrs. Fairfax seemed to think it necessary that some one should be amiable, and she began to talk.
She hastened to ring the bell; and when the tray came, she proceeded to arrange the cups, spoons, &c., with assiduous celerity.
I and Adele went to the table; but the master did not leave his couch. "
As he took the cup from my hand, Adele, thinking the moment propitious for making a request in my favour, cried out -- "N'est-ce pas, monsieur, qu'il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre dans votre petit coffre?" "Who talks of cadeaux?"
"I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an answer worthy of your acceptance: a present has many faces to it, has it not? and one should consider all, before pronouncing an opinion as to its nature." "Miss Eyre, you are not so unsophisticated as Adele: she demands a 'cadeau,' clamorously, the moment she sees me: you beat about the bush."
"Sir, you have now given me my 'cadeau;' I am obliged to you: it is the meed teachers most covet -- praise of their pupils' progress." "Humph!" said Mr. Rochester, and he took his tea in silence. "
Come to the fire," said the master, when the tray was taken away, and Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner with her knitting; while Adele was leading me by the hand round the room, showing me the beautiful books and ornaments on the consoles and chiffonnieres.
. I thought half the time in such a place would have done up any constitution!
Who are your parents?"
The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago," said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. "
I don't think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their revels more."
"Where do your brothers and sisters live?"
"I have no brothers or sisters." "Who recommended you to come here?" "I advertised, and Mrs. Fairfax answered my advertisement." "Yes," said the good lady, who now knew what ground we were upon, "and I am daily thankful for the choice Providence led me to make.
"Don't trouble yourself to give her a character," returned Mr. Rochester: "eulogiums will not bias me; I shall judge for myself.
" The widow looked bewildered. "
"And you girls probably worshipped him, as a convent full of religieuses would worship their director." "Oh, no."
He is a harsh man; at once pompous and meddling; he cut off our hair; and for economy's sake bought us bad needles and thread, with which we could hardly sew." "That was very false economy," remarked Mrs. Fairfax, who now again caught the drift of the dialogue. "
He starved us when he had the sole superintendence of the provision department, before the committee was appointed; and he bored us with long lectures once a week, and with evening readings from books of his own inditing, about sudden deaths and judgments, which made us afraid to go to bed."
It is a point difficult to fix where the features and countenance are so much at variance as in your case.
" I closed the piano and returned.
I don't know whether they were entirely of your doing; probably a master aided you?"
Approach the table," said he; and I wheeled it to his couch.
No crowding," said Mr. Rochester: "take the drawings from my hand as I finish with them; but don't push your faces up to mine."
those pictures were done by one hand: was that hand yours?" "Yes." "And when did you find time to do them?
The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind.
As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived.
These pictures were in water-colours.
The first represented clouds low and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse; so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there was no land.
One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set with gems, that I had touched with as brilliant tints as my palette could yield, and as glittering distinctness as my pencil could impart.
Sinking below the bird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair arm was the only limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had been washed or torn.
The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a hill, with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze.
The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail.
On the neck lay a pale reflection like moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds from which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star.
The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter sky: a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close serried, along the horizon.
This pale crescent was "the likeness of a kingly crown;" what it diademed was "the shape which shape had none."
Did you sit at them long each day?" "I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at them from morning till noon, and from noon till night: the length of the midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply." "And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours?" "Far from it.
"Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought; but no more, probably. You had not enough of the artist's skill and science to give it full being: yet the drawings are, for a school-girl, peculiar.
And who taught you to paint wind?
I had scarce tied the strings of the portfolio, when, looking at his watch, he said abruptly -- "It is nine o'clock: what are you about, Miss Eyre, to let Adele sit up so long?
"True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed to his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has peculiarities of temper, allowance should be made."
Partly because it is his nature -- and we can none of us help our nature; and partly because he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to harass him, and make his spirits unequal." "What about?" "Family troubles, for one thing."
"Nine years is a tolerable time.
The old gentleman was fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together.
He did not like to diminish the property by division, and yet he was anxious that Mr. Edward should have wealth, too, to keep up the consequence of the name; and, soon after he was of age, some steps were taken that were not quite fair, and made a great deal of mischief.
Old Mr. Rochester and Mr. Rowland combined to bring Mr. Edward into what he considered a painful position, for the sake of making his fortune: what the precise nature of that position was I never clearly knew, but his spirit could not brook what he had to suffer in it.
I don't think he has ever been resident at Thornfield for a fortnight together, since the death of his brother without a will left him master of the estate; and, indeed, no wonder he shuns the old place."
The answer was evasive.
In the mornings he seemed much engaged with business, and, in the afternoon, gentlemen from Millcote or the neighbourhood called, and sometimes stayed to dine with him.
When his sprain was well enough to admit of horse exercise, he rode out a good deal; probably to return these visits, as he generally did not come back till late at night.
During this interval, even Adele was seldom sent for to his presence, and all my acquaintance with him was confined to an occasional rencontre in the hall, on the stairs, or in the gallery, when he would sometimes pass me haughtily and coldly, just acknowledging my presence by a distant nod or a cool glance, and sometimes bow and smile with gentlemanlike affability.
His changes of mood did not offend me, because I saw that I had nothing to do with their alternation; the ebb and flow depended on causes quite disconnected with me.
One day he had had company to dinner, and had sent for my portfolio; in order, doubtless, to exhibit its contents: the gentlemen went away early, to attend a public meeting at Millcote, as Mrs. Fairfax informed me; but the night being wet and inclement, Mr. Rochester did not accompany them.
Soon after they were gone he rang the bell: a message came that I and Adele were to go downstairs.
I brushed Adele's hair and made her neat, and having ascertained that I was myself in my usual Quaker trim, where there was nothing to retouch -- all being too close and plain, braided locks included, to admit of disarrangement -- we descended, Adele wondering whether the petit coffre was at length come; for, owing to some mistake, its arrival had hitherto been delayed.
Ma boite! ma boite!" exclaimed she, running towards it. "
Yes, there is your 'boite' at last: take it into a corner, you genuine daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with disembowelling it," said the deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester, proceeding from the depths of an immense easy-chair at the fireside. "
And mind," he continued, "don't bother me with any details of the anatomical process, or any notice of the condition of the entrails: let your operation be conducted in silence: tiens-toi tranquille, enfant; comprends-tu?"
"Is Miss Eyre there?" now demanded the master, half rising from his seat to look round to the door, near which I still stood. "
He rang, and despatched an invitation to Mrs. Fairfax, who soon arrived, knitting-basket in hand. "
Adele, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs. Fairfax, than she summoned her to her sofa, and there quickly filled her lap with the porcelain, the ivory, the waxen contents of her "boite;" pouring out, meantime, explanations and raptures in such broken English as she was mistress of.
We were, as I have said, in the dining-room: the lustre, which had been lit for dinner, filled the room with a festal breadth of light; the large fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains hung rich and ample before the lofty window and loftier arch; everything was still, save the subdued chat of Adele (she dared not speak loud), and, filling up each pause, the beating of winter rain against the panes.
There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether with wine or not, I am not sure; but I think it very probable.
I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware -- "No, sir." "Ah!
By my word! there is something singular about you," said he: "you have the air of a little nonnette ; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque.
I ought to have replied that it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little consequence, or something of that sort."
He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen. "Now, ma'am, am I a fool?
Yes: does that leave hope for me?" "Hope of what, sir?" "Of my final re-transformation from India-rubber back to flesh?" "Decidedly he has had too much wine," I thought; and I did not know what answer to make to his queer question: how could I tell whether he was capable of being re-transformed? "You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug; so puzzle on.
I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence.
"I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night," he repeated, "and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of these can talk.
I have almost forgotten you since: other ideas have driven yours from my head; but to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases.
He bent his head a little towards me, and with a single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes. "
The fact is, once for all, I don't wish to treat you like an inferior: that is" (correcting himself), "I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years' difference in age and a century's advance in experience.
"I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir -- quite willing; but I cannot introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you?
"I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience."
The smile is very well," said he, catching instantly the passing expression; "but speak too."
"I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their orders." "Paid subordinates!
What! you are my paid subordinate, are you?
"And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from insolence?"
"I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence: one I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a salary."
Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary; therefore, keep to yourself, and don't venture on generalities of which you are intensely ignorant.
However, I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded misapprehension of one's meaning are the usual rewards of candour.
But I don't mean to flatter you: if you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it.
My eye met his as the idea crossed my mind: he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import had been spoken as well as imagined -- "Yes, yes, you are right," said he; "I have plenty of faults of my own: I know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you.
Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure -- an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?" "How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?" "All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned it to fetid puddle.
Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one of the better kind, and you see I am not so.
Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances' secrets: people will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations."
When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned desperate; then I degenerated.
Now, when any vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level.
Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life."
"Repentance is said to be its cure, sir." "It is not its cure.
Reformation may be its cure; and I could reform -- I have strength yet for that -- if -- but where is the use of thinking of it, hampered, burdened, cursed as I am?
And I may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee gathers on the moor."
"You have no right to preach to me, you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life, and are absolutely unacquainted with its mysteries." "I only remind you of your own words, sir: you said error brought remorse, and you pronounced remorse the poison of existence." "And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that flittered across my brain was an error.
"I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said the suggestion had returned upon you.
Now," he continued, again addressing me, "I have received the pilgrim -- a disguised deity, as I verily believe.
Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine."
Only one thing, I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection; -- one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane.
Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have been." "
"And better -- so much better as pure ore is than foul dross.
You seem to doubt me; I don't doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my motives are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes and Persians, that both are right." "They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise them." "They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute: unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules." "That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that it is liable to abuse." "Sententious sage!
"You are human and fallible." "I am: so are you -- what then?" "The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted." "What power?" "That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action, -- 'Let it be right.'" "'Let it be right' -- the very words: you have pronounced them."
" May it be right then," I said, as I rose, deeming it useless to continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides, sensible that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my penetration; at least, beyond its present reach; and feeling the uncertainty, the vague sense of insecurity, which accompanies a conviction of ignorance.
" "Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I am certainly not afraid."
"You are afraid -- your self-love dreads a blunder." "In that sense I do feel apprehensive -- I have no wish to talk nonsense." "If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake it for sense.
The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother -- or father, or master, or what you will -- to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now.
She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a little pink silk frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones. '
However, my tenderest feelings are about to receive a shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether it will be realised."
Ere long, Adele's little foot was heard tripping across the hall.
She entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted.
A dress of rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could be gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk stockings and small white satin sandals.
"Est-ce que ma robe va bien?"
I have been green, too, Miss Eyre, -- ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you now than once freshened me.
Not valuing now the root whence it sprang; having found that it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but half a liking to the blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as just now.
" This passion Celine had professed to return with even superior ardour.
The balcony was furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar, -- I will take one now, if you will excuse me."
Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a cigar; having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on -- "I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was croquant -- (overlook the barbarism) -- croquant chocolate comfits, and smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in an elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, and distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the 'voiture' I had given Celine.
The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a cloak -- an unnecessary encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June evening -- I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the carriage-step.
Bending over the balcony, I was about to murmur 'Mon ange' -- in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the ear of love alone -- when a figure jumped from the carriage after her; cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement, and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched porte cochere of the hotel.
You have both sentiments yet to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it.
You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away.
Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base.
But I tell you -- and you may mark my words -- you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current -- as I am now. "I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and stillness of the world under this frost.
We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before us.
Pain, shame, ire, impatience, disgust, detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the large pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow.
Wild was the wrestle which should be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed: something hard and cynical: self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and petrified his countenance: he went on -- "During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with my destiny.
She stood there, by that beech-trunk -- a hag like one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. '
I wish to be a better man than I have been, than I am; as Job's leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will esteem but straw and rotten wood."
Varens entered?
" I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question, but, on the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. "
When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart's core. Strange!" he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the point.
"Strange that I should choose you for the confidant of all this, young lady; passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if it were the most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of his opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you!
But the last singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before: you, with your gravity, considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient of secrets.
So putting my hand in through the open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening through which I could take observations; then I closed the casement, all but a chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to lovers' whispered vows: then I stole back to my chair; and as I resumed it the pair came in.
My eye was quickly at the aperture.
Celine's chamber-maid entered, lit a lamp, left it on the table, and withdrew.
The couple were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there was 'the Varens,' shining in satin and jewels, -- my gifts of course, -- and there was her companion in an officer's uniform; and I knew him for a young roue of a vicomte -- a brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely.
On recognising him, the fang of the snake Jealousy was instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for Celine sank under an extinguisher.
A woman who could betray me for such a rival was not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, however, than I, who had been her dupe. "
They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous, mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary than enrage a listener.
A card of mine lay on the table; this being perceived, brought my name under discussion.
Neither of them possessed energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but they insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way: especially Celine, who even waxed rather brilliant on my personal defects -- deformities she termed them.
Now it had been her custom to launch out into fervent admiration of what she called my ' beaute male :' wherein she differed diametrically from you, who told me point-blank, at the second interview, that you did not think me handsome.
The contrast struck me at the time and -- " Adele here came running up again. "Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and wishes to see you."
But unluckily the Varens, six months before, had given me this filette Adele, who, she affirmed, was my daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more like me than she.
How could I possibly prefer the spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?"
I sought in her countenance and features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none: no trait, no turn of expression announced relationship.
As he had said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman's passion for a French dancer, and her treachery to him, were every-day matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized him when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his newly revived pleasure in the old hall and its environs.
His deportment had now for some weeks been more uniform towards me than at the first.
I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits of chilling hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly, the encounter seemed welcome; he had always a word and sometimes a smile for me: when summoned by formal invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a cordiality of reception that made me feel I really possessed the power to amuse him, and that these evening conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as for my benefit.
It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a mind unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do not mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their interest from the great scale on which they were acted, the strange novelty by which they were characterised); and I had a keen delight in receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion.
The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him.
So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred: my thin crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength.
No, reader: gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire.
He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others.
He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once, when sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with his head bent on his folded arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features.
But I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say former , for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate.
I believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny encouraged.
Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be happy at Thornfield. "Why not?
What alienates him from the house?
If he does go, the change will be doleful.
Suppose he should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!" I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any rate, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me.
I wished I had kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were depressed.
The sound was hushed.
I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward tranquillity was broken.
The clock, far down in the hall, struck two.
Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery outside.
I said, "Who is there?
" Nothing answered.
All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the kitchen- door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up to the threshold of Mr. Rochester's chamber: I had seen him lying there myself in the mornings.
The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down.
Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again through the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber.
A dream had scarcely approached my ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a marrow-freezing incident enough.
The head of my bed was near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my bedside -- or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked round, and could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural sound was reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels.
My first impulse was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry out, "Who is there?
Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was still. "
Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr. Rochester's, and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence.
Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire.
I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the smoke had stupefied him.
Not a moment could be lost: the very sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide and the other deep, and both were filled with water.
I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God's aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were devouring it.
The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I flung from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of the shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last.
Who is in the room besides you?
Somebody has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and what it is." "There!
He took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water. "
What is it? and who did it
I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I had heard in the gallery: the step ascending to the third storey; the smoke, -- the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the water I could lay hands on.
{"What is it and who did it?" he asked: p140.jpg} He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more concern than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had concluded.
He passed up the gallery very softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible, shut it after him, and the last ray vanished.
I was on the point of risking Mr. Rochester's displeasure by disobeying his orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery wall, and I heard his unshod feet tread the matting.
He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the ground.
"But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I should think, or something like it?" "Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole, -- she laughs in that way.
It is near four: -- in two hours the servants will be up." "Good-night, then, sir
He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips, -- but his voice was checked. "Good-night again, sir.
" he continued, "you would do me good in some way, at some time; -- I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not" -- (again he stopped) -- "did not"
People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable.
My cherished preserver, goodnight!" Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look. "
Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy.
I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy -- a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back.
Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion.
Too feverish to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned.
But the morning passed just as usual: nothing happened to interrupt the quiet course of Adele's studies; only soon after breakfast, I heard some bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester's chamber, Mrs. Fairfax's voice, and Leah's, and the cook's -- that is, John's wife -- and even John's own gruff tones.
There were exclamations of "What a mercy master was not burnt in his bed!" "It is always dangerous to keep a candle lit at night." "How providential that he had presence of mind to think of the water-jug!" "I wonder he waked nobody!" "It is to be hoped he will not take cold with sleeping on the library sofa," &c. To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to rights; and when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I saw through the open door that all was again restored to complete order; only the bed was stripped of its hangings.
I was about to address her, for I wished to know what account had been given of the affair: but, on advancing, I saw a second person in the chamber -- a woman sitting on a chair by the bedside, and sewing rings to new curtains.
That woman was no other than Grace Poole.
She was intent on her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on her hard forehead, and in her commonplace features, was nothing either of the paleness or desperation one would have expected to see marking the countenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose intended victim had followed her last night to her lair, and (as I believed), charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate.
She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no start, no increase or failure of colour betrayed emotion, consciousness of guilt, or fear of detection.
She said "Good morning, Miss," in her usual phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking up another ring and more tape, went on with her sewing.
"I will put her to some test," thought I: "such absolute impenetrability is past comprehension." "Good morning, Grace," I said.
"Has anything happened here?
" "Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep with his candle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately, he awoke before the bed-clothes or the wood-work caught, and contrived to quench the flames with the water in the ewer." "A strange affair!" I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her fixedly -- "Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody?
Did no one hear him move?"
She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of consciousness in their expression.
Mrs. Fairfax's room and yours are the nearest to master's; but Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get elderly, they often sleep heavy."
She paused, and then added, with a sort of assumed indifference, but still in a marked and significant tone -- "But you are young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper: perhaps you may have heard a noise?" "I did," said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still polishing the panes, could not hear me, "and at first I thought it was Pilot: but Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a strange one.
" She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect composure -- "It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he was in such danger: You must have been dreaming."
"I was not dreaming," I said, with some warmth, for her brazen coolness provoked me.
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. "
Indignation again prevailed over prudence: I replied sharply, "Hitherto I have often omitted to fasten the bolt: I did not think it necessary.
I was not aware any danger or annoyance was to be dreaded at Thornfield Hall: but in future" (and I laid marked stress on the words) "I shall take good care to make all secure before I venture to lie down."
"It will be wise so to do," was her answer: "this neighbourhood is as quiet as any I know, and I never heard of the hall being attempted by robbers since it was a house; though there are hundreds of pounds' worth of plate in the plate-closet, as is well known.
And you see, for such a large house, there are very few servants, because master has never lived here much; and when he does come, being a bachelor, he needs little waiting on: but I always think it best to err on the safe side; a door is soon fastened, and it is as well to have a drawn bolt between one and any mischief that may be about.
I still stood absolutely dumfoundered at what appeared to me her miraculous self-possession and most inscrutable hypocrisy, when the cook entered. "
Mrs. Poole," said she, addressing Grace, "the servants' dinner will soon be ready: will you come down?" "No; just put my pint of porter and bit of pudding on a tray, and I'll carry it upstairs." "You'll have some meat?" "Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that's all." "And the sago?" "Never mind it at present: I shall be coming down before teatime: I'll make it myself."
The cook here turned to me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for me: so I departed.
He had almost as much as declared his conviction of her criminality last night: what mysterious cause withheld him from accusing her?
It was strange: a bold, vindictive, and haughty gentleman seemed somehow in the power of one of the meanest of his dependants; so much in her power, that even when she lifted her hand against his life, he dared not openly charge her with the attempt, much less punish her for it.
Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to think that tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr. Rochester in her behalf; but, hard-favoured and matronly as she was, the idea could not be admitted. "
Yet," I reflected, "she has been young once; her youth would be contemporary with her master's: Mrs. Fairfax told me once, she had lived here many years.
Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric: Grace is eccentric at least.
What if a former caprice (a freak very possible to a nature so sudden and headstrong as his) has delivered him into her power, and she now exercises over his actions a secret influence, the result of his own indiscretion, which he cannot shake off, and dare not disregard?"
But, having reached this point of conjecture, Mrs. Poole's square, flat figure, and uncomely, dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my mind's eye, that I thought, "No; impossible!
my supposition cannot be correct.
I well remembered all; language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment vividly renewed.
She looked up with a sort of start. "Qu' avez-vous, mademoiselle?" said she. "
Vos doigts tremblent comme la feuille, et vos joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des cerises!" "I am hot, Adele, with stooping!"
"I have never heard Mr. Rochester's voice or step in the house to-day; but surely I shall see him before night: I feared the meeting in the morning; now I desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown impatient."
When dusk actually closed, and when Adele left me to go and play in the nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it.
I listened for the bell to ring below; I listened for Leah coming up with a message; I fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester's own tread, and I turned to the door, expecting it to open and admit him.
The door remained shut; darkness only came in through the window.
I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if he really believed it was she who had made last night's hideous attempt; and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret.
It little mattered whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my skill.
Leah made her appearance; but it was only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax's room.
"You must want your tea," said the good lady, as I joined her; "you ate so little at dinner.
Having completed her task, she rose to draw down the blind, which she had hitherto kept up, by way, I suppose, of making the most of daylight, though dusk was now fast deepening into total obscurity. "It is fair to-night," said she, as she looked through the panes, "though not starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a favourable day for his journey."
"No -- nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a week or more: when these fine, fashionable people get together, they are so surrounded by elegance and gaiety, so well provided with all that can please and entertain, they are in no hurry to separate.
Gentlemen especially are often in request on such occasions; and Mr. Rochester is so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he is a general favourite: the ladies are very fond of him; though you would not think his appearance calculated to recommend him particularly in their eyes: but I suppose his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his wealth and good blood, make amends for any little fault of look."
"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.
I never saw a more splendid scene: the ladies were magnificently dressed; most of them -- at least most of the younger ones -- looked handsome; but Miss Ingram was certainly the queen." "And what was she like?" "Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck: olive complexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr. Rochester's: large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels.
She was dressed in pure white; an amber-coloured scarf was passed over her shoulder and across her breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below her knee.
She was one of the ladies who sang: a gentleman accompanied her on the piano.
I am no judge of music, but Mr. Rochester is; and I heard him say her execution was remarkably good."
"And this beautiful and accomplished lady, she is not yet married?"
Old Lord Ingram's estates were chiefly entailed, and the eldest son came in for everything almost." "But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to her: Mr. Rochester, for instance.
More unequal matches are made every day." "True: yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an idea of the sort.
Will you let me have another cup?" I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between Mr. Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but Adele came in, and the conversation was turned into another channel.
When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured to bring back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination's boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense.
Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night -- of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal; -- I pronounced judgment to this effect: -- That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar. " You ," I said, "a favourite with Mr. Rochester?
your folly sickens me.
Could not even self-interest make you wiser?
It does good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, ignis-fatus -like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication. "
Recall the august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and bust; let the round and dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire, aerial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call it 'Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank.'
An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram.
It looked a lovely face enough, and when compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast was as great as self- control could desire.
CHAPTER XVII A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten days, and still he did not come.
Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be surprised if he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the Continent, and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to come; he had not unfrequently quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt and unexpected.
He is not of your order: keep to your caste, and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised."
Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of a fortnight, when the post brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter. "
Why my hand shook, and why I involuntarily spilt half the contents of my cup into my saucer, I did not choose to consider. "
I don't know how many of the fine people at the Leas are coming with him: he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to be prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out; I am to get more kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Millcote, and from wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the gentlemen their valets: so we shall have a full house of it."
Three women were got to help; and such scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets, such taking down and putting up of pictures, such polishing of mirrors and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, such airing of sheets and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since.
Adele ran quite wild in the midst of it: the preparations for company and the prospect of their arrival, seemed to throw her into ecstasies.
The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, in time for dinner at six.
Only one hour in the twenty-four did she pass with her fellow-servants below; all the rest of her time was spent in some low-ceiled, oaken chamber of the second storey: there she sat and sewed -- and probably laughed drearily to herself, -- as companionless as a prisoner in his dungeon.
The strangest thing of all was, that not a soul in the house, except me, noticed her habits, or seemed to marvel at them: no one discussed her position or employment; no one pitied her solitude or isolation.
Leah had been saying something I had not caught, and the charwoman remarked -- "She gets good wages, I guess?" "Yes," said Leah; "I wish I had as good; not that mine are to complain of, -- there's no stinginess at Thornfield; but they're not one fifth of the sum Mrs. Poole receives.
"She is a good hand, I daresay," said the charwoman. "
Ah! -- she understands what she has to do, -- nobody better," rejoined Leah significantly; "and it is not every one could fill her shoes -- not for all the money she gets."
I wonder whether the master -- " The charwoman was going on; but here Leah turned and perceived me, and she instantly gave her companion a nudge.
Leah shook her head, and the conversation was of course dropped.
Thursday came: all work had been completed the previous evening; carpets were laid down, bed-hangings festooned, radiant white counterpanes spread, toilet tables arranged, furniture rubbed, flowers piled in vases: both chambers and saloons looked as fresh and bright as hands could make them.
The hall, too, was scoured; and the great carved clock, as well as the steps and banisters of the staircase, were polished to the brightness of glass; in the dining-room, the sideboard flashed resplendent with plate; in the drawing-room and boudoir, vases of exotics bloomed on all sides.
It was drawing to an end now; but the evening was even warm, and I sat at work in the schoolroom with the window open. "
Her purple riding-habit almost swept the ground, her veil streamed long on the breeze; mingling with its transparent folds, and gleaming through them, shone rich raven ringlets. "Miss Ingram!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax, and away she hurried to her post below.
The cavalcade, following the sweep of the drive, quickly turned the angle of the house, and I lost sight of it.
Adele now petitioned to go down; but I took her on my knee, and gave her to understand that she must not on any account think of venturing in sight of the ladies, either now or at any other time, unless expressly sent for: that Mr. Rochester would be very angry, &c. "Some natural tears she shed" on being told this; but as I began to look very grave, she consented at last to wipe them.
A joyous stir was now audible in the hall: gentlemen's deep tones and ladies' silvery accents blent harmoniously together, and distinguishable above all, though not loud, was the sonorous voice of the master of Thornfield Hall, welcoming his fair and gallant guests under its roof.
Then light steps ascended the stairs; and there was a tripping through the gallery, and soft cheerful laughs, and opening and closing doors, and, for a time, a hush. "
Elles changent de toilettes," said Adele; who, listening attentively, had followed every movement; and she sighed.
souvent je regardais les femmes de chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et c'etait si amusant: comme cela on apprend."
"Don't you feel hungry, Adele?" "Mais oui, mademoiselle: voila cinq ou six heures que nous n'avons pas mange."
"Well now, while the ladies are in their rooms, I will venture down and get you something to eat."
All in that region was fire and commotion; the soup and fish were in the last stage of projection, and the cook hung over her crucibles in a frame of mind and body threatening spontaneous combustion.
In the servants' hall two coachmen and three gentlemen's gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about everywhere. Threading this chaos,
I had regained the gallery, and was just shutting the back-door behind me, when an accelerated hum warned me that the ladies were about to issue from their chambers.
Presently the chambers gave up their fair tenants one after another: each came out gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed lustrous through the dusk.
Their collective appearance had left on me an impression of high- born elegance, such as I had never before received.
What beautiful ladies!" cried she in English. "Oh, I wish I might go to them!
Never mind the ladies to-night; perhaps you will see them to-morrow: here is your dinner."
She was really hungry, so the chicken and tarts served to divert her attention for a time.
It was well I secured this forage, or both she, I, and Sophie, to whom I conveyed a share of our repast, would have run a chance of getting no dinner at all: every one downstairs was too much engaged to think of us.
The dessert was not carried out till after nine and at ten footmen were still running to and fro with trays and coffee- cups.
I allowed Adele to sit up much later than usual; for she declared she could not possibly go to sleep while the doors kept opening and shutting below, and people bustling about.
Besides, she added, a message might possibly come from Mr. Rochester when she was undressed; "et alors quel dommage!
The hall lamp was now lit, and it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the servants passing backwards and forwards.
When the evening was far advanced, a sound of music issued from the drawing-room, whither the piano had been removed; Adele and I sat down on the top step of the stairs to listen.
Presently a voice blent with the rich tones of the instrument; it was a lady who sang, and very sweet her notes were.
The solo over, a duet followed, and then a glee: a joyous conversational murmur filled up the intervals.
I listened long: suddenly I discovered that my ear was wholly intent on analysing the mingled sounds, and trying to discriminate amidst the confusion of accents those of Mr. Rochester; and when it caught them, which it soon did, it found a further task in framing the tones, rendered by distance inarticulate, into words.
The clock struck eleven.
I looked at Adele, whose head leant against my shoulder; her eyes were waxing heavy, so I took her up in my arms and carried her off to bed.
It was near one before the gentlemen and ladies sought their chambers.
The next day was as fine as its predecessor: it was devoted by the party to an excursion to some site in the neighbourhood.
I pointed out this circumstance to Mrs. Fairfax, who was standing at the window with me -- "You said it was not likely they should think of being married," said I, "but you see Mr. Rochester evidently prefers her to any of the other ladies."
You must go into the drawing- room while it is empty, before the ladies leave the dinner-table; choose your seat in any quiet nook you like; you need not stay long after the gentlemen come in, unless you please: just let Mr. Rochester see you are there and then slip away -- nobody will notice you."
"Will these people remain long, do you think?"
After the Easter recess, Sir George Lynn, who was lately elected member for Millcote, will have to go up to town and take his seat; I daresay Mr. Rochester will accompany him: it surprises me that he has already made so protracted a stay at Thornfield."
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.
This I quickly was: my best dress (the silver-grey one, purchased for Miss Temple's wedding, and never worn since) was soon put on; my hair was soon smoothed; my sole ornament, the pearl brooch, soon assumed.
We found the apartment vacant; a large fire burning silently on the marble hearth, and wax candles shining in bright solitude, amid the exquisite flowers with which the tables were adorned.
The crimson curtain hung before the arch: slight as was the separation this drapery formed from the party in the adjoining saloon, they spoke in so low a key that nothing of their conversation could be distinguished beyond a soothing murmur.
Adele, who appeared to be still under the influence of a most solemnising impression, sat down, without a word, on the footstool I pointed out to her.
She sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfaction, as if her cup of happiness were now full.
A soft sound of rising now became audible; the curtain was swept back from the arch; through it appeared the dining-room, with its lit lustre pouring down light on the silver and glass of a magnificent dessert-service covering a long table; a band of ladies stood in the opening; they entered, and the curtain fell behind them.
Some of them were very tall; many were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of array that seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the moon.
I rose and curtseyed to them: one or two bent their heads in return, the others only stared at me.
Some of them threw themselves in half-reclining positions on the sofas and ottomans: some bent over the tables and examined the flowers and books: the rest gathered in a group round the fire: all talked in a low but clear tone which seemed habitual to them.
Of her daughters, the eldest, Amy, was rather little: naive, and child-like in face and manner, and piquant in form; her white muslin dress and blue sash became her well.
The second, Louisa, was taller and more elegant in figure; with a very pretty face, of that order the French term minois chiffone : both sisters were fair as lilies.
Lady Lynn was a large and stout personage of about forty, very erect, very haughty-looking, richly dressed in a satin robe of changeful sheen: her dark hair shone glossily under the shade of an azure plume, and within the circlet of a band of gems.
Her black satin dress, her scarf of rich foreign lace, and her pearl ornaments, pleased me better than the rainbow radiance of the titled dame.
But the three most distinguished -- partly, perhaps, because the tallest figures of the band -- were the Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters, Blanche and Mary.
The Dowager might be between forty and fifty: her shape was still fine; her hair (by candle-light at least) still black; her teeth, too, were still apparently perfect.
Most people would have termed her a splendid woman of her age: and so she was, no doubt, physically speaking; but then there was an expression of almost insupportable haughtiness in her bearing and countenance.
She had Roman features and a double chin, disappearing into a throat like a pillar: these features appeared to me not only inflated and darkened, but even furrowed with pride; and the chin was sustained by the same principle, in a position of almost preternatural erectness.
She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye: it reminded me of Mrs. Reed's; she mouthed her words in speaking; her voice was deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical, -- very intolerable, in short.
First, I wished to see whether her appearance accorded with Mrs. Fairfax's description; secondly, whether it at all resembled the fancy miniature I had painted of her; and thirdly -- it will out! -- whether it were such as I should fancy likely to suit Mr. Rochester's taste.
As far as person went, she answered point for point, both to my picture and Mrs. Fairfax's description.
The noble bust, the sloping shoulders, the graceful neck, the dark eyes and black ringlets were all there; -- but her face?
Her face was like her mother's; a youthful unfurrowed likeness: the same low brow, the same high features, the same pride.
she laughed continually; her laugh was satirical, and so was the habitual expression of her arched and haughty lip.
Genius is said to be self-conscious.
I presently perceived she was (what is vernacularly termed) trailing Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on her ignorance -- her trail might be clever, but it was decidedly not good- natured.
She played: her execution was brilliant; she sang: her voice was fine; she talked French apart to her mamma; and she talked it well, with fluency and with a good accent.
Mary had a milder and more open countenance than Blanche; softer features too, and a skin some shades fairer (Miss Ingram was dark as a Spaniard) -- but Mary was deficient in life: her face lacked expression, her eye lustre; she had nothing to say, and having once taken her seat, remained fixed like a statue in its niche.
The sisters were both attired in spotless white.
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 Adele has all this time been sitting motionless on the stool at my feet: no; when the ladies entered, she rose, advanced to meet them, made a stately reverence, and said with gravity -- "Bon jour, mesdames."
And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mocking air, and exclaimed, "Oh, what a little puppet!" Lady Lynn had remarked, "It is Mr. Rochester's ward, I suppose -- the little French girl he was speaking of."
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.
The collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is very imposing: they are all costumed in black; most of them are tall, some young.
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 "pere noble de theatre." Lord Ingram, like his sisters, is very tall; like them, also, he is handsome; but he shares Mary's apathetic and listless look: he seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of blood or vigour of brain.
What had occurred since, calculated to change his and my relative positions?
No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and that I might gaze without being observed, than my eyes were drawn involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under control: they would rise, and the irids would fix on him.
I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking, -- a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless.
Most true is it that "beauty is in the eye of the gazer."
My master's colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth, -- all energy, decision, will, -- were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite mastered me, -- that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them in his.
I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and strong!
What was the gallant grace of the Lynns, the languid elegance of Lord Ingram, -- even the military distinction of Colonel Dent, contrasted with his look of native pith and genuine power?
I had no sympathy in their appearance, their expression: yet I could imagine that most observers would call them attractive, handsome, imposing; while they would pronounce Mr. Rochester at once harsh-featured and melancholy-looking.
I saw them smile, laugh -- it was nothing; the light of the candles had as much soul in it as their smile; the tinkle of the bell as much significance as their laugh.
I saw Mr. Rochester smile: -- his stern features softened; his eye grew both brilliant and gentle, its ray both searching and sweet.
I wondered to see them receive with calm that look which seemed to me so penetrating: I expected their eyes to fall, their colour to rise under it; yet I was glad when I found they were in no sense moved. "
I believe he is of mine; -- I am sure he is -- I feel akin to him -- I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him.
Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him.
Coffee is handed.
The ladies, since the gentlemen entered, have become lively as larks; conversation waxes brisk and merry.
Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics; their wives listen.
Sir George -- whom, by-the-bye, I have forgotten to describe, -- a very big, and very fresh-looking country gentleman, stands before their sofa, coffee- cup in hand, and occasionally puts in a word.
am I." "Then, what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as that?" (pointing to Adele).
"You should have sent her to school." "I could not afford it: schools are so dear."
" I feared -- or should I say, hoped? -- the allusion to me would make Mr. Rochester glance my way; and I involuntarily shrank farther into the shade: but he never turned his eyes.
No, you men never do consider economy and common sense.
You should hear mama on the chapter of governesses: Mary and I have had, I should think, a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the rest ridiculous, and all incubi -- were they not, mama?" "Did you speak, my own?"
The young lady thus claimed as the dowager's special property, reiterated her question with an explanation. "
My dearest, don't mention governesses; the word makes me nervous.
But my curiosity will be past its appetite; it craves food now."
The best fun was with Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor sickly thing, lachrymose and low- spirited, not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible; no blow took effect on her.
I see her yet in her raging passions, when we had driven her to extremities -- spilt our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, tossed our books up to the ceiling, and played a charivari with the ruler and desk, the fender and fire-irons.
And I was quite right: depend on that: there are a thousand reasons why liaisons between governesses and tutors should never be tolerated a moment in any well-regulated house; firstly -- " "Oh, gracious, mama! Spare us the enumeration! Au reste , we all know them: danger of bad example to innocence of childhood; distractions and consequent neglect of duty on the part of the attached -- mutual alliance and reliance; confidence thence resulting -- insolence accompanying -- mutiny and general blow-up.
Then no more need be said: change the subject." Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding this dictum, joined in with her soft, infantine tone: "Louisa and I used to quiz our governess too; but she was such a good creature, she would bear anything: nothing put her out.
"Who would not be the Rizzio of so divine a Mary?" "A fig for Rizzio!" cried she, tossing her head with all its curls, as she moved to the piano. "
It is my opinion the fiddler David must have been an insipid sort of fellow; I like black Bothwell better: to my mind a man is nothing without a spice of the devil in him; and history may say what it will of James Hepburn, but I have a notion, he was just the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to gift with my hand."
"I should say the preference lies with you," responded Colonel Dent. "
Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the piano, spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, commenced a brilliant prelude; talking meantime.
She appeared to be on her high horse to-night; both her words and her air seemed intended to excite not only the admiration, but the amazement of her auditors: she was evidently bent on striking them as something very dashing and daring indeed. "
Poor, puny things, not fit to stir a step beyond papa's park gates: nor to go even so far without mama's permission and guardianship! Creatures so absorbed in care about their pretty faces, and their white hands, and their small feet; as if a man had anything to do with beauty!
As if loveliness were not the special prerogative of woman -- her legitimate appanage and heritage!
I grant an ugly woman is a blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the gentlemen , let them be solicitous to possess only strength and valour: let their motto be: -- Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not worth a fillip.
"Whenever I marry," she continued after a pause which none interrupted, "I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me.
I will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided homage: his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he sees in his mirror.
Here then is a Corsair-song.
"Commands from Miss Ingram's lips would put spirit into a mug of milk and water."
"Take care, then: if you don't please me, I will shame you by showing how such things should be done."
Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must inform you that one of your frowns would be a sufficient substitute for capital punishment." "Sing!"
"Now is my time to slip away," thought I: but the tones that then severed the air arrested me.
I waited till the last deep and full vibration had expired -- till the tide of talk, checked an instant, had resumed its flow; I then quitted my sheltered corner and made my exit by the side-door, which was fortunately near.
Thence a narrow passage led into the hall: in crossing it, I perceived my sandal was loose; I stopped to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of the staircase.
I heard the dining-room door unclose; a gentleman came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it was Mr. Rochester. "
" I thought I might have retorted the question on him who put it: but I would not take that freedom.
What is the matter?"
"Nothing at all, sir." "Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?" "Not the least."
"But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes -- indeed, they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to the flag.
Well, to-night I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect it.
All sad feelings seemed now driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten: there was life everywhere, movement all day long.
The kitchen, the butler's pantry, the servants' hall, the entrance hall, were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void and still when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring weather called their occupants out into the grounds.
Even when that weather was broken, and continuous rain set in for some days, no damp seemed cast over enjoyment: indoor amusements only became more lively and varied, in consequence of the stop put to outdoor gaiety.
The servants were called in, the dining-room tables wheeled away, the lights otherwise disposed, the chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the arch.
While Mr. Rochester and the other gentlemen directed these alterations, the ladies were running up and down stairs ringing for their maids.
Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to give information respecting the resources of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies of any kind; and certain wardrobes of the third storey were ransacked, and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets, &c., were brought down in armfuls by the abigails; then a selection was made, and such things as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing-room.
Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him, and was selecting certain of their number to be of his party. "
He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party, which was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs.
Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up.
Within the arch, the bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had likewise chosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, on a table, lay open a large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton, draped in Mr. Rochester's cloak, and holding a book in her hand.
Somebody, unseen, rang the bell merrily; then Adele (who had insisted on being one of her guardian's party), bounded forward, scattering round her the contents of a basket of flowers she carried on her arm.
Then appeared the magnificent figure of Miss Ingram, clad in white, a long veil on her head, and a wreath of roses round her brow; by her side walked Mr. Rochester, and together they drew near the table.
A ceremony followed, in dumb show, in which it was easy to recognise the pantomime of a marriage.
At its termination, Colonel Dent and his party consulted in whispers for two minutes, then the Colonel called out -- "Bride!" Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell.
The drawing- room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps above the dining- room, and on the top of the upper step, placed a yard or two back within the room, appeared a large marble basin -- which I recognised as an ornament of the conservatory -- where it usually stood, surrounded by exotics, and tenanted by gold fish -- and whence it must have been transported with some trouble, on account of its size and weight.
She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied sash-like round the waist: an embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples; her beautifully-moulded arms bare, one of them upraised in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head.
Both her cast of form and feature, her complexion and her general air, suggested the idea of some Israelitish princess of the patriarchal days; and such was doubtless the character she intended to represent.
The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request: -- "She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink.
" From the bosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears.
It was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were wanting.
The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated.
Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded "the tableau of the whole;" whereupon the curtain again descended.
On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and coarse drapery.
The marble basin was removed; in its place, stood a deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles being all extinguished.
I knew Mr. Rochester; though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging loose from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back in a scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance, the rough, bristling hair might well have disguised him.
As he moved, a chain clanked; to his wrists were attached fetters. "Bridewell!" exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved.
A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room.
" "Is all the soot washed from my face?" he asked, turning it towards her. "
Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian's rouge." "You would like a hero of the road then?" "
An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine pirate."
" She giggled, and her colour rose. "
And as the other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats.
Miss Ingram placed herself at her leader's right hand; the other diviners filled the chairs on each side of him and her.
I did not now watch the actors; I no longer waited with interest for the curtain to rise; my attention was absorbed by the spectators; my eyes, erewhile fixed on the arch, were now irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs.
What charade Colonel Dent and his party played, what word they chose, how they acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I still see the consultation which followed each scene: I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her incline her head towards him, till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his cheek; I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged glances; and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle returns in memory at this moment.
I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me -- because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction -- because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation.
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.
She was very showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness.
Other eyes besides mine watched these manifestations of character -- watched them closely, keenly, shrewdly.
Yes; the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended a ceaseless surveillance; and it was from this sagacity -- this guardedness of his -- this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one's defects -- this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her, that my ever- torturing pain arose.
I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons, because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted to win from him that treasure.
This was the point -- this was where the nerve was touched and teased -- this was where the fever was sustained and fed: she could not charm him .
If Miss Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour, kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two tigers -- jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I should have admired her -- acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my days: and the more absolute her superiority, the deeper would have been my admiration -- the more truly tranquil my quiescence.
But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram's efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeated failure -- herself unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelled further and further what she wished to allure -- to witness this , was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.
Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart -- have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons a silent conquest might have been won.
I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest woman the sun shines on.
It surprised me when I first discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a man unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice of a wife; but the longer I considered the position, education, &c., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood.
All their class held these principles: I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom.
It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of the advantages to the husband's own happiness offered by this plan convinced me that there must be arguments against its general adoption of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all the world would act as I wished to act.
The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.
And as for the vague something -- was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression? -- that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare -- to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets and analyse their nature.
The Ladies Lynn and Ingram continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they nodded their two turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in confronting gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according to the theme on which their gossip ran, like a pair of magnified puppets.
If he was absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal over the spirits of his guests; and his re-entrance was sure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation.
The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was not likely to return till late.
The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred.
Some of the gentlemen were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together with the younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room.
Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence.
The room and the house were silent: only now and then the merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above.
It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of the hour to dress for dinner, when little Adele, who knelt by me in the drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed -- "Voila, Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!" I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the others, too, looked up from their several occupations; for at the same time a crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs became audible on the wet gravel.
A post-chaise was approaching.
"What can possess him to come home in that style?" said Miss Ingram.
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 Adele), "who perched you up in the window to give false intelligence?" and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I were in fault.
Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new-comer entered.
He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady present. "
It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam," said he, "when my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns."
His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being somewhat unusual, -- not precisely foreign, but still not altogether English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester's, -- between thirty and forty; his complexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he was a fine-looking man, at first sight especially.
His features were regular, but too relaxed: his eye was large and well cut, but the life looking out of it was a tame, vacant life -- at least so I thought.
The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party.
His eye wandered, and had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look, such as I never remembered to have seen.
As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the girandoles on the mantelpiece beaming full over him -- for he occupied an arm-chair drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as if he were cold, I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater between a sleek gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek sheep and the rough-coated keen-eyed dog, its guardian.
A curious friendship theirs must have been: a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old adage that "extremes meet."
Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps of their conversation across the room.
At first I could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at intervals.
I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the fire, and I presently gathered that the new-comer was called Mr. Mason; then I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came from some hot country: which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the house.
I knew Mr. Rochester had been a traveller: Mrs. Fairfax had said so; but I thought the continent of Europe had bounded his wanderings; till now I had never heard a hint given of visits to more distant shores.
I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings.
Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red.
The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, "old woman," -- "quite troublesome." "Tell her she shall be put in the stocks if she does not take herself off," replied the magistrate. "
But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady," said the footman; "nor can any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, entreating her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the chimney-corner, and says nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave to come in here." "What does she want?
To tell the gentry their fortunes,' she says, ma'am; and she swears she must and will do it."
"What is she like?" inquired the Misses Eshton, in a breath.
"A shockingly ugly old creature, miss; almost as black as a crock." "Why, she's a real sorceress!" cried Frederick Lynn. "
"I have a curiosity to hear my fortune told: therefore, Sam, order the beldame forward." "My darling Blanche! recollect -- " "I do -- I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will -- quick, Sam!" "Yes -- yes -- yes!" cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. "
Let her come -- it will be excellent sport!" The footman still lingered. "
ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went.
Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery and jests was proceeding when Sam returned. "
I must show her into a room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her one by one."
Be advised, my angel girl -- and -- " "Show her into the library, of course," cut in the "angel girl."
Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full flow once more. "
She's ready now," said the footman, as he reappeared. "
She wishes to know who will be her first visitor."
"Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming.
Miss Ingram rose solemnly: "I go first," she said, in a tone which might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach in the van of his men. "
! oh, my dearest! pause -- reflect!" was her mama's cry; but she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door which Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library.
The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the library- door again opened.
All eyes met her with a glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff and coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked stiffly to her seat, and took it in silence. "
Now, now, good people," returned Miss Ingram, "don't press upon me.
Really your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited: you seem, by the importance of you all -- my good mama included -- ascribe to this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman.
I have seen a gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of palmistry and told me what such people usually tell.
My whim is gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in the stocks to-morrow morning, as he threatened."
I watched her for nearly half-an-hour: during all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment.
She had obviously not heard anything to her advantage: and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself, notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had been made her.
A negotiation was opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and fro, till, I think, the said Sam's calves must have ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body.
Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram's had been: we heard hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of their wits.
She knows all about us!" and they sank breathless into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them.
Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of things they had said and done when they were mere children; described books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that different relations had presented to them.
The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones.
In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully engaged in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I turned, and saw Sam. "
If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears she will not go till she has seen all.
I slipped out of the room, unobserved by any eye -- for the company were gathered in one mass about the trembling trio just returned -- and I closed the door quietly behind me.
CHAPTER XIX The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl -- if Sibyl she were -- was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the chimney- corner.
An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a prayer-book, by the light of the blaze: she muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she read; she did not desist immediately on my entrance: it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.
She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one.
It looked all brown and black: elf- locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze. "
Well, and you want your fortune told
"Why don't you consult my art?" "I'm not silly." The old crone "nichered" a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to smoke.
You are cold, because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you.
The materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them.
Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss results."
She approached her face to the palm, and pored over it without touching it. "It is too fine," said she. "I can make nothing of such a hand as that; almost without lines: besides, what is in a palm?
Destiny is not written there."
She stirred the fire, so that a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare, however, as she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine, it illumined.
"I wonder what thoughts are busy in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic-lantern: just as little sympathetic communion passing between you and them as if they were really mere shadows of human forms, and not the actual substance."
"Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with whispers of the future?" "Not I. The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my earnings to set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself." "A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that window- seat (you see I know your habits ) -- " "You have learned them from the servants." "Ah! you think yourself sharp.
Have you no present interest in any of the company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you?
Is there not one face you study?
"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."
I have scarcely interchanged a syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I consider some respectable, and stately, and middle-aged, and others young, dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at liberty to be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my feeling disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me."
Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests." "No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of all the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favoured with the most lively and the most continuous?" "The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator."
One unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings and taking record of every pulse. "
Eagerness of a listener!" repeated she: "yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; you have noticed this?" "Grateful!
Your witch's skill is rather at fault sometimes."
"Shortly?" "Appearances would warrant that conclusion: and, no doubt (though, with an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem to question it), they will be a superlatively happy pair.
I know she considers the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her something on that point about an hour ago which made her look wondrous grave: the corners of her mouth fell half an inch.
I would advise her blackaviced suitor to look out: if another comes, with a longer or clearer rent-roll, -- he's dished -- " "But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester's fortune: I came to hear my own; and you have told me nothing of it." "Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait contradicted another.
Chance has meted you a measure of happiness: that I know
"Don't keep me long; the fire scorches me."
She began muttering, -- "The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness.
The eye is favourable. "
As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would be silent on much the heart experiences.
That feature too is propitious.
"I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say, -- 'I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss.
I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.'
The forehead declares, 'Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms.
The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision.
Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience.' "
Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected.
I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution -- such is not my taste.
I wish to foster, not to blight -- to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood -- no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet -- That will do.
Rise, Miss Eyre: leave me; the play is played out'.
The old woman's voice had changed: her accent, her gesture, and all were familiar to me as my own face in a glass -- as the speech of my own tongue.
The flame illuminated her hand stretched out: roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at once noticed that hand.
It was no more the withered limb of eld than my own; it was a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a hundred times before.
Again I looked at the face; which was no longer turned from me -- on the contrary, the bonnet was doffed, the bandage displaced, the head advanced.
Only take off the red cloak, sir, and then -- " "But the string is in a knot -- help me."
I knew gipsies and fortune-tellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman had expressed herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her anxiety to conceal her features.
But my mind had been running on Grace Poole -- that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I considered her.
"No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawing-room yonder are doing."
Oh, are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here since you left this morning?" "A stranger! -- no; who can it be
His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think."
As I spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive grip; the smile on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his breath.
"Jane, if aid is wanted, I'll seek it at your hands; I promise you that."
"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 found all the party in the dining-room at supper, as Mr. Rochester had said; they were not seated at table, -- the supper was arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he chose, and they stood about here and there in groups, their plates and glasses in their hands.
Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and conversation were general and animated.
Mr. Rochester's extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more firm and stern.
Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!" he said.
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.
"I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; as you, I am sure, do."
The company all stared at me as I passed straight among them.
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."
The consequence was, that when the moon, which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me.
The night -- its silence -- its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.
My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed.
The cry died, and was not renewed.
The thing delivering such utterance must rest ere it could repeat the effort.
And overhead -- yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling -- I now heard a struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered voice shouted -- "Help! help! help!" three times rapidly. "
Will no one come?" it cried; and then, while the staggering and stamping went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster: -- "Rochester! Rochester! for God's sake, come!"
A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery.
Another step stamped on the flooring above and something fell; and there was silence. I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued from my apartment.
The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations, terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled.
Gentlemen and ladies alike had quitted their beds; and "Oh! what is it?" -- "Who is hurt?" -- "What has happened?" -- "Fetch a light!" -- "Is it fire?" -- "Are there robbers?" -- "Where shall we run?" was demanded confusedly on all hands.
They ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the confusion was inextricable. "Where the devil is Rochester?
And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey.
One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss Ingram.
"What awful event has taken place?" said she. "
"But don't pull me down or strangle me," he replied: for the Misses Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail. "
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.
Now, then, I must see you all back into your rooms; for, till the house is settled, she cannot be looked after.
The sounds I had heard after the scream, and the words that had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for they had proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me that it was not a servant's dream which had thus struck horror through the house; and that the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely an invention framed to pacify his guests.
It seemed to me that some event must follow the strange cry, struggle, and call.
No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased gradually, and in about an hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as a desert.
It seemed that sleep and night had resumed their empire.
Meantime the moon declined: she was about to set.
My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a cat.
I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had then been concealed.
This door was open; a light shone out of the room within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog quarrelling.
A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace Poole's own goblin ha!
An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant back; his eyes were closed.
Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face -- the stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in blood. "
He took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like face; he asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils.
Mr. Rochester opened the shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged away blood, trickling fast down.
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.
I experienced a strange feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating step ceased to be heard.
Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yes -- that was appalling -- the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me.
I must watch this ghastly countenance -- these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose -- these eyes now shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on me, and ever glazed with the dulness of horror
I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver strangely over the doors of a great cabinet opposite -- whose front, divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in a frame; while above them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a dying Christ.
According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered here or glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that bent his brow; now St. John's long hair that waved; and anon the devilish face of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed gathering life and threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor -- of Satan himself -- in his subordinate's form.
But since Mr. Rochester's visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I heard but three sounds at three long intervals, -- a step creak, a momentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human groan.
Then my own thoughts worried me.
What crime was this that lived incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled nor subdued by the owner? -- what mystery, that broke out now in fire and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night?
What creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice, now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?
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!
His guest had been outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in oblivion!
Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester; that the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway over the inertness of the former: the few words which had passed between them assured me of this.
It was evident that in their former intercourse, the passive disposition of the one had been habitually influenced by the active energy of the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Rochester's dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason's arrival?
Why had the mere name of this unresisting individual -- whom his word now sufficed to control like a child -- fallen on him, a few hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall on an oak?
" I could not forget how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester.
" I cried inwardly, as the night lingered and lingered -- as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened: and neither day nor aid arrived.
I had, again and again, held the water to Mason's white lips; again and again offered him the stimulating salts: my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or mental suffering, or loss of blood, or all three combined, were fast prostrating his strength.
The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived streaks of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then approaching.
Nor was it unwarranted: in five minutes more the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me my watch was relieved.
It could not have lasted more than two hours: many a week has seemed shorter.
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.
" Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland blind, let in all the daylight he could; and I was surprised and cheered to see how far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were beginning to brighten the east.
Then he approached Mason, whom the surgeon was already handling. "
"I can do that conscientiously," said Carter, who had now undone the bandages; "only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would not have bled so much -- but how is this?
The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well as cut.
This wound was not done with a knife: there have been teeth here!" "She bit me," he murmured.
Carter -- hurry! -- hurry! The sun will soon rise, and I must have him off."
"Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged.
Carter has done with you or nearly so; I'll make you decent in a trice.
I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles named, and returned with them. "
Now, I've another errand for you," said my untiring master; "you must away to my room again.
a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture.
" The patient rose. "Carter, take him under the other shoulder.
It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent.
The side-passage door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as possible: all the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and there was a post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver seated on the box, stationed outside.
I approached him, and said the gentlemen were coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully round and listened.
The stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains were yet drawn over the servants' chamber windows; little birds were just twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs drooped like white garlands over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the carriage horses stamped from time to time in their closed stables: all else was still.
The gentlemen now appeared.
Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him into the chaise; Carter followed.
"The fresh air revives me, Fairfax."
"Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind -- good-bye, Dick.
I do my best; and have done it, and will do it," was the answer: he shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away. "
This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a door in the wall bordering the orchard.
He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for me. "
Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments," he said; "that house is a mere dungeon: don't you feel it so?"
"It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir." "The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes," he answered; "and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark.
They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them: the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumined the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them.
That sky with its high and light clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm -- this placid and balmly atmosphere?" "I do, very much." "You have passed a strange night, Jane."
"Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays."
"Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?" "I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then.
But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led.
If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be? Annihilated in a moment.
Ever since I have known Mason, I have only had to say to him 'Do that,' and the thing has been done.
But I cannot give him orders in this case: I cannot say 'Beware of harming me, Richard;' for it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is possible.
My friend would then turn to me, quiet and pale, and would say, 'No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot do it, because it is wrong;' and would become immutable as a fixed star.
Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down."
The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a rustic seat.
Sit," he said; "the bench is long enough for two. You don't hesitate to take a place at my side, do you?
Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew -- while all the flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their young ones' breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do their first spell of work -- I'll put a case to you, which you must endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you err in staying." "No, sir; I am content." "Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy: -- suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life and taint all your existence.
Mind, I don't say a crime ; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is error .
The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable.
Such society revives, regenerates: you feel better days come back -- higher wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being.
To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom -- a mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your judgment approves?"
Oh, for some good spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain aspiration!
The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate.
Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query: "Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant, man justified in daring the world's opinion, in order to attach to him for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?" "Sir," I answered, "a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature.
Men and women die; philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend and solace to heal."
God, who does the work, ordains the instrument.
I have myself -- I tell it you without parable -- been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for my cure in -- " He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling.
I almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to catch the suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many minutes -- so long was the silence protracted.
Little friend," said he, in quite a changed tone -- while his face changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh and sarcastic -- "you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: don't you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a vengeance?"
"A strapper -- a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom; with hair just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me!
CHAPTER XXI Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key.
Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal comprehension.
The saying might have worn out of my memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed which served indelibly to fix it there.
Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for during the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had not brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed in my arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing with daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its hands in running water.
It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it nestled close to me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the apparition evinced, whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven successive nights to meet me the moment I entered the land of slumber.
I did not like this iteration of one idea -- this strange recurrence of one image, and I grew nervous as bedtime approached and the hour of the vision drew near.
It was from companionship with this baby-phantom I had been roused on that moonlight night when I heard the cry; and it was on the afternoon of the day following I was summoned downstairs by a message that some one wanted me in Mrs. Fairfax's room.
On repairing thither, I found a man waiting for me, having the appearance of a gentleman's servant: he was dressed in deep mourning, and the hat he held in his hand was surrounded with a crape band.
"I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss," he said, rising as I entered; "but my name is Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed when you were at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live there still."
You are married to Bessie?" "Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me another little one about two months since -- we have three now -- and both mother and child are thriving." "And are the family well at the house, Robert?" "I am sorry I can't give you better news of them, Miss: they are very badly at present -- in great trouble."
"I hope no one is dead," I said, glancing at his black dress.
He too looked down at the crape round his hat and replied -- "Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London." "Mr. John?" "Yes." "And how does his mother bear it?" "Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life has been very wild: these last three years he gave himself up to strange ways, and his death was shocking."
He got into debt and into jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free he returned to his old companions and habits.
His head was not strong: the knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond anything I ever heard.
Missis refused: her means have long been much reduced by his extravagance; so he went back again, and the next news was that he was dead.
" 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.
The young ladies put it off at first; but their mother grew so restless, and said, 'Jane, Jane,' so many times, that at last they consented.
To the billiard- room I hastened: the click of balls and the hum of voices resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton, and their admirers, were all busied in the game.
It required some courage to disturb so interesting a party; my errand, however, was one I could not defer, so I approached the master where he stood at Miss Ingram's side.
She turned as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily: her eyes seemed to demand, "What can the creeping creature want now?" and when I said, in a low voice, "Mr. Rochester," she made a movement as if tempted to order me away.
I remember her appearance at the moment -- it was very graceful and very striking: she wore a morning robe of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure scarf was twisted in her hair.
She had been all animation with the game, and irritated pride did not lower the expression of her haughty lineaments.
"Does that person want you?
" she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr. Rochester turned to see who the "person" was.
"What to do? -- where to go?" "To see a sick lady who has sent for me.
Who may she be that sends for people to see her that distance?" "
Her name is Reed, sir -- Mrs. Reed."
"None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me off."
Sir George Lynn was talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said, was one of the veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana Reed of the same place, who was much admired for her beauty a season or two ago in London." "John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and half-ruined his family, and is supposed to have committed suicide.
The news so shocked his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack."
I would never think of running a hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps, be dead before you reach her: besides, you say she cast you off."
"Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were very different: I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now." "How long will you stay?" "As short a time as possible, sir."
Oh, no! I shall certainly return if all be well." "And who goes with you?
"A person to be trusted?" "Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the family." Mr. Rochester meditated.
" He took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and chuckled over it as if its scantiness amused him.
"To get her out of my bride's way, who might otherwise walk over her rather too emphatically?
"I could not spare the money on any account." "Little niggard!" said he, "refusing me a pecuniary request!
"I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will promise that I and Adele shall be both safe out of the house before your bride enters it." "Very well! very well!
"Then you and I must bid good-bye for a little while?" "I suppose so, sir." "And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach me; I'm not quite up to it." "They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer." "
" The dinner-bell rang, and suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable: I saw him no more during the day, and was off before he had risen in the morning.
It was very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were hung with little white curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and fire-irons were burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear.
The doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly thinks she will finally recover."
Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to sit still, quite in her old peremptory tones.
She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort of a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a master, whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him.
The same hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart.
The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished. "
You shall go into the breakfast-room first," said Bessie, as she preceded me through the hall; "the young ladies will be there."
The inanimate objects were not changed; but the living things had altered past recognition.
Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall, almost as tall as Miss Ingram -- very thin too, with a sallow face and severe mien.
The hue of her dress was black too; but its fashion was so different from her sister's -- so much more flowing and becoming -- it looked as stylish as the other's looked puritanical.
In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother -- and only one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent's Cairngorm eye: the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and chin -- perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable hardness to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous and buxom.
Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both addressed me by the name of "Miss Eyre."
Eliza's greeting was delivered in a short, abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she sat down again, fixed her eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me.
Young ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know that they think you a "quiz" without actually saying the words.
A certain superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point, without committing them by any positive rudeness in word or deed.
The fact was, I had other things to think about; within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more potent than any they could raise -- pains and pleasures so much more acute and exquisite had been excited than any it was in their power to inflict or bestow -- that their airs gave me no concern either for good or bad. "
" I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana, who thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an unexpected liberty. "
I soon rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and said I would just step out to Bessie -- who was, I dared say, in the kitchen -- and ask her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to receive me or not to- night.
So I addressed the housekeeper; asked her to show me a room, told her I should probably be a visitor here for a week or two, had my trunk conveyed to my chamber, and followed it thither myself: I met Bessie on the landing. "
Missis is awake," said she; "I have told her you are here: come and let us see if she will know you.
I hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded light stood on the table, for it was now getting dark.
There was the great four-post bed with amber hangings as of old; there the toilet-table, the armchair, and the footstool, at which I had a hundred times been sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me uncommitted.
I had left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries -- to be reconciled and clasp hands in amity.
The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever -- there was that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised, imperious, despotic eyebrow.
How often had it lowered on me menace and hate! and how the recollection of childhood's terrors and sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line now!
My fingers had fastened on her hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure.
But unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so readily eradicated.
Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and, turning her face rather from me, she remarked that the night was warm.
Again she regarded me so icily, I felt at once that her opinion of me -- her feeling towards me -- was unchanged and unchangeable.
My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them back to their source.
But there was something I wished to say -- let me see -- " The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken place in her once vigorous frame.
"I am Jane Eyre." "I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe.
Such a burden to be left on my hands -- and so much annoyance as she caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition, and her sudden starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural watchings of one's movements!
I declare she talked to me once like something mad, or like a fiend -- no child ever spoke or looked as she did; I was glad to get her away from the house.
The fever broke out there, and many of the pupils died.
"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 try to make my children friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike.
In his last illness, he had it brought continually to his bedside; and but an hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep the creature.
Two-thirds of my income goes in paying the interest of mortgages.
He is beset by sharpers: John is sunk and degraded -- his look is frightful -- I feel ashamed for him when I see him.
"I think I had better leave her now," said I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed. "Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards night -- in the morning she is calmer."
How is the money to be had?"
She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor forbade everything which could painfully excite her.
Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with features.
Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined nose, with a straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-looking mouth, by no means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided cleft down the middle of it: of course, some black whiskers were wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above the forehead.
I drew them large; I shaped them well: the eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the irids lustrous and large. "
" I thought, as I surveyed the effect: "they want more force and spirit;" and I wrought the shades blacker, that the lights might flash more brilliantly -- a happy touch or two secured success.
There, I had a friend's face under my gaze; and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs on me
"Is that a portrait of some one you know?" asked Eliza, who had approached me unnoticed.
But what was that to her, or to any one but myself?
In the course of the afternoon and evening these hints were enlarged on: various soft conversations were reported, and sentimental scenes represented; and, in short, a volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my benefit.
The communications were renewed from day to day: they always ran on the same theme -- herself, her loves, and woes.
Her mind seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety, and aspirations after dissipations to come.
I know not how she occupied herself before breakfast, but after that meal she divided her time into regular portions, and each hour had its allotted task.
I asked her once what was the great attraction of that volume, and she said, "the Rubric." Three hours she gave to stitching, with gold thread, the border of a square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a carpet.
In answer to my inquiries after the use of this article, she informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new church lately erected near Gateshead.
She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative than usual, that John's conduct, and the threatened ruin of the family, had been a source of profound affliction to her: but she had now, she said, settled her mind, and formed her resolution.
Her own fortune she had taken care to secure; and when her mother died -- and it was wholly improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should either recover or linger long -- she would execute a long-cherished project: seek a retirement where punctual habits would be permanently secured from disturbance, and place safe barriers between herself and a frivolous world.
Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of her time in lying on the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the house, and wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send her an invitation up to town.
Eliza generally took no more notice of her sister's indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring, lounging object had been before her.
Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength: if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable.
Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered -- you must have music, dancing, and society -- or you languish, you die away.
The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment: you have had to seek no one's company, conversation, sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do.
After my mother's death, I wash my hands of you: from the day her coffin is carried to the vault in Gateshead Church, you and I will be as separate as if we had never known each other.
You need not think that because we chanced to be born of the same parents, I shall suffer you to fasten me down by even the feeblest claim: I can tell you this -- if the whole human race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, and we two stood alone on the earth, I would leave you in the old world, and betake myself to the new."
"Everybody knows you are the most selfish, heartless creature in existence: and I know your spiteful hatred towards me: I have had a specimen of it before in the trick you played me about Lord Edwin Vere: you could not bear me to be raised above you, to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare not show your face, and so you acted the spy and informer, and ruined my prospects for ever."
True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably savourless for the want of it.
It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on the sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a saint's-day service at the new church -- for in matters of religion she was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or foul, she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on week-days as there were prayers.
I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped, who lay there almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a remittent attention: the hired nurse, being little looked after, would slip out of the room whenever she could.
I found the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected: no nurse was there; the patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid face sunk in the pillows: the fire was dying in the grate.
I renewed the fuel, re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could not now gaze on me, and then I moved away to the window.
The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew tempestuously: "One lies there," I thought, "who will soon be beyond the war of earthly elements.
I was still listening in thought to her well-remembered tones -- still picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid deathbed, and whispered her longing to be restored to her divine Father's bosom -- when a feeble voice murmured from the couch behind: "Who is that?
"Who -- I?" was her answer. "
Who calls me aunt?
Yet," said she, "I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts deceive me.
I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where none exists: besides, in eight years she must be so changed.
" I now gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me to be: and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were quite collected, I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield.
It is as well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me.
Is the nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?"
" She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face changed; she seemed to experience some inward sensation -- the precursor, perhaps, of the last pang.
Eternity is before me: I had better tell her. --
"Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, Jane -- the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man's voice. -- Bring me some water!
"Dear Mrs. Reed," said I, as I offered her the draught she required, "think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind.
Forgive me for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight, nine years have passed since that day."
You were born, I think, to be my torment: my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit."
"If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to regard me with kindness and forgiveness" "You have a very bad disposition," said she, "and one to this day I feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend." "My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but not vindictive.
As I laid her down -- for I raised her and supported her on my arm while she drank -- I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine: the feeble fingers shrank from my touch -- the glazing eyes shunned my gaze. "
The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed.
Eliza and I went to look at her: Georgiana, who had burst out into loud weeping, said she dared not go.
There was stretched Sarah Reed's once robust and active frame, rigid and still: her eye of flint was covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul.
A strange and solemn object was that corpse to me.
After a silence of some minutes she observed -- "With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her life was shortened by trouble."
And then a spasm constricted her mouth for an instant: as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear.
I wished to leave immediately after the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off to London, whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down to direct his sister's interment and settle the family affairs.
It is only because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on my part."
Her plans required all her time and attention, she said; she was about to depart for some unknown bourne; and all day long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, and holding no communication with any one.
The vocation will fit you to a hair," I thought: "much good may it do you!"
How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation
Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came.
The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried.
My journey seemed tedious -- very tedious: fifty miles one day, a night spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day.
The evening arrival at the great town of -- scattered these thoughts; night gave them quite another turn: laid down on my traveller's bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation.
Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage: she said the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said, and from what she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the event would shortly take place.
" The question followed, "Where was I to go?
" I dreamt of Miss Ingram all the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. Rochester looked on with his arms folded -- smiling sardonically, as it seemed, at both her and me.
It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft: the haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky, though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future: its blue -- where blue was visible -- was mild and settled, and its cloud strata high and thin.
The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam chilled it -- it seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burning behind its screen of marbled vapour, and out of apertures shone a golden redness.
I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped once to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival. "
But what is so headstrong as youth?
They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the labourers are just quitting their work, and returning home with their rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates.
How full the hedges are of roses!
Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery.
"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead."
Good angels be my guard!
She comes from the other world -- from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming!
" I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially.
His last words were balm: they seemed to imply that it imported something to him whether I forgot him or not.
Everybody knew your errand."
Tell me now, fairy as you are -- can't you give me a charm, or a philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?" "It would be past the power of magic, sir;" and, in thought, I added, "A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty."
An impulse held me fast -- a force turned me round.
I said -- or something in me said for me, and in spite of me -- "Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness.
I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home -- my only home.
This was very pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.
When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adele, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable -- when he said he supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter back again, and added that he saw Adele was "prete a croquer sa petite maman Anglaise" -- I half ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.
A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall.
Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparation going on for such an event.
Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the negative.
One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no journeyings backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be sure it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; but what was that distance to an ardent lover?
I began to cherish hopes I had no right to conceive: that the match was broken off; that rumour had been mistaken; that one or both parties had changed their minds.
It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion.
The hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime; hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows between.
It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four: -- "Day its fervid fires had wasted," and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit.
Where the sun had gone down in simple state -- pure of the pomp of clouds -- spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven.
The east had its own charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a casino and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the horizon.
I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent -- that of a cigar -- stole from some window; I saw the library casement open a handbreadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into the orchard.
No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very high wall shut it out from the court, on one side; on the other, a beech avenue screened it from the lawn.
At the bottom was a sunk fence; its sole separation from lonely fields: a winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence.
While such honey-dew fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever; but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my step is stayed -- not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a warning fragrance.
Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither of shrub nor flower; it is -- I know it well -- it is Mr. Rochester's cigar.
I see trees laden with ripening fruit.
I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must flee.
A great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester's foot: he sees it, and bends to examine it. "
" 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 had made no noise: he had not eyes behind -- could his shadow feel?
" The moth roamed away.
I was sheepishly retreating also; but Mr. Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said -- "Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house; and surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at meeting with moonrise."
It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment.
I followed with lagging step, and thoughts busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any confusion: the evil -- if evil existent or prospective there was -- seemed to lie with me only; his mind was unconscious and quiet. "Jane,
" he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly strayed down in the direction of the sunk fence and the horse-chestnut, "Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?" "Yes, sir."
"You must have become in some degree attached to the house, -- you, who have an eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the organ of Adhesiveness?" "I am attached to it, indeed." "And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adele, too; and even for simple dame Fairfax?" "Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affection for both." "And would be sorry to part with them?" "Yes." "Pity!" he said, and sighed and paused.
Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes."
I wish to remind you that it was you who first said to me, with that discretion I respect in you -- with that foresight, prudence, and humility which befit your responsible and dependent position -- that in case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little Adele had better trot forthwith.
Adele must go to school; and you, Miss Eyre, must get a new situation." "Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I suppose -- " I was going to say, "I suppose I may stay here, till I find another shelter to betake myself to:" but I stopped, feeling it would not do to risk a long sentence, for my voice was not quite under command. "
"It is a long way off, sir." "No matter -- a girl of your sense will not object to the voyage or the distance." "Not the voyage, but the distance: and then the sea is a barrier -- " "From what, Jane?" "From England and from Thornfield: and -- " "Well?" "From you , sir."
I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of free will, my tears gushed out.
The thought of Mrs. O'Gall and Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to my heart; and colder the thought of all the brine and foam, destined, as it seemed, to rush between me and the master at whose side I now walked, and coldest the remembrance of the wider ocean -- wealth, caste, custom intervened between me and what I naturally and inevitably loved. "
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.
Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?" I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still. "Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you -- especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame.
And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.
The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a right to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last: yes, -- and to speak.
I swear it -- and the oath shall be kept."
Do you think I am an automaton? -- a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup?
I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; -- it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal, -- as we are!" "As we are!" repeated Mr. Rochester -- "so," he added, enclosing me in his arms.
I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now." "Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in its desperation."
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.
A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away -- away -- to an indefinite distance -- it died.
The nightingale's song was then the only voice of the hour: in listening to it, I again wept.
Some time passed before he spoke; he at last said -- "Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another."
"Your bride stands between us.
" He rose, and with a stride reached me. "
My bride is here," he said, again drawing me to him, "because my equal is here, and my likeness.
What love has she for me?
None: as I have taken pains to prove: I caused a rumour to reach her that my fortune was not a third of what was supposed, and after that I presented myself to see the result; it was coldness both from her and her mother.
You -- poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are -- I entreat to accept me as a husband." "What, me!" I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness -- and especially in his incivility -- to credit his sincerity: "me who have not a friend in the world but you -- if you are my friend: not a shilling but what you have given me?"
His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there were strong workings in the features, and strange gleams in the eyes. "
If you are true, and your offer real, my only feelings to you must be gratitude and devotion -- they cannot torture." "Gratitude!" he ejaculated; and added wildly -- "Jane accept me quickly.
"I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it."
"Then, sir, I will marry you." "Edward -- my little wife!" "Dear Edward!" "Come to me -- come to me entirely now," said he; and added, in his deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, "Make my happiness -- I will make yours."
But what had befallen the night?
The moon was not yet set, and we were all in shadow: I could scarcely see my master's face, near as I was.
it writhed and groaned; while wind roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us.
The rain rushed down.
The lamp was lit.
The clock was on the stroke of twelve. "
Explanation will do for another time," thought I. Still, when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even temporarily misconstrue what she had seen.
But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours' duration, I experienced no fear and little awe.
Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adele came running in to tell me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away.
CHAPTER XXIV As I rose and dressed, I thought over what had happened, and wondered if it were a dream.
While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt it was no longer plain: there was hope in its aspect and life in its colour; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of fruition, and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple.
I was not surprised, when I ran down into the hall, to see that a brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the night; and to feel, through the open glass door, the breathing of a fresh and fragrant breeze.
Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy.
A beggar-woman and her little boy -- pale, ragged objects both -- were coming up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all the money I happened to have in my purse -- some three or four shillings: good or bad, they must partake of my jubilee.
The rooks cawed, and blither birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart.
I must wait for my master to give explanations; and so must she.
The feeling, the announcement sent through me, was something stronger than was consistent with joy -- something that smote and stunned.
"You blushed, and now you are white, Jane: what is that for?" "Because you gave me a new name -- Jane Rochester; and it seems so strange."
Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world.
I was not born for a different destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy tale -- a day-dream."
In a day or two I hope to pour them into your lap: for every privilege, every attention shall be yours that I would accord a peer's daughter, if about to marry her."
For God's sake don't be ironical!"
"I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too," he went on, while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted, because I felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. "I will attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her hair; and I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil." "
The wedding is to take place quietly, in the church down below yonder; and then I shall waft you away at once to town.
-- and with you, sir?" "You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice, and Vienna: all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden by you: wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot shall step also.
"What do you anticipate of me?" "For a little while you will perhaps be as you are now, -- a very little while; and then you will turn cool; and then you will be capricious; and then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to please you: but when you get well used to me, you will perhaps like me again, -- like me, I say, not love me. I suppose your love will effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband's ardour extends.
"Yet are you not capricious, sir?" "To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts -- when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break -- at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent -- I am ever tender and true.
I am influenced -- conquered; and the influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win.
What does that inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance mean?" "I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was involuntary), I was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their charmers -- " "You were, you little elfish -- " "Hush, sir!
You don't talk very wisely just now; any more than those gentlemen acted very wisely.
However, had they been married, they would no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for their softness as suitors; and so will you, I fear.
Indeed I will, sir; I have my petition all ready." "Speak!
"Not at all, sir; I ask only this: don't send for the jewels, and don't crown me with roses: you might as well put a border of gold lace round that plain pocket handkerchief you have there." "I might as well 'gild refined gold.' I know it: your request is granted then -- for the time.
"What? what?" he said hastily. "Curiosity is a dangerous petition: it is well I have not taken a vow to accord every request -- " "But there can be no danger in complying with this, sir."
Encroach, presume, and the game is up."
Your eyebrows have become as thick as my finger, and your forehead resembles what, in some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled, 'a blue-piled thunderloft.'
Janet, by-the-bye, it was you who made me the offer."
Did you think nothing of Miss Ingram's feelings, sir?" "Her feelings are concentrated in one -- pride; and that needs humbling.
Won't she feel forsaken and deserted?" "Impossible! -- when I told you how she, on the contrary, deserted me: the idea of my insolvency cooled, or rather extinguished, her flame in a moment."
"You have a curious, designing mind, Mr. Rochester. I am afraid your principles on some points are eccentric." "My principles were never trained, Jane: they may have grown a little awry for want of attention." "Once again, seriously; may I enjoy the great good that has been vouchsafed to me, without fearing that any one else is suffering the bitter pain I myself felt a while ago?" "That you may, my good little girl: there is not another being in the world has the same pure love for me as yourself -- for I lay that pleasant unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in your affection.
I loved him very much -- more than I could trust myself to say -- more than words had power to express. "
"Station! station! -- your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you, now or hereafter. -- Go." I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs. Fairfax's parlour, I hurried down to it.
The old lady, had been reading her morning portion of Scripture -- the Lesson for the day; her Bible lay open before her, and her spectacles were upon it.
Her occupation, suspended by Mr. Rochester's announcement, seemed now forgotten: her eyes, fixed on the blank wall opposite, expressed the surprise of a quiet mind stirred by unwonted tidings.
Seeing me, she roused herself: she made a sort of effort to smile, and framed a few words of congratulation; but the smile expired, and the sentence was abandoned unfinished.
It has seemed to me more than once when I have been in a doze, that my dear husband, who died fifteen years since, has come in and sat down beside me; and that I have even heard him call me by my name, Alice, as he used to do.
He is a proud man: all the Rochesters were proud: and his father, at least, liked money.
She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had there found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma. "
Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and there are twenty years of difference in your ages.
No one, who saw us together, would suppose it for an instant.
I was so hurt by her coldness and scepticism, that the tears rose to my eyes.
I knew such an idea would shock, perhaps offend you; and you were so discreet, and so thoroughly modest and sensible, I hoped you might be trusted to protect yourself.
Gentlemen in his station are not accustomed to marry their governesses.
The carriage was ready: they were bringing it round to the front, and my master was pacing the pavement, Pilot following him backwards and forwards. "Adele may accompany us, may she not, sir?"
The chill of Mrs. Fairfax's warnings, and the damp of her doubts were upon me: something of unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes.
"What is the matter?" he asked; "all the sunshine is gone.
After all, a single morning's interruption will not matter much," said he, "when I mean shortly to claim you -- your thoughts, conversation, and company -- for life." Adele, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing her gratitude for my intercession: she was instantly stowed away into a corner on the other side of him.
She then peeped round to where I sat; so stern a neighbour was too restrictive to him, in his present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask of him any information. "
Adele heard him, and asked if she was to go to school "sans mademoiselle?" "Yes," he replied, "absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me there, and only me." "She will have nothing to eat: you will starve her," observed Adele.
"Fire rises out of the lunar mountains: when she is cold, I'll carry her up to a peak, and lay her down on the edge of a crater."
" We were now outside Thornfield gates, and bowling lightly along the smooth road to Millcote, where the dust was well laid by the thunderstorm, and, where the low hedges and lofty timber trees on each side glistened green and rain-refreshed. "
In that field, Adele, I was walking late one evening about a fortnight since -- the evening of the day you helped me to make hay in the orchard meadows; and, as I was tired with raking swaths, I sat down to rest me on a stile; and there I took out a little book and a pencil, and began to write about a misfortune that befell me long ago, and a wish I had for happy days to come: I was writing away very fast, though daylight was fading from the leaf, when something came up the path and stopped two yards off me.
I never spoke to it, and it never spoke to me, in words; but I read its eyes, and it read mine; and our speechless colloquy was to this effect -- "It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said; and its errand was to make me happy: I must go with it out of the common world to a lonely place -- such as the moon, for instance -- and it nodded its head towards her horn, rising over Hay-hill: it told me of the alabaster cave and silver vale where we might live.
Here is a talisman will remove all difficulties;' and she held out a pretty gold ring. '
The ring, Adele, is in my breeches-pocket, under the disguise of a sovereign: but I mean soon to change it to a ring again."
"But what has mademoiselle to do with it?
Whereupon I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part, evinced a fund of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr. Rochester "un vrai menteur," and assuring him that she made no account whatever of his "contes de fee," and that "du reste, il n'y avait pas de fees, et quand meme il y en avait:" she was sure they would never appear to him, nor ever give him rings, or offer to live with him in the moon.
The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me.
Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of a jewellers shop: the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation.
As we re-entered the carriage, and I sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered what, in the hurry of events, dark and bright, I had wholly forgotten -- the letter of my uncle, John Eyre, to Mrs. Reed: his intention to adopt me and make me his legatee.
"It would, indeed, be a relief," I thought, "if I had ever so small an independency; I never can bear being dressed like a doll by Mr. Rochester, or sitting like a second Danae with the golden shower falling daily round me.
I will write to Madeira the moment I get home, and tell my uncle John I am going to be married, and to whom: if I had but a prospect of one day bringing Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I could better endure to be kept by him now."
He smiled; and I thought his smile was such as a sultan might, in a blissful and fond moment, bestow on a slave his gold and gems had enriched: I crushed his hand, which was ever hunting mine, vigorously, and thrust it back to him red with the passionate pressure.
The Eastern allusion bit me again.
I'll get admitted there, and I'll stir up mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashaw as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered amongst our hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your bonds till you have signed a charter, the most liberal that despot ever yet conferred." "I would consent to be at your mercy, Jane."
I'll furnish my own wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give me nothing but -- " "Well, but what?" "Your regard; and if I give you mine in return, that debt will be quit."
"I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff, to comfort me under all this, 'pour me donner une contenance,' as Adele would say; and unfortunately I have neither my cigar-case, nor my snuff-box.
I had prepared an occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend the whole time in a tete-a-tete conversation. I remembered his fine voice; I knew he liked to sing -- good singers generally do.
I was no vocalist myself, and, in his fastidious judgment, no musician, either; but I delighted in listening when the performance was good.
No sooner had twilight, that hour of romance, began to lower her blue and starry banner over the lattice, than I rose, opened the piano, and entreated him, for the love of heaven, to give me a song.
He said I was a capricious witch, and that he would rather sing another time; but I averred that no time was like the present. "
Her coming was my hope each day, Her parting was my pain; The chance that did her steps delay Was ice in every vein.
But wide as pathless was the space That lay our lives between, And dangerous as the foamy race Of ocean-surges green.
And haunted as a robber-path Through wilderness or wood; For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath, Between our spirits stood.
I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned; I omens did defy: Whatever menaced, harassed, warned, I passed impetuous by.
Still bright on clouds of suffering dim Shines that soft, solemn joy; Nor care I now, how dense and grim Disasters gather nigh.
My love has placed her little hand
And vowed that wedlock's sacred band Our nature shall entwine.
My love has sworn, with sealing kiss, With me to live -- to die; I have at last my nameless bliss.
He rose and came towards me, and I saw his face all kindled, and his full falcon-eye flashing, and tenderness and passion in every lineament.
Death was not for such as I." "Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as he had: but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a suttee."
" Here I heard myself apostrophised as a "hard little thing;" and it was added, "any other woman would have been melted to marrow at hearing such stanzas crooned in her praise."
The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of probation; and with the best success.
He continued to send for me punctually the moment the clock struck seven; though when I appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as "love" and "darling" on his lips: the best words at my service were "provoking puppet," "malicious elf," "sprite," "changeling," &c. For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a pinch on the arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the ear.
Meantime, Mr. Rochester affirmed I was wearing him to skin and bone, and threatened awful vengeance for my present conduct at some period fast coming.
"I can keep you in reasonable check now," I reflected; "and I don't doubt to be able to do it hereafter: if one expedient loses its virtue, another must be devised."
Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather have pleased than teased him.
My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven.
He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun.
The month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being numbered.
The cards of address alone remained to nail on: they lay, four little squares, in the drawer.
It was enough that in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the pearl-coloured robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped portmanteau.
"I am feverish: I hear the wind blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it." It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not only the anticipation of the great change -- the new life which was to commence to-morrow: both these circumstances had their share, doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me forth at this late hour into the darkening grounds: but a third cause influenced my mind more than they.
Something had happened which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen the event but myself: it had taken place the preceding night.
Mr. Rochester that night was absent from home; nor was he yet returned: business had called him to a small estate of two or three farms he possessed thirty miles off -- business it was requisite he should settle in person, previous to his meditated departure from England.
I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which all day had blown strong and full from the south, without, however, bringing a speck of rain.
Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it seemed to augment its rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew steadfastly one way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back their boughs once in an hour; so continuous was the strain bending their branchy heads northward -- the clouds drifted from pole to pole, fast following, mass on mass: no glimpse of blue sky had been visible that July day.
Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of the chestnut-tree; it stood up black and riven: the trunk, split down the centre, gasped ghastly.
The cloven halves were not broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; though community of vitality was destroyed -- the sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter's tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth: as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree -- a ruin, but an entire ruin.
"You did right to hold fast to each other," I said: as if the monster- splinters were living things, and could hear me.
"I think, scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots: you will never have green leaves more -- never more see birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate: each of you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay.
" As I looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud.
The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water, poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again.
Then I repaired to the library to ascertain whether the fire was lit, for, though summer, I knew on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would like to see a cheerful hearth when he came in: yes, the fire had been kindled some time, and burnt well.
I placed his arm-chair by the chimney-corner: I wheeled the table near it: I let down the curtain, and had the candles brought in ready for lighting.
More restless than ever, when I had completed these arrangements I could not sit still, nor even remain in the house: a little time-piece in the room and the old clock in the hall simultaneously struck ten. "
" The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the gates; but the road as far as I could see, to the right hand and the left, was all still and solitary: save for the shadows of clouds crossing it at intervals as the moon looked out, it was but a long pale line, unvaried by one moving speck.
A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked -- a tear of disappointment and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away.
I lingered; the moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of dense cloud: the night grew dark; rain came driving fast on the gale. "
I had expected his arrival before tea; now it was dark: what could keep him?
Had an accident happened?
The event of last night again recurred to me.
I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised; and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its meridian, and must now decline. "
I set out; I walked fast, but not far: ere I had measured a quarter of a mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs; a horseman came on, full gallop; a dog ran by his side.
He saw me; for the moon had opened a blue field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright: he took his hat off, and waved it round his head.
I obeyed: joy made me agile: I sprang up before him.
He checked himself in his exultation to demand, "But is there anything the matter, Janet, that you come to meet me at such an hour?
Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid; pull my cloak round you: but I think you are feverish, Jane: both your cheek and hand are burning hot.
I ask again, is there anything the matter?"
"Then you have been both?" "Rather: but I'll tell you all about it by-and-bye, sir; and I daresay you will only laugh at me for my pains." "I'll laugh at you heartily when to-morrow is past; till then I dare not: my prize is not certain.
This is you, who have been as slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose?
Everything in life seems unreal."
"Are all your arrangements complete?" "All, sir." "And on my part likewise," he returned, "I have settled everything; and we shall leave Thornfield to-morrow, within half-an-hour after our return from church." "Very well, sir." "With what an extraordinary smile you uttered that word -- 'very well,' Jane!
What is the matter?
"I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel.
I wish this present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next may come charged?" "This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over-excited, or over-fatigued."
Mrs. Fairfax has said something, perhaps? or you have overheard the servants talk? -- your sensitive self-respect has been wounded?" "No, sir.
" It struck twelve -- I waited till the time-piece had concluded its silver chime, and the clock its hoarse, vibrating stroke, and then I proceeded.
Yesterday I trusted well in Providence, and believed that events were working together for your good and mine: it was a fine day, if you recollect -- the calmness of the air and sky forbade apprehensions respecting your safety or comfort on your journey.
I thought of the life that lay before me -- your life, sir -- an existence more expansive and stirring than my own: as much more so as the depths of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows of its own strait channel.
I wondered why moralists call this world a dreary wilderness: for me it blossomed like a rose.
Just at sunset, the air turned cold and the sky cloudy: I went in, Sophie called me upstairs to look at my wedding-dress, which they had just brought; and under it in the box I found your present -- the veil which, in your princely extravagance, you sent for from London: resolved, I suppose, since I would not have jewels, to cheat me into accepting something as costly.
I thought how I would carry down to you the square of unembroidered blond I had myself prepared as a covering for my low-born head, and ask if that was not good enough for a woman who could bring her husband neither fortune, beauty, nor connections.
But, sir, as it grew dark, the wind rose: it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows now -- wild and high -- but 'with a sullen, moaning sound' far more eerie.
I came into this room, and the sight of the empty chair and fireless hearth chilled me.
For some time after I went to bed, I could not sleep -- a sense of anxious excitement distressed me.
The gale still rising, seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful under-sound; whether in the house or abroad I could not at first tell, but it recurred, doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made out it must be some dog howling at a distance.
During all my first sleep, I was following the windings of an unknown road; total obscurity environed me; rain pelted me; I was burdened with the charge of a little child: a very small creature, too young and feeble to walk, and which shivered in my cold arms, and wailed piteously in my ear.
I thought, sir, that you were on the road a long way before me; and I strained every nerve to overtake you, and made effort on effort to utter your name and entreat you to stop -- but my movements were fettered, and my voice still died away inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew farther and farther every moment." "And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am close to you?
Those words did not die inarticulate on your lips.
"I do, sir -- I do, with my whole heart." "Well," he said, after some minutes' silence, "it is strange; but that sentence has penetrated my breast painfully.
I think because you said it with such an earnest, religious energy, and because your upward gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and devotion: it is too much as if some spirit were near me.
The disquietude of his air, the somewhat apprehensive impatience of his manner, surprised me: but I proceeded.
I thought that of all the stately front nothing remained but a shell-like wall, very high and very fragile-looking.
I wandered, on a moonlight night, through the grass- grown enclosure within: here I stumbled over a marble hearth, and there over a fallen fragment of cornice.
Wrapped up in a shawl, I still carried the unknown little child: I might not lay it down anywhere, however tired were my arms -- however much its weight impeded my progress, I must retain it.
I climbed the thin wall with frantic perilous haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top: the stones rolled from under my feet, the ivy branches I grasped gave way, the child clung round my neck in terror, and almost strangled me; at last I gained the summit.
The blast blew so strong I could not stand.
I sat down on the narrow ledge; I hushed the scared infant in my lap: you turned an angle of the road: I bent forward to take a last look; the wall crumbled; I was shaken; the child rolled from my knee, I lost my balance, fell, and woke."
" "All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come.
On waking, a gleam dazzled my eyes; I thought --
There was a light in the dressing-table, and the door of the closet, where, before going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open; I heard a rustling there.
No one answered; but a form emerged from the closet; it took the light, held it aloft, and surveyed the garments pendent from the portmanteau. '
I had risen up in bed, I bent forward: first surprise, then bewilderment, came over me; and then my blood crept cold through my veins.
The shape standing before me had never crossed my eyes within the precincts of Thornfield Hall before; the height, the contour were new to me."
"It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back.
At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass." "And how were they?"
I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!" "Ghosts are usually pale, Jane." "This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes.
{It removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them: p272.jpg} "Afterwards?" "It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw dawn approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door.
Just at my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon me -- she thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my eyes.
"Who was with you when you revived?" "No one, sir, but the broad day.
Now, sir, tell me who and what that woman was?"
. I must be careful of you, my treasure: nerves like yours were not made for rough handling."
"Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in fault; the thing was real: the transaction actually took place." "And your previous dreams, were they real too?
Why, the day is already commenced which is to bind us indissolubly; and when we are once united, there shall be no recurrence of these mental terrors: I guarantee that."
"And since I cannot do it, Jane, it must have been unreal." "But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and when I looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the cheerful aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there -- on the carpet -- I saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis, -- the veil, torn from top to bottom in two halves!" I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder; he hastily flung his arms round me.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed, "that if anything malignant did come near you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed.
Oh, to think what might have happened!"
A woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that woman was -- must have been -- Grace Poole.
In a state between sleeping and waking, you noticed her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious as you were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own: the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black face, the exaggerated stature, were figments of imagination; results of nightmare: the spiteful tearing of the veil was real: and it is like her.
You must share it with her to-night, Jane: it is no wonder that the incident you have related should make you nervous, and I would rather you did not sleep alone: promise me to go to the nursery."
Don't you hear to what soft whispers the wind has fallen? and there is no more beating of rain against the window-panes: look here" (he lifted up the curtain) -- "it is a lovely night!"
Half heaven was pure and stainless: the clouds, now trooping before the wind, which had shifted to the west, were filing off eastward in long, silvered columns.
The moon shone peacefully. "
Well," said Mr. Rochester, gazing inquiringly into my eyes, "how is my Janet now?" "The night is serene, sir; and so am I." "And you will not dream of separation and sorrow to-night; but of happy love and blissful union.
" This prediction was but half fulfilled: I did not indeed dream of sorrow, but as little did I dream of joy; for I never slept at all.
With little Adele in my arms, I watched the slumber of childhood -- so tranquil, so passionless, so innocent -- and waited for the coming day: all my life was awake and astir in my frame: and as soon as the sun rose I rose too.
I was received at the foot of the stairs by Mr. Rochester. "Lingerer!" he said, "my brain is on fire with impatience, and you tarry so long!"
One of his lately hired servants, a footman, answered it. "
"Is the luggage brought down?" "They are bringing it down, sir." "Go you to the church: see if Mr. Wood (the clergyman) and the clerk are there: return and tell me."
The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates; the footman soon returned. "
"And the carriage?" "The horses are harnessing."
I would fain have spoken to her, but my hand was held by a grasp of iron: I was hurried along by a stride I could hardly follow; and to look at Mr. Rochester's face was to feel that not a second of delay would be tolerated for any purpose.
I wonder what other bridegroom ever looked as he did -- so bent up to a purpose, so grimly resolute: or who, under such steadfast brows, ever revealed such flaming and flashing eyes. I know not
whether the day was fair or foul; in descending the drive, I gazed neither on sky nor earth: my heart was with my eyes; and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester's frame.
I wanted to see the invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a glance fierce and fell.
We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his white surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him.
All was still: two shadows only moved in a remote corner.
My conjecture had been correct: the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now stood by the vault of the Rochesters, their backs towards us, viewing through the rails the old time-stained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the remains of Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the civil wars, and of Elizabeth, his wife.
Our place was taken at the communion rails.
Hearing a cautious step behind me, I glanced over my shoulder: one of the strangers -- a gentleman, evidently -- was advancing up the chancel.
The service began.
The explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then the clergyman came a step further forward, and, bending slightly towards Mr. Rochester, went on.
"I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed), that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's Word doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful."
He paused, as the custom is.
When is the pause after that sentence ever broken by reply?
And the clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his book, and had held his breath but for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was already stretched towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to ask, "Wilt thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?" -- when a distinct and near voice said -- "The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment.
" The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did the same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his head or eyes, he said, "Proceed."
Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep but low intonation.
Presently Mr. Wood said -- "I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been asserted, and evidence of its truth or falsehood."
"The ceremony is quite broken off," subjoined the voice behind us. "I am in a condition to prove my allegation: an insuperable impediment to this marriage exists."
how like quarried marble was his pale, firm, massive front at this moment!
How his eye shone, still watchful, and yet wild beneath!
"What is the nature of the impediment?" he asked.
The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails.
Mr. Rochester has a wife now living." My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated to thunder -- my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning.
His whole face was colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint.
My name is Briggs, a solicitor of -- - Street, London."
"I would remind you of your lady's existence, sir, which the law recognises, if you do not." "Favour me with an account of her -- with her name, her parentage, her place of abode." "Certainly."
The record of the marriage will be found in the register of that church -- a copy of it is now in my possession.
Signed, Richard Mason.'" "That -- if a genuine document -- may prove I have been married, but it does not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still living."
Mr. Mason, have the goodness to step forward." Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced, too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through his frame.
The second stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the background, now drew near; a pale face looked over the solicitor's shoulder -- yes, it was Mason himself.
His eye, as I have often said, was a black eye: it had now a tawny, nay, a bloody light in its gloom; and his face flushed -- olive cheek and hueless forehead received a glow as from spreading, ascending heart-fire: and he stirred, lifted his strong arm -- he could have struck Mason, dashed him on the church-floor, shocked by ruthless blow the breath from his body -- but Mason shrank away, and cried faintly, "Good God!" Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester -- his passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he only asked -- "What have you to say?"
An inaudible reply escaped Mason's white lips. "
The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly.
Then addressing Mason, he inquired gently, "Are you aware, sir, whether or not this gentleman's wife is still living?" "Courage," urged the lawyer, -- "speak out." "She is now living at Thornfield Hall," said Mason, in more articulate tones: "I saw her there last April.
" I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester's lips, and he muttered -- "No, by God!
I took care that none should hear of it -- or of her under that name."
The man obeyed.
-- I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out-manoeuvred me, or Providence has checked me, -- perhaps the last.
Gentlemen, my plan is broken up: -- what this lawyer and his client say is true: I have been married, and the woman to whom I was married lives!
You say you never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood; but I daresay you have many a time inclined your ear to gossip about the mysterious lunatic kept there under watch and ward.
I now inform you that she is my wife, whom I married fifteen years ago, -- Bertha Mason by name; sister of this resolute personage, who is now, with his quivering limbs and white cheeks, showing you what a stout heart men may bear.
Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard! -- as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before.
my experience has been heavenly, if you only knew it!
This girl," he continued, looking at me, "knew no more than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret: she thought all was fair and legal and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and embruted partner!
Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came after.
Who wants them?
We mounted the first staircase, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the third storey: the low, black door, opened by Mr. Rochester's master-key, admitted us to the tapestried room, with its great bed and its pictorial cabinet.
Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently cooking something in a saucepan.
In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards.
"How are you? and how is your charge to-day?" "We're tolerable, sir, I thank you," replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob: "rather snappish, but not 'rageous."
A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report: the clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet. "
"Only a few moments, Grace: you must allow me a few moments." "Take care then, sir! -- for God's sake, take care!" The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and gazed wildly at her visitors.
The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously.
Mr. Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled his throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled.
The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges.
And this is what I wished to have" (laying his hand on my shoulder): "this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon, I wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout.
The solicitor addressed me as he descended the stair.
"You, madam," said he, "are cleared from all blame: your uncle will be glad to hear it -- if, indeed, he should be still living -- when Mr. Mason returns to Madeira."
When your uncle received your letter intimating the contemplated union between yourself and Mr. Rochester, Mr. Mason, who was staying at Madeira to recruit his health, on his way back to Jamaica, happened to be with him.
Mr. Eyre mentioned the intelligence; for he knew that my client here was acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Rochester.
Your uncle, I am sorry to say, is now on a sick bed; from which, considering the nature of his disease -- decline -- and the stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will ever rise.
Were I not morally certain that your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would advise you to accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I think you had better remain in England till you can hear further, either from or of Mr. Eyre.
The clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of admonition or reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done, he too departed.
The house cleared, I shut myself in, fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded -- not to weep, not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but -- mechanically to take off the wedding dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn yesterday, as I thought, for the last time.
I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on them.
The morning had been a quiet morning enough -- all except the brief scene with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been noisy; there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no dispute, no defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words had been spoken, a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage made; some stern, short questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers, explanations given, evidence adduced; an open admission of the truth had been uttered by my master; then the living proof had been seen; the intruders were gone, and all was over.
I was in my own room as usual -- just myself, without obvious change: nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me.
Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman -- almost a bride, was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate.
A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and flagrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway.
My hopes were all dead -- struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt.
I looked at my love: that feeling which was my master's -- which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr. Rochester's arms -- it could not derive warmth from his breast.
Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted -- confidence destroyed!
I would not ascribe vice to him; I would not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless truth was gone from his idea, and from his presence I must go: that I perceived well.
I should fear even to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him.
How weak my conduct!
My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow.
Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength.
I lay faint, longing to be dead.
One idea only still throbbed life-like within me -- a remembrance of God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was found to express them -- "Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help."
It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it -- as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips -- it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me.
The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass.
That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, "the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me."
But the answer my mind gave -- "Leave Thornfield at once" -- was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears.
That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part of my woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable
But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold that I should do it.
I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.
"No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it."
I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless a judge haunted, -- at the silence which so awful a voice filled.
My head swam as I stood erect.
I perceived that I was sickening from excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for I had taken no breakfast.
And, with a strange pang, I now reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had been sent to ask how I was, or to invite me to come down: not even little Adele had tapped at the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had sought me. "
Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes," I murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed out.
I stumbled over an obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs were feeble.
I fell, but not on to the ground: an outstretched arm caught me.
I looked up -- I was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber threshold.
I was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief.
I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping blood?" "Well, Jane! not a word of reproach?
If the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine.
There was such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole look and mien -- I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only at my heart's core.
-- I guess rightly?" "Yes." "If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must regard me as a plotting profligate -- a base and low rake who has been simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of self-respect.
I see you can say nothing in the first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself to accuse and revile me, and besides, the flood-gates of tears are opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and you have no desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking how to act -- talking you consider is of no use. I know you -- I am on my guard." "Sir, I do not wish to act against you," I said; and my unsteady voice warned me to curtail my sentence. "
You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to me: to live under this roof only as Adele's governess; if ever I say a friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to me, you will say, -- 'That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must be ice and rock to him;' and ice and rock you will accordingly become."
I charged them to conceal from you, before I ever saw you, all knowledge of the curse of the place; merely because I feared Adele never would have a governess to stay if she knew with what inmate she was housed, and my plans would not permit me to remove the maniac elsewhere -- though I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even more retired and hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of the situation, in the heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement.
Probably those damp walls would soon have eased me of her charge: but to each villain his own vice; and mine is not a tendency to indirect assassination, even of what I most hate. "
Concealing the mad-woman's neighbourhood from you, however, was something like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down near a upas-tree: that demon's vicinage is poisoned, and always was.
But I'll shut up Thornfield Hall: I'll nail up the front door and board the lower windows: I'll give Mrs. Poole two hundred a year to live here with my wife , as you term that fearful hag: Grace will do much for money, and she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to bear her company and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when my wife is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at night, to stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and so on -- " "Sir," I interrupted him, "you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady: you speak of her with hate -- with vindictive antipathy.
Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.
Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat -- your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive
. I don't know what sphynx-like expression is forming in your countenance.
The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come a knot and a puzzle: here it is.
His voice was hoarse; his look that of a man who is just about to burst an insufferable bond and plunge headlong into wild license.
The present -- the passing second of time -- was all I had in which to control and restrain him -- a movement of repulsion, flight, fear would have sealed my doom, -- and his.
The crisis was perilous; but not without its charm: such as the Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips over the rapid in his canoe.
If the flood annoyed him, so much the better.
His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so I, in my turn, became calm.
These words cut me: yet what could I do or I say?
His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye blazed: still I dared to speak. "
Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself.
He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking his cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all hands.
I did what human beings do instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity -- looked for aid to one higher than man: the words "God help me!" burst involuntarily from my lips.
"I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once." "And did you ever hear that my father was an avaricious, grasping man?"
Yet as little could he endure that a son of his should be a poor man.
My father said nothing about her money; but he told me Miss Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for her beauty: and this was no lie.
Her family wished to secure me because I was of a good race; and so did she.
All the men in her circle seemed to admire her and envy me.
I was dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited; and being ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her.
There is no folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission.
Her relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she allured me: a marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was.
The elder one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot hate, whilst I abhor all his kindred, because he has some grains of affection in his feeble mind, shown in the continued interest he takes in his wretched sister, and also in a dog-like attachment he once bore me), will probably be in the same state one day.
My father and my brother Rowland knew all this; but they thought only of the thirty thousand pounds, and joined in the plot against me."
"These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger -- when I found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile -- when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders -- even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt. "
Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details: some strong words shall express what I have to say.
I lived with that woman upstairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed: her character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices sprang up fast and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty could check them, and I would not use cruelty.
How fearful were the curses those propensities entailed on me!
"My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four years my father died too.
And I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings: for the doctors now discovered that my wife was mad -- her excesses had prematurely developed the germs of insanity.
"Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous, selfish hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes, crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them.
But that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole face is full at this moment -- with which your eyes are now almost overflowing -- with which your heart is heaving -- with which your hand is trembling in mine.
Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion.
I accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free advent -- my arms wait to receive her."
"Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?" "Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect was all that intervened between me and the gulf.
Still, society associated my name and person with hers; I yet saw her and heard her daily: something of her breath (faugh!) mixed with the air I breathed; and besides, I remembered I had once been her husband -- that recollection was then, and is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover, I knew that while she lived I could never be the husband of another and better wife; and, though five years my senior (her family and her father had lied to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live as long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind.
"One night I had been awakened by her yells -- (since the medical men had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up) -- it was a fiery West Indian night; one of the description that frequently precede the hurricanes of those climates.
The air was like sulphur-steams -- I could find no refreshment anywhere.
Mosquitoes came buzzing in and hummed sullenly round the room; the sea, which I could hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake -- black clouds were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball -- she threw her last bloody glance over a world quivering with the ferment of tempest.
I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with such language! -- no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word -- the thin partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction to her wolfish cries. "'This life,' said I at last, 'is hell: this is the air -- those are the sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself from it if I can.
The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul.
I only entertained the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair, which had originated the wish and design of self-destruction, was past in a second.
"A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through the open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and the air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution.
While I walked under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst its drenched pomegranates and pine-apples, and while the refulgent dawn of the tropics kindled round me -- I reasoned thus, Jane -- and now listen; for it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and showed me the right path to follow.
"The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart, dried up and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled with living blood -- my being longed for renewal -- my soul thirsted for a pure draught.
From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea -- bluer than the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened thus: -- "'Go,' said Hope, 'and live again in Europe: there it is not known what a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is bound to you.
You may take the maniac with you to England; confine her with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield: then travel yourself to what clime you will, and form what new tie you like.
That woman, who has so abused your long- suffering, so sullied your name, so outraged your honour, so blighted your youth, is not your wife, nor are you her husband.
See that she is cared for as her condition demands, and you have done all that God and humanity require of you.
Let her identity, her connection with yourself, be buried in oblivion: you are bound to impart them to no living being.
My father and brother had not made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union -- having already begun to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the family character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening to me -- I added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the infamous conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as to make him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law.
I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my secret: besides, she had lucid intervals of days -- sometimes weeks -- which she filled up with abuse of me.
She and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed Mason's wounds that night he was stabbed and worried), are the only two I have ever admitted to my confidence.
Grace has, on the whole, proved a good keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her own, of which it appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to her harassing profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and baffled.
The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never failed to take advantage of her guardian's temporary lapses; once to secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the night-time.
I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she then spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps brought back vague reminiscences of her own bridal days: but on what might have happened, I cannot endure to reflect.
When I think of the thing which flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet visage over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles -- " "And what, sir," I asked, while he paused, "did you do when you had settled her here? Where did you go?" "What did I do, Jane?
My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent woman, whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at Thornfield -- " "But you could not marry, sir."
I meant to tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals openly: and it appeared to me so absolutely rational that I should be considered free to love and be loved, I never doubted some woman might be found willing and able to understand my case and accept me, in spite of the curse with which I was burdened." "Well, sir?" "When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile.
You open your eyes like an eager bird, and make every now and then a restless movement, as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you, and you wanted to read the tablet of one's heart.
It is a small phrase very frequent with you; and which many a time has drawn me on and on through interminable talk: I don't very well know why."
What came of such an event?" "Precisely! and what do you wish to know now?" "Whether you found any one you liked: whether you asked her to marry you; and what she said."
"I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I asked her to marry me: but what she said is yet to be recorded in the book of Fate.
Provided with plenty of money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own society: no circles were closed against me.
I longed only for what suited me -- for the antipodes of the Creole: and I longed vainly. Amongst them all I found not one whom
Disappointment made me reckless.
Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it.
The first I chose was Celine Varens -- another of those steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them.
You already know what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated.
What was their beauty to me in a few weeks?
Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading.
I passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it: I had no presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning that the arbitress of my life -- my genius for good or evil -- waited there in humble guise.
It seemed as if a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed to bear me on its tiny wing.
I was surly; but the thing would not go: it stood by me with strange perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort of authority
It was well I had learnt that this elf must return to me -- that it belonged to my house down below -- or I could not have felt it pass away from under my hand, and seen it vanish behind the dim hedge, without singular regret.
I was in my room; the door was ajar: I could both listen and watch.
I think those day visions were not dark: there was a pleasurable illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft excitement in your aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, hypochondriac brooding: your look revealed rather the sweet musings of youth when its spirit follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up and on to an ideal heaven.
The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the hall, wakened you: and how curiously you smiled to and at yourself, Janet!
It seemed to say -- 'My fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are absolutely unreal.
An unusual -- to me -- a perfectly new character I suspected was yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better.
Your garb and manner were restricted by rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or blunder; yet when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing eye to your interlocutor's face: there was penetration and power in each glance you gave; when plied by close questions, you found ready and round answers.
Very soon you seemed to get used to me: I believe you felt the existence of sympathy between you and your grim and cross master, Jane; for it was astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquillised your manner: snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear, annoyance, or displeasure at my moroseness; you watched me, and now and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot describe.
I was an intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of making this novel and piquant acquaintance: besides, I was for a while troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its bloom would fade -- the sweet charm of freshness would leave it.
Your habitual expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not despondent, for you were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had little hope, and no actual pleasure.
I permitted myself the delight of being kind to you; kindness stirred emotion soon: your face became soft in expression, your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a grateful happy accent.
I used to enjoy a chance meeting with you, Jane, at this time: there was a curious hesitation in your manner: you glanced at me with a slight trouble -- a hovering doubt: you did not know what my caprice might be -- whether I was going to play the master and be stern, or the friend and be benignant.
I was now too fond of you often to simulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my hand out cordially, such bloom and light and bliss rose to your young, wistful features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and there to my heart."
"Don't talk any more of those days, sir," I interrupted, furtively dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was torture to me; for I knew what I must do -- and do soon -- and all these reminiscences, and these revelations of his feelings only made my work more difficult. "
No, Jane," he returned: "what necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surer -- the Future so much brighter?"
"You see now how the case stands -- do you not?" he continued.
"After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love -- I have found you.
I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one. "
To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now that I had but a hideous demon.
This was cowardly: I should have appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now -- opened to you plainly my life of agony -- described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier existence -- shown to you, not my resolution (that word is weak), but my resistless bent to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return.
"Why are you silent, Jane?" I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals.
Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning!
Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce love and idol.
Another long silence. "Jane!" recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror -- for this still voice was the pant of a lion rising -- "Jane, do you mean to go one way in the world, and to let me go another?" "I do."
" A wild look raised his brows -- crossed his features: he rose; but he forebore yet.
All happiness will be torn away with you.
What then is left?
For a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer me to some corpse in yonder churchyard.
"Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?" His voice rose.
And what a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in your ideas, is proved by your conduct!
Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law, no man being injured by the breach? for you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me?"
This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him.
Who in the world cares for you ? or who will be injured by what you do?"
Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be.
If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?
They have a worth -- so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane -- quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs.
His fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment, whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and grasped my waist.
The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter -- often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter -- in the eye.
My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and my over-taxed strength almost exhausted. "
If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only let the captive loose.
Conqueror I might be of the house; but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place.
The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only an idiot, however, would have succumbed now.
My deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?"
What unutterable pathos was in his voice!
my hope -- my love -- my life!" broke in anguish from his lips.
Then came a deep, strong sob.
"Little Jane's love would have been my best reward," he answered; "without it, my heart is broken.
Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his eyes; erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded the embrace, and at once quitted the room. "Farewell!" was the cry of my heart as I left him.
Despair added, "Farewell for ever!" * * * * * That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me as soon as I lay down in bed.
I was transported in thought to the scenes of childhood: I dreamt I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that the night was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears.
The light that long ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause in the centre of the obscured ceiling.
I lifted up my head to look: the roof resolved to clouds, high and dim; the gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours she is about to sever.
I watched her come -- watched with the strangest anticipation; as though some word of doom were to be written on her disk.
She broke forth as never moon yet burst from cloud: a hand first penetrated the sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a white human form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward.
It spoke to my spirit: immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my heart -- "My daughter, flee temptation." "Mother, I will.
It was yet night, but July nights are short: soon after midnight, dawn comes.
"It cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfil," thought I. I rose: I was dressed; for I had taken off nothing but my shoes.
I left that; it was not mine: it was the visionary bride's who had melted in air.
No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her.
I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without a pause; but my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was forced to stop also.
No sleep was there: the inmate was walking restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I listened.
There was a heaven -- a temporary heaven -- in this room for me, if I chose: I had but to go in and to say -- "Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till death," and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips.
That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with impatience for day.
He would feel himself forsaken; his love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow desperate.
My hand moved towards the lock: I caught it back, and glided on.
I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I should have to walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late, must not break down.
Dim dawn glimmered in the yard.
The great gates were closed and locked; but a wicket in one of them was only latched.
No reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward.
Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future.
The first was a page so heavenly sweet -- so deadly sad -- that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy.
The last was an awful blank: something like the world when the deluge was gone by.
I believe it was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which I had put on when I left the house, were soon wet with dew.
He who is taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge; of the disseverment of bone and vein; of the grave gaping at the end: and I thought of drear flight and homeless wandering -- and oh! with agony I thought of what I left.
Birds began singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful to their mates; birds were emblems of love.
As to my own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one and stifled the other.
I asked where it was going: the driver named a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had no connections.
He further gave me leave to get into the inside, as the vehicle was empty: I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on its way.
Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt!
May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine.
CHAPTER XXVIII Two days are passed.
It is a summer evening; the coachman has set me down at a place called Whitcross; he could take me no farther for the sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in the world.
The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone.
Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar set up where four roads meet: whitewashed, I suppose, to be more obvious at a distance and in darkness.
Four arms spring from its summit: the nearest town to which these point is, according to the inscription, distant ten miles; the farthest, above twenty.
From the well-known names of these towns I learn in what county I have lighted; a north-midland shire, dusk with moorland, ridged with mountain: this I see.
The population here must be thin, and I see no passengers on these roads: they stretch out east, west, north, and south -- white, broad, lonely; they are all cut in the moor, and the heather grows deep and wild to their very verge.
Yet a chance traveller might pass by; and I wish no eye to see me now: strangers would wonder what I am doing, lingering here at the sign-post, evidently objectless and lost.
I might be questioned: I could give no answer but what would sound incredible and excite suspicion.
Not a tie holds me to human society at this moment -- not a charm or hope calls me where my fellow-creatures are -- none that saw me would have a kind thought or a good wish for me.
High banks of moor were about me; the crag protected my head: the sky was over that.
Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague dread that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or poacher might discover me.
If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I imagined it a man.
Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and calmed by the deep silence that reigned as evening declined at nightfall, I took confidence.
Oh, intolerable questions, when I could do nothing and go nowhere! -- when a long way must yet be measured by my weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human habitation -- when cold charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging: reluctant sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before my tale could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved! I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of the summer day.
The dew fell, but with propitious softness; no breeze whispered.
Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness.
To-night, at least, I would be her guest, as I was her child: my mother would lodge me without money and without price.
I saw ripe bilberries gleaming here and there, like jet beads in the heath: I gathered a handful and ate them with the bread.
My hunger, sharp before, was, if not satisfied, appeased by this hermit's meal.
{I said my evening prayers: p311.jpg} Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet were buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow space for the night-air to invade.
I folded my shawl double, and spread it over me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow.
My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it.
Night was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for the companionship of fear.
We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester.
Remembering what it was -- what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light -- I felt the might and strength of God.
Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured.
I turned my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits.
Long after the little birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried -- when the long morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth and sky -- I got up, and I looked round me.
Hopeless of the future, I wished but this -- that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness.
Life, however, was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and pains, and responsibilities.
The burden must be carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled.
All the valley at my right hand was full of pasture- fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a glittering stream ran zig-zag through the varied shades of green, the mellowing grain, the sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea.
Human life and human labour were near.
The wish to have some strength and some vigour returned to me as soon as I was amongst my fellow-beings.
I could hardly tell how men and women in extremities of destitution proceeded.
I entered the shop: a woman was there.
Seeing a respectably-dressed person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with civility.
I was seized with shame: my tongue would not utter the request I had prepared.
I felt sorely urged to weep; but conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation would be, I restrained it.
Did she know of any place in the neighbourhood where a servant was wanted?"
"What was the chief trade in this place?
"Some were farm labourers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver's needle-factory, and at the foundry."
"Did Mr. Oliver employ women?" "Nay; it was men's work." "And what do the women do?"
"I knawn't," was the answer.
Poor folk mun get on as they can."
A neighbour or two came in; my chair was evidently wanted.
A pretty little house stood at the top of the lane, with a garden before it, exquisitely neat and brilliantly blooming.
What business had I to approach the white door or touch the glittering knocker?
A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young woman opened the door.
In such a voice as might be expected from a hopeless heart and fainting frame -- a voice wretchedly low and faltering -- I asked if a servant was wanted here? "No," said she; "we do not keep a servant." "Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind?" I continued.
. I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides, no prospect of aid was visible.
I should have longed rather to deviate to a wood I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick shade to offer inviting shelter; but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with nature's cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where there was a chance of food.
Solitude would be no solitude -- rest no rest -- while the vulture, hunger, thus sank beak and talons in my side.
Meantime, the afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a lost and starving dog.
Near the churchyard, and in the middle of a garden, stood a well-built though small house, which I had no doubt was the parsonage.
I remembered that strangers who arrive at a place where they have no friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply to the clergyman for introduction and aid.
It is the clergyman's function to help -- at least with advice -- those who wished to help themselves.
An old woman opened: I asked was this the parsonage? "Yes." "Was the clergyman in?" "No."
"Was there any lady of the house?" "Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper;" and of her, reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I was sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away.
Oh, for but a crust! for but one mouthful to allay the pang of famine!
Instinctively I turned my face again to the village; I found the shop again, and I went in; and though others were there besides the woman I ventured the request -- "Would she give me a roll for this handkerchief?"
I blamed none of those who repulsed me.
I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not be helped: an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably so.
To be sure, what I begged was employment; but whose business was it to provide me with employment?
Not, certainly, that of persons who saw me then for the first time, and who knew nothing about my character.
And as to the woman who would not take my handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable.
A little before dark I passed a farm-house, at the open door of which the farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese.
I imagine he did not think I was a beggar, but only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a fancy to his brown loaf.
But my night was wretched, my rest broken: the ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders passed near me more than once, and I had again and again to change my quarters; no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me.
Towards morning it rained; the whole of the following day was wet.
Mother!" she exclaimed, "there is a woman wants me to give her these porridge." "Well lass," replied a voice within, "give it her if she's a beggar.
T' pig doesn't want it." The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hand, and I devoured it ravenously.
As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridle-path, which I had been pursuing an hour or more.
"My strength is quite failing me," I said in a soliloquy.
While the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched ground?
I fear I cannot do otherwise: for who will receive me?
My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape.
"And far better that crows and ravens -- if any ravens there be in these regions -- should pick my flesh from my bones, than that they should be prisoned in a workhouse coffin and moulder in a pauper's grave."
But all the surface of the waste looked level.
It showed no variation but of tint: green, where rush and moss overgrew the marshes; black, where the dry soil bore only heath.
My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the moor-edge, vanishing amidst the wildest scenery, when at one dim point, far in among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up. "
That is an ignis fatuus ," was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish.
Is it, then, a bonfire just kindled?
I lay still a while: the night-wind swept over the hill and over me, and died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting me afresh to the skin.
Could I but have stiffened to the still frost -- the friendly numbness of death -- it might have pelted on; I should not have felt it; but my yet living flesh shuddered at its chilling influence.
The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain.
This light was my forlorn hope: I must gain it.
My star vanished as I drew near: some obstacle had intervened between me and it.
On each side stood a sable bush-holly or yew.
Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house rose to view, black, low, and rather long; but the guiding light shone nowhere.
Were the inmates retired to rest?
In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot out the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very small latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller by the growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered thick over the portion of the house wall in which it was set.
The aperture was so screened and narrow, that curtain or shutter had been deemed unnecessary; and when I stooped down and put aside the spray of foliage shooting over it, I could see all within.
The candle, whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on the table; and by its light an elderly woman, somewhat rough-looking, but scrupulously clean, like all about her, was knitting a stocking.
A group of more interest appeared near the hearth, sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it.
Two young, graceful women -- ladies in every point -- sat, one in a low rocking-chair, the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning of crape and bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair necks and faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of one girl -- in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat.
A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants!
A stand between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to which they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the smaller books they held in their hands, like people consulting a dictionary to aid them in the task of translation.
This scene was as silent as if all the figures had been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture: so hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock tick in its obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish the click-click of the woman's knitting-needles.
When, therefore, a voice broke the strange stillness at last, it was audible enough to me. "
And in a low voice she read something, of which not one word was intelligible to me; for it was in an unknown tongue -- neither French nor Latin.
The other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister, repeated, while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read.
At a later day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will here quote the line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on sounding brass to me -- conveying no meaning: -- "'Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.'
good!" she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. "
The line is worth a hundred pages of fustian. '
Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.'
" "Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t' one t'other: and if either o' ye went there, ye could tell what they said, I guess?" "We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all -- for we are not as clever as you think us, Hannah.
We don't speak German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us." "And what good does it do you?" "We mean to teach it some time -- or at least the elements, as they say; and then we shall get more money than we do now." "Varry like: but give ower studying; ye've done enough for to-night."
The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage: soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back. "
Ah, childer!" said she, "it fair troubles me to go into yond' room now: it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a corner."
She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before, looked sad now. "
And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had."
He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his head the next day -- that is, a fortnight sin' -- and he went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a'most stark when your brother went into t' chamber and fand him.
" I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference.
One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing it; Mary's pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana's duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls.
The clock struck ten. "
The ladies rose; they seemed about to withdraw to the parlour.
What is your business here at this hour?"
Here is a penny; now go -- " "A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther. Don't shut the door: -- oh, don't, for God's sake!" "I must; the rain is driving in -- " "Tell the young ladies.
Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and bolted it within.
Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone -- at least for a moment; but the last I soon endeavoured to regain.
All men must die," said a voice quite close at hand; "but all are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be if you perished here of want."
A form was near -- what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented me from distinguishing.
With a loud long knock, the new-comer appealed to the door.
Come in -- your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad folks about.
And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me.
Perhaps a little water would restore her.
Hannah, is that milk?
Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in it, and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing.
In her simple words, too, the same balm-like emotion spoke: "Try to eat." "Yes -- try," repeated Mary gently; and Mary's hand removed my sodden bonnet and lifted my head.
Not too much at first -- restrain her," said the brother; "she has had enough."
I felt I could speak, and I answered -- "My name is Jane Elliott."
Where are your friends?" I was silent. "
My strength sufficed for but short answers.
Do with me and for me as you like; but excuse me from much discourse -- my breath is short -- I feel a spasm when I speak."
A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the genial fire.
Ere long, with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me.
I can recall some sensations felt in that interval; but few thoughts framed, and no actions performed.
I observed when any one entered or left the apartment: I could even tell who they were; I could understand what was said when the speaker stood near to me; but I could not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible.
"Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the morning had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has gone through?" "Strange hardships, I imagine -- poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer?" "She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took off, though splashed and wet, were little worn and fine." "She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy would be agreeable."
Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted fatigue.
He said every nerve had been overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep torpid a while.
He imagined my recovery would be rapid enough when once commenced.
To speak truth, St. John, my heart rather warms to the poor little soul.
"You will find she is some young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and has probably injudiciously left them.
The grace and harmony of beauty are quite wanting in those features."
I had eaten with relish: the food was good -- void of the feverish flavour which had hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed.
My black silk frock hung against the wall.
The traces of the bog were removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was quite decent.
My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered presentable.
My clothes hung loose on me; for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and once more, clean and respectable looking -- no speck of the dirt, no trace of the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to degrade me, left -- I crept down a stone staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow low passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen.
Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.
Turning to me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly -- "Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?" I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of the question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I answered quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness -- "You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar.
Happen ye've been a dressmaker?" "No, you are wrong.
"And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John?" "Nay; he doesn't live here: he is only staying a while.
"And what is he?" "He is a parson."
This, then, was his father's residence?" "Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather, and gurt (great) grandfather afore him."
"The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?" "Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name."
"And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?" "Yes."
"Their father is dead?" "Dead three weeks sin' of a stroke."
"They have no mother?" "The mistress has been dead this mony a year."
I will say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call me a beggar."
She again regarded me with a surprised stare. "I believe," she said, "I was quite mista'en in my thoughts of you: but there is so mony cheats goes about, you mun forgie me." "And though," I continued, rather severely, "you wished to turn me from the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog." "Well, it was hard: but what can a body do?
Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime." "No more I ought," said she: "Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I see I wor wrang -- but I've clear a different notion on you now to what I had.
Marsh End had belonged to the Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she affirmed, "aboon two hundred year old -- for all it looked but a small, humble place, naught to compare wi' Mr. Oliver's grand hall down i' Morton Vale.
But she could remember Bill Oliver's father a journeyman needlemaker; and th' Rivers wor gentry i' th' owd days o' th' Henrys, as onybody might see by looking into th' registers i' Morton Church vestry."
Still, she allowed, "the owd maister was like other folk -- naught mich out o' t' common way: stark mad o' shooting, and farming, and sich like."
The mistress was different.
She was a great reader, and studied a deal; and the "bairns" had taken after her.
Mr. St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a parson; and the girls, as soon as they left school, would seek places as governesses: for they had told her their father had some years ago lost a great deal of money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt; and as he was now not rich enough to give them fortunes, they must provide for themselves.
Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two ladies and their brother were now. "
Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely bowed and passed through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few words, kindly and calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be able to come down; Diana took my hand: she shook her head at me.
"You should have waited for my leave to descend," she said.
Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove.
Her whole face seemed to me full of charm.
Mary's countenance was equally intelligent -- her features equally pretty; but her expression was more reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant.
It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers, and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an active will. "
Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we like to be free, even to license -- but you are a visitor, and must go into the parlour." "I am very well here." "Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with flour." "Besides, the fire is too hot for you," interposed Mary. "
Sit there," she said, placing me on the sofa, "while we take our things off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we exercise in our little moorland home -- to prepare our own meals when we are so inclined, or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or ironing."
She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand.
The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet comfortable, because clean and neat.
The old-fashioned chairs were very bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass.
A few strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days decorated the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained some books and an ancient set of china.
There was no superfluous ornament in the room -- not one modern piece of furniture, save a brace of workboxes and a lady's desk in rosewood, which stood on a side-table: everything -- including the carpet and curtains -- looked at once well worn and well saved.
Mr. St. John -- sitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on the walls, keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his lips mutely sealed -- was easy enough to examine.
He was young -- perhaps from twenty- eight to thirty -- tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight, classic nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin.
It is seldom, indeed, an English face comes so near the antique models as did his.
His eyes were large and blue, with brown lashes; his high forehead, colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by careless locks of fair hair.
This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader?
He did not speak to me one word, nor even direct to me one glance, till his sisters returned.
There was an unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his gaze now, which told that intention, and not diffidence, had hitherto kept it averted from the stranger.
It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for the last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to the cravings of your appetite at first.
St. John's eyes, though clear enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom.
He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people's thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than to encourage. "
Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I possess to admittance under any roof in England."
I wondered what he sought there: his words soon explained the quest. "
Diana and Mary relieved me by turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but the colder and sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble he had excited forced out tears as well as colour. "Where did you last reside?" he now asked.
"You are too inquisitive, St. John," murmured Mary in a low voice; but he leaned over the table and required an answer by a second firm and piercing look. "
Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both from St. John and every other questioner," remarked Diana. "
"And you need help, do you not?" "I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true philanthropist will put me in the way of getting work which I can do, and the remuneration for which will keep me, if but in the barest necessaries of life." "I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to aid you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest.
Mr. Rivers," I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he looked at me, openly and without diffidence, "you and your sisters have done me a great service -- the greatest man can do his fellow-being; you have rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from death.
This benefit conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my gratitude, and a claim, to a certain extent, on my confidence.
My parents died before I could know them.
The reason of my departure I cannot and ought not to explain: it would be useless, dangerous, and would sound incredible.
Miserable I am, and must be for a time; for the catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a paradise was of a strange and direful nature.
I know all your sisters have done for me since -- for I have not been insensible during my seeming torpor -- and I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt as to your evangelical charity."
" I gave an involuntary half start at hearing the alias : I had forgotten my new name.
Mr. Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape, noticed it at once. "
You said your name was Jane Elliott?
"Your real name you will not give?" "No: I fear discovery above all things; and whatever disclosure would lead to it, I avoid."
My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you," said Mr. St. John, "as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen bird, some wintry wind might have driven through their casement.
I feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping yourself, and shall endeavour to do so; but observe, my sphere is narrow.
I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must be of the humblest sort.
I soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my present strength would permit.
I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firs -- all grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly -- and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom -- found a charm both potent and permanent.
They clung to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling -- to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, and which wound between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy- faced lambs: -- they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment.
I felt the consecration of its loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweep -- on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow granite crag.
These details were just to me what they were to them -- so many pure and sweet sources of pleasure.
Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly.
I could talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana's feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but touched.
Our natures dovetailed: mutual affection -- of the strongest kind -- was the result.
They discovered I could draw: their pencils and colour-boxes were immediately at my service.
Thus occupied, and mutually entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks like days.
As to Mr. St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him.
One reason of the distance yet observed between us was, that he was comparatively seldom at home: a large proportion of his time appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the scattered population of his parish.
No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions: rain or fair, he would, when his hours of morning study were over, take his hat, and, followed by his father's old pointer, Carlo, go out on his mission of love or duty -- I scarcely know in which light he regarded it.
Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable, his sisters would expostulate.
He would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than cheerful -- "And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I propose to myself?"
Diana and Mary's general answer to this question was a sigh, and some minutes of apparently mournful meditation.
He expressed once, and but once in my hearing, a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home; but there was more of gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in which the sentiment was manifested; and never did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their soothing silence -- never seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights they could yield.
It began calm -- and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, it was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous language.
The heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the preacher: neither were softened.
Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines -- election, predestination, reprobation -- were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom.
When he had done, instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to me -- I know not whether equally so to others -- that the eloquence to which I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of disappointment -- where moved troubling impulses of insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations.
Meantime a month was gone.
One morning, being left alone with him a few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to approach the window-recess -- which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of study -- and I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what words to frame my inquiry -- for it is at all times difficult to break the ice of reserve glassing over such natures as his -- when he saved me the trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue.
"Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer myself to undertake?" "I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you seemed both useful and happy here -- as my sisters had evidently become attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure -- I deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their approaching departure from Marsh End should render yours necessary."
"Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton: Hannah will accompany me; and this old house will be shut up."
"What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers?
I grew impatient: a restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting glance fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as words could have done, and with less trouble.
Before I explain, recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped you, it must be as the blind man would help the lame.
I am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father's debts, all the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil, with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in front.
I am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of the three sole descendants of the race, two earn the dependant's crust among strangers, and the third considers himself an alien from his native country -- not only for life, but in death.
Yes, and deems, and is bound to deem, himself honoured by the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the Head of that church-militant of whose humblest members he is one, shall give the word, 'Rise, follow Me!'"
You may even think it degrading -- for I see now your habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes lean to the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst the educated; but I consider that no service degrades which can better our race.
I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian labourer's task of tillage is appointed him -- the scantier the meed his toil brings -- the higher the honour.
His, under such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of the Gospel were the Apostles -- their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer, Himself."
"I believe you will accept the post I offer you," said he, "and hold it for a while: not permanently, though: any more than I could permanently keep the narrow and narrowing -- the tranquil, hidden office of English country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a different kind."
I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is, -- how trivial -- how cramping
. I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead, and that I am my own master.
Morton, when I came to it two years ago, had no school: the children of the poor were excluded from every hope of progress.
Her salary will be thirty pounds a year: her house is already furnished, very simply, but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parish -- Mr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needle- factory and iron-foundry in the valley.
The same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own house and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in person.
He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer: not knowing all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell in what light the lot would appear to me.
In truth it was humble -- but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it was plodding -- but then, compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent; and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron: it was not ignoble -- not unworthy -- not mentally degrading, I made my decision. "
"It is a village school: your scholars will be only poor girls -- cottagers' children -- at the best, farmers' daughters.
What is your reason for saying so?"
Who is ambitious?
"What?" "I was going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have misunderstood the word, and been displeased.
I mean, that human affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you.
I, who preached contentment with a humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers of water in God's service -- I, His ordained minister, almost rave in my restlessness.
Well, propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means.
Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached for leaving their brother and their home.
They both tried to appear as usual; but the sorrow they had to struggle against was one that could not be entirely conquered or concealed.
He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves," she said: "natural affection and feelings more potent still.
You would think him gentle, yet in some things he is inexorable as death; and the worst of it is, my conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his severe decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment blame him for it.
And the tears gushed to her fine eyes.
At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by fate purposely to prove the truth of the adage, that "misfortunes never come singly," and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip between the cup and the lip.
"Our uncle John is dead," said he.
Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the tidings appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting.
Why -- nothing. Read."
"Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what might have been ," said Mr. Rivers, "and contrasts it somewhat too vividly with what is ."
For some minutes no one spoke.
Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries," she said, "and think us hard-hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him.
It was by his advice that my father risked most of his property in the speculation that ruined him.
Mutual recrimination passed between them: they parted in anger, and were never reconciled.
My uncle engaged afterwards in more prosperous undertakings: it appears he realised a fortune of twenty thousand pounds.
My father always cherished the idea that he would atone for his error by leaving his possessions to us; that letter informs us that he has bequeathed every penny to the other relation, with the exception of thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers, for the purchase of three mourning rings.
He had a right, of course, to do as he pleased: and yet a momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the receipt of such news.
Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with a thousand pounds each; and to St. John such a sum would have been valuable, for the good it would have enabled him to do."
This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further reference made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters.
In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage: and so the old grange was abandoned.
Above, a chamber of the same dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead and chest of drawers; small, yet too large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe: though the kindness of my gentle and generous friends has increased that, by a modest stock of such things as are necessary.
I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little orphan who serves me as a handmaid.
This morning, the village school opened.
But three of the number can read: none write or cipher.
Some of them are unmannered, rough, intractable, as well as ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to learn, and evince a disposition that pleases me
. I must not forget that these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best-born.
My duty will be to develop these germs: surely I shall find some happiness in discharging that office.
Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon?
But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong -- that is a great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them.
In a few months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the better in my scholars may substitute gratification for disgust.
He did love me -- no one will ever love me so again.
He was fond and proud of me -- it is what no man besides will ever be. --
The birds were singing their last strains -- "The air was mild, the dew was balm."
At this thought, I turned my face aside from the lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of Morton -- I say lonely , for in that bend of it visible to me there was no building apparent save the church and the parsonage, half-hid in trees, and, quite at the extremity, the roof of Vale Hall, where the rich Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived.
I hid my eyes, and leant my head against the stone frame of my door; but soon a slight noise near the wicket which shut in my tiny garden from the meadow beyond it made me look up.
A dog -- old Carlo, Mr. Rivers' pointer, as I saw in a moment -- was pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John himself leant upon it with folded arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave almost to displeasure, fixed on me.
No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters left for you.
Have you found your first day's work harder than you expected?" he asked.
"But perhaps your accommodations -- your cottage -- your furniture -- have disappointed your expectations? They are, in truth, scanty enough; but -- " I interrupted -- "My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and commodious.
The little house there behind you is dark and empty."
"I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less to grow impatient under one of loneliness." "Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate, your good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the vacillating fears of Lot's wife.
God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get -- when our will strains after a path we may not follow -- we need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to taste -- and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it. "
A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had made a mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties wearied me to death.
I considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die.
After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds -- my powers heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread their wings, and mount beyond ken.
God had an errand for me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary. "
From that moment my state of mind changed; the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving nothing of bondage but its galling soreness -- which time only can heal.
My father, indeed, imposed the determination, but since his death, I have not a legitimate obstacle to contend with; some affairs settled, a successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of the feelings broken through or cut asunder -- a last conflict with human weakness, in which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed that I will overcome -- and I leave Europe for the East."
We had heard no step on that grass-grown track; the water running in the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and scene; we might well then start when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed -- "Good evening, Mr. Rivers.
Your dog is quicker to recognise his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his ears and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have your back towards me now.
Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those musical accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, he stood yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in which the speaker had surprised him -- his arm resting on the gate, his face directed towards the west.
A vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side.
Perfect beauty is a strong expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as sweet features as ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as ever her humid gales and vapoury skies generated and screened, justified, in this instance, the term.
No charm was wanting, no defect was perceptible; the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and coloured as we see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark, and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so soft a fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the white smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties of tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh too, ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth without flaw; the small dimpled chin; the ornament of rich, plenteous tresses -- all advantages, in short, which, combined, realise the ideal of beauty, were fully hers.
Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood; and, forgetting her usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her darling, with a grand-dame's bounty.
Papa told me you had opened your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her: this is she?" pointing to me. "
The -- -th regiment are stationed there since the riots; and the officers are the most agreeable men in the world: they put all our young knife-grinders and scissor merchants to shame.
" It seemed to me that Mr. St. John's under lip protruded, and his upper lip curled a moment.
His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed, and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the laughing girl gave him this information.
His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty.
But he curbed it, I think, as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed.
It is just the hour when papa most wants company: when the works are closed and he has no business to occupy him.
Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay any longer: the dew begins to fall.
Well might she put the question: his face was blanched as her gown. "
There was a difference amongst them as amongst the educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this difference rapidly developed itself.
Their amazement at me, my language, my rules, and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls enough.
The rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it: besides, I began personally to like some of the best girls; and they liked me.
I had amongst my scholars several farmers' daughters: young women grown, almost.
Their parents then (the farmer and his wife) loaded me with attentions.
To live amidst general regard, though it be but the regard of working people, is like "sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet;" serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray.
At this period of my life, my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than sank with dejection: and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of this calm, this useful existence -- after a day passed in honourable exertion amongst my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading contentedly alone -- I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams many-coloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormy -- dreams where, amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him -- the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and fire.
Her call at the school was generally made in the course of her morning ride.
Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her purple habit, with her Amazon's cap of black velvet placed gracefully above the long curls that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders, can scarcely be imagined: and it was thus she would enter the rustic building, and glide through the dazzled ranks of the village children.
A sort of instinct seemed to warn him of her entrance, even when he did not see it; and when he was looking quite away from the door, if she appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marble-seeming features, though they refused to relax, changed indescribably, and in their very quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervour, stronger than working muscle or darting glance could indicate.
In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she went up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even fondly in his face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn.
But that heart is already laid on a sacred altar: the fire is arranged round it.
And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily from his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic and so martyr-like.
St. John, no doubt, would have given the world to follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him; but he would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of her love, one hope of the true, eternal Paradise.
She was hasty, but good-humoured; vain (she could not help it, when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness), but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of the pride of wealth; ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively, and unthinking: she was very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex like me; but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive.
A very different sort of mind was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters of St. John.
Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adele; except that, for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult acquaintance.
She had then on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only ornament was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with all the wild grace of natural curls.
She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself accompanied her next evening -- a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright flower near a hoary turret.
The sketch of Rosamond's portrait pleased him highly: he said I must make a finished picture of it.
Her father was affable; and when he entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong terms his approbation of what I had done in Morton school, and said he only feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place, and would soon quit it for one more suitable. "
He said it was a very old name in that neighbourhood; that the ancestors of the house were wealthy; that all Morton had once belonged to them; that even now he considered the representative of that house might, if he liked, make an alliance with the best.
He accounted it a pity that so fine and talented a young man should have formed the design of going out as a missionary; it was quite throwing a valuable life away.
It appeared, then, that her father would throw no obstacle in the way of Rosamond's union with St. John.
My little servant, after helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a penny for her aid.
The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got my palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver's miniature.
The head was finished already: there was but the background to tint and the drapery to shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips -- a soft curl here and there to the tresses -- a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash under the azured eyelid.
the readers of our era are less favoured.
I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day.
they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destruction.
Poetry destroyed?
Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought.
His tall figure sprang erect again with a start: he said nothing.
With all his firmness and self-control," thought I, "he tasks himself too far: locks every feeling and pang within -- expresses, confesses, imparts nothing.
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.
"Is this portrait like?" I asked bluntly. "
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.
he murmured; "the eye is well managed: the colour, light, expression, are perfect.
When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India, would it be a consolation to have that memento in your possession? or would the sight of it bring recollections calculated to enervate and distress?"
Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that her father was not likely to oppose the match, I -- less exalted in my views than St. John -- had been strongly disposed in my own heart to advocate their union.
" By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the table before him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over it.
Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive.
And he actually took out his watch and laid it upon the table to measure the time. "But where is the use of going on," I asked, "when you are probably preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to fetter your heart?" "Don't imagine such hard things.
And now it is deluged with a nectarous flood -- the young germs swamped -- delicious poison cankering them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver's feet: she is talking to me with her sweet voice -- gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has copied so well -- smiling at me with these coral lips.
She is mine -- I am hers -- this present life and passing world suffice to me.
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.
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.
It is strange," pursued he, "that while I love Rosamond Oliver so wildly -- with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating -- I experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months' rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret.
"Strange indeed!" I could not help ejaculating. "While something in me," he went on, "is acutely sensible to her charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to -- co-operate in nothing I undertook.
What! my vocation?
My foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven?
My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race -- of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance -- of substituting peace for war -- freedom for bondage -- religion for superstition -- the hope of heaven for the fear of hell?
Are her disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?" "Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than a month, my image will be effaced from her heart.
She will forget me; and will marry, probably, some one who will make her far happier than I should do."
Only this morning, I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I have been so long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three months to come yet; and perhaps the three months may extend to six."
"You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the schoolroom." Again the surprised expression crossed his face.
He had not imagined that a woman would dare to speak so to a man.
Natural affection only, of all the sentiments, has permanent power over me.
Reason, and not feeling, is my guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable.
I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence.
But she could not eradicate nature: nor will it be eradicated 'till this mortal shall put on immortality.'" Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my palette.
What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye.
His lips parted, as if to speak: but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it was.
"What is the matter?" I asked.
"Nothing in the world," was the reply; and, replacing the paper, I saw him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin.
CHAPTER XXXIII When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm continued all night.
The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable.
I had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle, took down "Marmion," and beginning -- "Day set on Norham's castled steep, And Tweed's fair river broad and deep, And Cheviot's mountains lone; The massive towers, the donjon keep, The flanking walls that round them sweep, In yellow lustre shone" -- I soon forgot storm in music.
No; it was St. John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen hurricane -- the howling darkness -- and stood before me: the cloak that covered his tall figure all white as a glacier.
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.
"One drift took me up to the waist; happily the snow is quite soft yet."
Besides, since yesterday I have experienced the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half-told, and who is impatient to hear the sequel.
I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and really I began to fear his wits were touched.
If he were insane, however, his was a very cool and collected insanity: I had never seen that handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and let the firelight shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale, where it grieved me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved.
I waited, expecting he would say something I could at least comprehend; but his hand was now at his chin, his finger on his lip: he was thinking.
It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his face.
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. "
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.
You will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected?" "I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me." Baffled so far, I changed my ground.
Mary Garrett's mother is better, and Mary came back to the school this morning, and I shall have four new girls next week from the Foundry Close -- they would have come to-day but for the snow." "Indeed!" "Mr. Oliver pays for two."
Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes.
"Half-an-hour ago," he pursued, "I spoke of my impatience to hear the sequel of a tale: on reflection, I find the matter will be better managed by my assuming the narrator's part, and converting you into a listener.
Before commencing, it is but fair to warn you that the story will sound somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but stale details often regain a degree of freshness when they pass through new lips.
Twenty years ago, a poor curate -- never mind his name at this moment -- fell in love with a rich man's daughter; she fell in love with him, and married him, against the advice of all her friends, who consequently disowned her immediately after the wedding.
Before two years passed, the rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by side under one slab.
Charity carried the friendless thing to the house of its rich maternal relations; it was reared by an aunt-in- law, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead.
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.
It seems her career there was very honourable: from a pupil, she became a teacher, like yourself -- really it strikes me there are parallel points in her history and yours -- she left it to be a governess: there, again, your fates were analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr. Rochester." "Mr. Rivers!"
What his subsequent conduct and proposals were is a matter of pure conjecture; but when an event transpired which rendered inquiry after the governess necessary, it was discovered she was gone -- no one could tell when, where, or how.
She had left Thornfield Hall in the night; every research after her course had been vain: the country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of information could be gathered respecting her.
Yet that she should be found is become a matter of serious urgency: advertisements have been put in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr. Briggs, a solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted.
Is he well?" "I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester: the letter never mentions him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have adverted to.
"Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then?
Did no one see Mr. Rochester?" "I suppose not."
Who has his letters?" "Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from Mr. Rochester, but from a lady: it is signed 'Alice Fairfax.'
" I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true: he had in all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation to some former haunt on the Continent.
I have it here -- it is always more satisfactory to see important points written down, fairly committed to black and white."
And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin of the portrait-cover.
Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:" he said, "the advertisements demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott. -- I confess I had my suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once resolved into certainty.
Meantime, you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do not inquire why Mr. Briggs sought after you -- what he wanted with you." "Well, what did he want?" "Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich -- merely that -- nothing more." "I! -- rich?" "Yes, you, rich -- quite an heiress."
Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the will and the necessary documents."
It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted in a moment from indigence to wealth -- a very fine thing; but not a matter one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once.
And then there are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving: this is solid, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it: all its associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are the same.
Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words, Death, Funeral.
My uncle I had heard was dead -- my only relative; ever since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of one day seeing him: now, I never should.
And then this money came only to me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self.
It was a grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious -- yes, I felt that -- that thought swelled my heart.
Here was a new stunner -- I had been calculating on four or five thousand.
This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr. St. John, whom I had never heard laugh before, laughed now. "
Well," said he, "if you had committed a murder, and I had told you your crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast." "It is a large sum -- don't you think there is a mistake?" "No mistake at all."
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.
He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me. "
"Well?" "It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way place, had the power to aid in my discovery." "Oh! I am a clergyman," he said; "and the clergy are often appealed to about odd matters."
Again the latch rattled. "
Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax: gratified it must be, and that without delay; and I told him so.
"And I am a hard woman, -- impossible to put off." {And I am a hard woman, -- impossible to put off: p369.jpg} "And then," he pursued, "I am cold: no fervour infects me." "Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice.
The blaze there has thawed all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has streamed on to my floor, and made it like a trampled street.
As you hope ever to be forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to know." "Well, then," he said, "I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping.
Your name is Jane Eyre?" "Of course: that was all settled before."
I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I never asked for what name it stood.
Circumstances knit themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order: the chain that had been lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight, -- every ring was perfect, the connection complete.
I knew, by instinct, how the matter stood, before St. John had said another word; but I cannot expect the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so I must repeat his explanation. "
My mother's name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman, who married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq., merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira.
Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre's solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle's death, and to say that he had left his property to his brother the clergyman's orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel, never forgiven, between him and my father.
He wrote again a few weeks since, to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking if we knew anything of her.
A name casually written on a slip of paper has enabled me to find her out.
Do let me speak," I said; "let me have one moment to draw breath and reflect."
I resumed -- "Your mother was my father's sister?" "Yes." "My aunt, consequently?
"My uncle John was your uncle John?
"You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows from the same source?"
It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be proud of, -- one I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities were such, that, when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine affection and admiration.
The two girls, on whom, kneeling down on the wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor House kitchen, I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of interest and despair, were my near kinswomen; and the young and stately gentleman who had found me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation.
I now clapped my hands in sudden joy -- my pulse bounded, my veins thrilled. "
It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters and don't care for a cousin; but I had nobody; and now three relations, -- or two, if you don't choose to be counted, -- are born into my world full-grown.
I say again, I am glad!" I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle them: -- thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere long.
I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending stars, -- every one lit me to a purpose or delight.
Those who had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit.
They were under a yoke, -- I could free them: they were scattered, -- I could reunite them: the independence, the affluence which was mine, might be theirs too.
Now the wealth did not weigh on me: now it was not a mere bequest of coin, -- it was a legacy of life, hope, enjoyment.
How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair behind me, and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it.
Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow," I said, "and tell them to come home directly.
"Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you?
Will it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and settle down like an ordinary mortal?" "You wander: your head becomes confused.
you quite put me out of patience: I am rational enough; it is you who misunderstand, or rather who affect to misunderstand."
You cannot fail to see that twenty thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between the nephew and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to each?
I abandon to you, then, what is absolutely superfluous to me.
"This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider such a matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid." "Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy: you see the justice of the case?"
Besides, the entire fortune is your right: my uncle gained it by his own efforts; he was free to leave it to whom he would: he left it to you.
After all, justice permits you to keep it: you may, with a clear conscience, consider it absolutely your own."
"Jane, I will be your brother -- my sisters will be your sisters -- without stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights."
"But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness may be realised otherwise than by the means you contemplate: you may marry."
"That is saying too much: such hazardous affirmations are a proof of the excitement under which you labour."
No one would take me for love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money speculation.
I know I have always loved my own sisters; and I know on what my affection for them is grounded, -- respect for their worth and admiration of their talents.
You too have principle and mind: your tastes and habits resemble Diana's and Mary's; your presence is always agreeable to me; in your conversation I have already for some time found a salutary solace.
He smiled approbation: we shook hands, and he took leave. I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and arguments I used, to get matters regarding the legacy settled as I wished.
My task was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely resolved -- as my cousins saw at length that my mind was really and immutably fixed on making a just division of the property -- as they must in their own hearts have felt the equity of the intention; and must, besides, have been innately conscious that in my place they would have done precisely what I wished to do -- they yielded at length so far as to consent to put the affair to arbitration.
The judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able lawyer: both coincided in my opinion: I carried my point.
The instruments of transfer were drawn out: St. John, Diana, Mary, and I, each became possessed of a competency.
I now closed Morton school, taking care that the parting should not be barren on my side.
Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the sensations.
I had long felt with pleasure that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we parted, that consciousness was confirmed: they manifested their affection plainly and strongly.
Deep was my gratification to find I had really a place in their unsophisticated hearts: I promised them that never a week should pass in future that I did not visit them, and give them an hour's teaching in their school.
And that is saying a great deal; for after all, the British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most self-respecting of any in Europe: since those days I have seen paysannes and Bauerinnen; and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton girls. "Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?
Does not the consciousness of having done some real good in your day and generation give pleasure?" "Doubtless."
Would not a life devoted to the task of regenerating your race be well spent?" "Yes," I said; "but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy my own faculties as well as to cultivate those of other people.
What sudden eagerness is this you evince?
And first I must beg you to set Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you."
"My first aim will be to clean down (do you comprehend the full force of the expression?) -- to clean down Moor House from chamber to cellar; my next to rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you.
My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they come."
"It is all very well for the present," said he; "but seriously, I trust that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little higher than domestic endearments and household joys."
"The best things the world has!" I interrupted.
"No, Jane, no: this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt to make it so: nor of rest; do not turn slothful."
I hope your energies will then once more trouble you with their strength.
Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah: she was charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a house turned topsy-turvy -- how I could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook.
I had previously taken a journey to S -- - to purchase some new furniture: my cousins having given me carte blanche to effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum having been set aside for that purpose.
The ordinary sitting-room and bedrooms I left much as they were: for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure from seeing again the old homely tables, and chairs, and beds, than from the spectacle of the smartest innovations.
Still some novelty was necessary, to give to their return the piquancy with which I wished it to be invested.
Dark handsome new carpets and curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, answered the end: they looked fresh without being glaring.
They were expected about dark, and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs and below; the kitchen was in perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in readiness.
I had entreated him to keep quite clear of the house till everything was arranged: and, indeed, the bare idea of the commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within its walls sufficed to scare him to estrangement.
This silence damped me.
I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed some old associations he valued.
By-the-bye, could I tell him where such a book was?
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.
I saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes -- Christian and Pagan -- her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place. "
This parlour is not his sphere," I reflected: "the Himalayan ridge or Caffre bush, even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp would suit him better.
Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his element: there his faculties stagnate -- they cannot develop or appear to advantage.
It is in scenes of strife and danger -- where courage is proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude tasked -- that he will speak and move, the leader and superior.
A merry child would have the advantage of him on this hearth.
It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible.
Hannah soon had a lantern lit.
The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver opened the door: first one well-known form, then another, stepped out.
They laughed -- kissed me -- then Hannah: patted Carlo, who was half wild with delight; asked eagerly if all was well; and being assured in the affirmative, hastened into the house.
They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and chilled with the frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances expanded to the cheerful firelight.
While the driver and Hannah brought in the boxes, they demanded St. John.
They both threw their arms round his neck at once.
He gave each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood a while to be talked to, and then, intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.
I had the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met their wishes exactly, and that what I had done added a vivid charm to their joyous return home.
My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St. John's taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in their glow of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise.
The event of the day -- that is, the return of Diana and Mary -- pleased him; but the accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee of reception irked him: I saw he wished the calmer morrow was come.
In the very meridian of the night's enjoyment, about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door.
Hannah entered with the intimation that "a poor lad was come, at that unlikely time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see his mother, who was drawing away."
I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience.
The air of the moors, the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary's spirits like some life-giving elixir: they were gay from morning till noon, and from noon till night.
They could always talk; and their discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms for me, that I preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing anything else.
St. John did not rebuke our vivacity; but he escaped from it: he was seldom in the house; his parish was large, the population scattered, and he found daily business in visiting the sick and poor in its different districts.
One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for some minutes, asked him, "If his plans were yet unchanged." "Unchanged and unchangeable," was the reply.
And he proceeded to inform us that his departure from England was now definitively fixed for the ensuing year. "
His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked at him: he was serene as glass. "
The match must have been got up hastily," said Diana: "they cannot have known each other long."
But where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case, where the connection is in every point desirable, delays are unnecessary: they will be married as soon as S -- - Place, which Sir Frederic gives up to them, can he refitted for their reception.
" The first time I found St. John alone after this communication, I felt tempted to inquire if the event distressed him: but he seemed so little to need sympathy, that, so far from venturing to offer him more, I experienced some shame at the recollection of what I had already hazarded.
Besides, I was out of practice in talking to him: his reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness was congealed beneath it.
He had not kept his promise of treating me like his sisters; he continually made little chilling differences between us, which did not at all tend to the development of cordiality: in short, now that I was acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived under the same roof with him, I felt the distance between us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the village schoolmistress.
Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said -- "You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won."
Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a moment's hesitation I answered -- "But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors whose triumphs have cost them too dear?
The event of the conflict is decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!"
Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and absorbed enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish- looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes fixing upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious intensity of observation: if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon, it returned searchingly to our table.
I wondered what it meant: I wondered, too, at the punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment, namely, my weekly visit to Morton school; and still more was I puzzled when, if the day was unfavourable, if there was snow, or rain, or high wind, and his sisters urged me not to go, he would invariably make light of their solicitude, and encourage me to accomplish the task without regard to the elements. "
Her constitution is both sound and elastic; -- better calculated to endure variations of climate than many more robust."
And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little weather-beaten, I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him: on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse was a special annoyance.
His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls.
He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil with whom he might again and again go over the elements, and so fix them thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered for some time between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on me because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three.
I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his departure.
St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent.
When Diana and Mary returned, the former found her scholar transferred from her to her brother: she laughed, and both she and Mary agreed that St. John should never have persuaded them to such a step.
. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him.
I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell.
One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand.
Diana, who chanced to be in a frolicsome humour ( she was not painfully controlled by his will; for hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed -- "St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don't treat her as such: you should kiss her too."
I thought Diana very provoking, and felt uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St. John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly -- he kissed me.
There are no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin's salute belonged to one of these classes; but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss.
When given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters.
He never omitted the ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which I underwent it, seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm.
The thing was as impossible as to mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his own.
Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present.
Of late it had been easy enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil sat at my heart and drained my happiness at its source -- the evil of suspense.
His idea was still with me, because it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse, nor a sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed.
The craving to know what had become of him followed me everywhere; when I was at Morton, I re-entered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now at Moor House, I sought my bedroom each night to brood over it.
I was astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but when two months wore away, and day after day the post arrived and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety.
Renewed hope followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for some weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word reached me.
When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out, and then I felt dark indeed.
A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy.
This St. John opposed; he said I did not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee, and grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment: and I, like a fool, never thought of resisting him -- I could not resist him.
One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment.
The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now, as I sat poring over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again.
St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice failed me: words were lost in sobs.
My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said -- "We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed."
" I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John's directions; and in ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by side with him.
The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with scents of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream descending the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured along plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams from the sun, and sapphire tints from the firmament.
"Let us rest here," said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers of a battalion of rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck rushed down a waterfall; and where, still a little farther, the mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath for raiment and crag for gem -- where it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and exchanged the fresh for the frowning -- where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, and a last refuge for silence.
He looked up the pass and down the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and returned to traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he removed his hat, let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow.
And I shall see it again," he said aloud, "in dreams when I sleep by the Ganges: and again in a more remote hour -- when another slumber overcomes me -- on the shore of a darker stream!"
I am not going out under human guidance, subject to the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms: my king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect.
"All have not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to wish to march with the strong." "I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only such as are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it." "Those are few in number, and difficult to discover." "You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up -- to urge and exhort them to the effort -- to show them what their gifts are, and why they were given -- to speak Heaven's message in their ear, -- to offer them, direct from God, a place in the ranks of His chosen."
" 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. "
"My heart is mute, -- my heart is mute," I answered, struck and thrilled.
The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved!
" I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty, knew neither mercy nor remorse.
Indeed, as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his arms on his chest, and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for a long and trying opposition, and had taken in a stock of patience to last him to its close -- resolved, however, that that close should be conquest for him. "
Humility, Jane," said he, "is the groundwork of Christian virtues: you say right that you are not fit for the work.
Who is fit for it?
Or who, that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons?
Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk.
Oh, I wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths -- the fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!"
In the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas: -- lucre had no undue power over you.
As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable." My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow sure step.
Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in making the way, which had seemed blocked up, comparatively clear.
My work, which had appeared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded, and assumed a definite form under his shaping hand.
{He threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still: p389.jpg} "I can do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge that," I meditated, -- "that is, if life be spared me.
He does not care for that: when my time came to die, he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me.
The case is very plain before me.
In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty land -- Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me?
My business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him.
Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God assign?
And how will the interval between leaving England for India, and India for the grave, be filled?
Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item -- one dreadful item.
It is -- that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a husband's heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge.
He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon; and that is all.
Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent?
Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle?
No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous
" I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column; his face turned to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen.
"Your answer requires a commentary," he said; "it is not clear."
Adopted fraternity will not do in this case.
But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed by marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles oppose themselves to any other plan.
Consider a moment -- your strong sense will guide you.
" I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife should: and therefore it inferred we ought not to marry.
You have but one end to keep in view -- how the work you have undertaken can best be done.
I, too, do not want a sister: a sister might any day be taken from me.
How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this conference: the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes.
I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, caring as I. The veil fell from his hardness and despotism.
His eye, bent on me, expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry.
Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker's spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be ready to do at once whatever furthers that end.
I should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness.
There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which he never came, and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered which his austerity could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march trample down: but as his wife -- at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked -- forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital -- this would be unendurable. "St. John!
"I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you." "A part of me you must become," he answered steadily; "otherwise the whole bargain is void.
How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me?
"It would do," I affirmed with some disdain, "perfectly well. I have a woman's heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a comrade's constancy; a fellow-soldier's frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you like; a neophyte's respect and submission to his hierophant: nothing more -- don't fear." "It is what I want," he said, speaking to himself; "it is just what I want.
I repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your eyes."
You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance -- a topic we should never discuss: the very name of love is an apple of discord between us.
If the reality were required, what should we do?
My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage -- forget it."
Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered with those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels!"
But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy to hear them uttered.
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.
He was deeply displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm, nor tears move him.
No happy reconciliation was to be had with him -- no cheering smile or generous word: but still the Christian was patient and placid; and when I asked him if he forgave me, he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation; that he had nothing to forgive, not having been offended.
He deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me feel what severe punishment a good yet stern, a conscientious yet implacable man can inflict on one who has offended him.
I saw by his look, when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air between me and him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to his ear, and their echo toned every answer he gave me.
He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as usual each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man within him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure Christian, in evincing with what skill he could, while acting and speaking apparently just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of interest and approval which had formerly communicated a certain austere charm to his language and manner.
To me, he was in reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, bright, blue gem; his tongue a speaking instrument -- nothing more.
I felt how -- if I were his wife, this good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without drawing from my veins a single drop of blood, or receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime.
No ruth met my ruth.
He experienced no suffering from estrangement -- no yearning after reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent, they produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or metal.
To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual: as if afraid that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me how completely I was banished and banned, he added the force of contrast; and this I am sure he did not by force, but on principle.
The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that this man, alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we were near relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain his friendship.
"Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from regarding you as a stranger."
Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly than those feelings could.
His friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me severely.
Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions?
The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash down.
His lips and cheeks turned white -- quite white.
Your words are such as ought not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue.
" A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on the truth.
That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm.
A very long silence succeeded.
What struggle there was in him between Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only singular gleams scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face.
Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at once.
He answered emphatically but calmly -- "A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me.
With me, then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a coadjutor.
Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society's aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your promise and deserting the band you engaged to join." Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard and much too despotic for the occasion.
"It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere till by some means that doubt is removed." "I know where your heart turns and to what it clings.
The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated.
"I must find out what is become of him." "It remains for me, then," he said, "to remember you in my prayers, and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway.
But God sees not as man sees: His will be done -- " He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen.
St. John is a strange being -- " She paused -- I did not speak: soon she resumed -- "That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notice and interest he never showed to any one else -- to what end?
"Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils." "What!
Think of the task you undertook -- one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the strong, and you are weak.
"What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?" "You should hear himself on the subject.
Would it not be strange, Die, to be chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?" "Insupportable -- unnatural -- out of the question!" "
In that case, my lot would become unspeakably wretched.
I had thought he would hardly speak to me, and I was certain he had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial scheme: the sequel showed I was mistaken on both points.
It was at all times pleasant to listen while from his lips fell the words of the Bible: never did his fine voice sound at once so sweet and full -- never did his manner become so impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the oracles of God: and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone -- that manner a more thrilling meaning -- as he sat in the midst of his household circle (the May moon shining in through the uncurtained window, and rendering almost unnecessary the light of the candle on the table): as he sat there, bending over the great old Bible, and described from its page the vision of the new heaven and the new earth -- told how God would come to dwell with men, how He would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and promised that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more pain, because the former things were passed away.
The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them: especially as I felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in sound, that in uttering them, his eye had turned on me. "
But," was slowly, distinctly read, "the fearful, the unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked his enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter.
The reader believed his name was already written in the Lamb's book of life, and he yearned after the hour which should admit him to the city to which the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour; which has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered -- all his stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and resolved on a conquest.
He supplicated strength for the weak-hearted; guidance for wanderers from the fold: a return, even at the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were luring from the narrow path.
He felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely: others who heard him plead for it, could not but feel it too.
Remember, we are bid to work while it is day -- warned that 'the night cometh when no man shall work.'
Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good things in this life.
He had spoken earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering sheep -- or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is responsible.
I felt veneration for St. John -- veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point I had so long shunned.
My refusals were forgotten -- my fears overcome -- my wrestlings paralysed.
Religion called -- Angels beckoned -- God commanded -- life rolled together like a scroll -- death's gates opening, showed eternity beyond: it seemed, that for safety and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a second.
The dim room was full of visions. "
The inquiry was put in gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently.
His nature was not changed by one hour of solemn prayer: it was only elevated.
"I could decide if I were but certain," I answered: "were I but convinced that it is God's will I should marry you, I could vow to marry you here and now -- come afterwards what would!" "My prayers are heard!" ejaculated St. John.
I sincerely, deeply, fervently longed to do what was right; and only that. "
I was excited more than I had ever been; and whether what followed was the effect of excitement the reader shall judge.
All the house was still; for I believe all, except St. John and myself, were now retired to rest.
The one candle was dying out: the room was full of moonlight.
My heart beat fast and thick: I heard its throb.
The feeling was not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now summoned and forced to wake.
They rose expectant: eye and ear waited while the flesh quivered on my bones.
The hills beyond Marsh Glen sent the answer faintly back -- "Where are you?
The wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland loneliness and midnight hush. "
Down superstition!" I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the black yew at the gate.
I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained me.
My powers were in play and in force.
Where there is energy to command well enough, obedience never fails.
I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit; and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet.
CHAPTER XXXVI The daylight came.
He stopped at my door: I feared he would knock -- no, but a slip of paper was passed under the door.
Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation: the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see, is weak
"My spirit," I answered mentally, "is willing to do what is right; and my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to accomplish the will of Heaven, when once that will is distinctly known to me.
It was the first of June; yet the morning was overcast and chilly: rain beat fast on my casement.
The wondrous shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas's prison; it had opened the doors of the soul's cell and loosed its bands -- it had wakened it out of its sleep, whence it sprang trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a cry on my startled ear, and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, which neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the success of one effort it had been privileged to make, independent of the cumbrous body. "
Ere many days," I said, as I terminated my musings, "I will know something of him whose voice seemed last night to summon me.
Letters have proved of no avail -- personal inquiry shall replace them."
I replied, that nothing ailed me save anxiety of mind, which I hoped soon to alleviate.
Once more on the road to Thornfield, I felt like the messenger-pigeon flying home.
I had set out from Whitcross on a Tuesday afternoon, and early on the succeeding Thursday morning the coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn, situated in the midst of scenery whose green hedges and large fields and low pastoral hills (how mild of feature and verdant of hue compared with the stern North- Midland moors of Morton!) met my eye like the lineaments of a once familiar face.
"My journey is closed," I thought to myself.
I got out of the coach, gave a box I had into the ostler's charge, to be kept till I called for it; paid my fare; satisfied the coachman, and was going: the brightening day gleamed on the sign of the inn, and I read in gilt letters, "The Rochester Arms."
My heart leapt up: I was already on my master's very lands.
It fell again: the thought struck it: -- "Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught you know: and then, if he is at Thornfield Hall, towards which you hasten, who besides him is there?
The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force myself to act on it.
At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing broke the morning stillness.
Strange delight inspired me: on I hastened.
Another field crossed -- a lane threaded -- and there were the courtyard walls -- the back offices: the house itself, the rookery still hid.
"My first view of it shall be in front," I determined, "where its bold battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can single out my master's very window: perhaps he will be standing at it -- he rises early: perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the pavement in front.
Who would be hurt by my once more tasting the life his glance can give me?
I rave: perhaps at this moment he is watching the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or on the tideless sea of the south.
I advanced my head with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom window-blinds were yet drawn up: battlements, windows, long front -- all from this sheltered station were at my command.
The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this survey.
"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.
All is still: he again advances: he bends above her; a light veil rests on her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of beauty -- warm, and blooming, and lovely, in rest.
How hurried was their first glance!
He thought his love slept sweetly: he finds she is stone dead.
No need to cower behind a gate-post, indeed! -- to peep up at chamber lattices, fearing life was astir behind them!
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 chimneys -- all had crashed in.
No wonder that letters addressed to people here had never received an answer: as well despatch epistles to a vault in a church aisle.
The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the Hall had fallen -- by conflagration: but how kindled?
What story belonged to this disaster?
What loss, besides mortar and marble and wood-work had followed upon it?
Had life been wrecked as well as property?
In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late occurrence.
Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements; for, amidst the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters.
And oh! where meantime was the hapless owner of this wreck?
My eye involuntarily wandered to the grey church tower near the gates, and I asked, "Is he with Damer de Rochester, sharing the shelter of his narrow marble house?" Some answer must be had to these questions.
The host himself brought my breakfast into the parlour.
But when he complied, I scarcely knew how to begin; such horror had I of the possible answers.
And yet the spectacle of desolation I had just left prepared me in a measure for a tale of misery.
The host was a respectable-looking, middle-aged man.
I breathed again: my blood resumed its flow.
It seemed I could hear all that was to come -- whatever the disclosures might be -- with comparative tranquillity.
Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now?" I asked, knowing, of course, what the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the direct question as to where he really was. "No, ma'am -- oh, no!
No one is living there.
I suppose you are a stranger in these parts, or you would have heard what happened last autumn, -- Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin: it was burnt down just about harvest-time.
A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of valuable property destroyed: hardly any of the furniture could be saved.
The fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from Millcote, the building was one mass of flame.
"I have heard something of it." "She was kept in very close confinement, ma'am: people even for some years was not absolutely certain of her existence.
No one saw her: they only knew by rumour that such a person was at the Hall; and who or what she was it was difficult to conjecture.
But a queer thing happened a year since -- a very queer thing."
And this lady?" "This lady, ma'am," he answered, "turned out to be Mr. Rochester's wife!
The discovery was brought about in the strangest way.
There was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in -- " "But the fire," I suggested.
The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was after her continually.
They used to watch him -- servants will, you know, ma'am -- and he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him thought her so very handsome.
Was it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had any hand in it?"
It is excusable, for she had a hard life of it: but still it was dangerous; for when Mrs. Poole was fast asleep after the gin and water, the mad lady, who was as cunning as a witch, would take the keys out of her pocket, let herself out of her chamber, and go roaming about the house, doing any wild mischief that came into her head.
However, on this night, she set fire first to the hangings of the room next her own, and then she got down to a lower storey, and made her way to the chamber that had been the governess's -- (she was like as if she knew somehow how matters had gone on, and had a spite at her) -- and she kindled the bed there; but there was nobody sleeping in it, fortunately.
The governess had run away two months before; and for all Mr. Rochester sought her as if she had been the most precious thing he had in the world, he never could hear a word of her; and he grew savage -- quite savage on his disappointment: he never was a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her.
He would not cross the door-stones of the house, except at night, when he walked just like a ghost about the grounds and in the orchard as if he had lost his senses -- which it is my opinion he had; for a more spirited, bolder, keener gentleman than he was before that midge of a governess crossed him, you never saw, ma'am.
He was not a man given to wine, or cards, or racing, as some are, and he was not so very handsome; but he had a courage and a will of his own, if ever man had.
Then Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire broke out?" "Yes, indeed was he; and he went up to the attics when all was burning above and below, and got the servants out of their beds and helped them down himself, and went back to get his mad wife out of her cell.
Ay, dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were scattered." "Good God!"
"Well, ma'am, afterwards the house was burnt to the ground: there are only some bits of walls standing now."
" My blood was again running cold. "
What agony was this!
And the man seemed resolved to protract it. "
I summoned strength to ask what had caused this calamity. "
It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness, in a way, ma'am: he wouldn't leave the house till every one else was out before him.
He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but sadly hurt: a beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him partly; but one eye was knocked out, and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the surgeon, had to amputate it directly.
"Who is with him?" "Old John and his wife: he would have none else.
"We have a chaise, ma'am, a very handsome chaise." "Let it be got ready instantly; and if your post-boy can drive me to Ferndean before dark this day, I'll pay both you and him twice the hire you usually demand.
" CHAPTER XXXVII The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity, moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in a wood.
His father had purchased the estate for the sake of the game covers.
The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the chaise and driver with the double remuneration I had promised.
Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and passing through them, I found myself at once in the twilight of close-ranked trees.
I followed it, expecting soon to reach the dwelling; but it stretched on and on, it wound far and farther: no sign of habitation or grounds was visible.
The darkness of natural as well as of sylvan dusk gathered over me.
I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; presently I beheld a railing, then the house -- scarce, by this dim light, distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its decaying walls.
Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in a semicircle.
The house presented two pointed gables in its front; the windows were latticed and narrow: the front door was narrow too, one step led up to it.
The whole looked, as the host of the Rochester Arms had said, "quite a desolate spot."
It was as still as a church on a week-day: the pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its vicinage.
Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement -- that narrow front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the grange.
It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood on the step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to feel whether it rained.
It was a sudden meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check by pain.
His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his port was still erect, his hair was still raven black; nor were his features altered or sunk: not in one year's space, by any sorrow, could his athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime blighted.
The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson.
He lifted his hand and opened his eyelids; gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky, and toward the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him was void darkness.
He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the mutilated one, he kept hidden in his bosom); he seemed to wish by touch to gain an idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy still; for the trees were some yards off where he stood.
He relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and stood quiet and mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head.
I now drew near and knocked: John's wife opened for me. "Mary," I said, "how are you?"
I asked John to go down to the turn- pike-house, where I had dismissed the chaise, and bring my trunk, which I had left there: and then, while I removed my bonnet and shawl, I questioned Mary as to whether I could be accommodated at the Manor House for the night; and finding that arrangements to that effect, though difficult, would not be impossible, I informed her I should stay.
Just at this moment the parlour-bell rang.
"When you go in," said I, "tell your master that a person wishes to speak to him, but do not give my name."
The tray shook as I held it; the water spilt from the glass; my heart struck my ribs loud and fast.
This parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low in the grate; and, leaning over it, with his head supported against the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of the room.
His old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of the way, and coiled up as if afraid of being inadvertently trodden upon.
Pilot pricked up his ears when I came in: then he jumped up with a yelp and a whine, and bounded towards me: he almost knocked the tray from my hands.
Mr. Rochester turned mechanically to see what the commotion was: but as he saw nothing, he returned and sighed. "
"What is the matter?" he inquired.
I spilt half of what was in the glass," I said. "
Who speaks?"
"Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this evening," I answered. "
what delusion has come over me?
What sweet madness has seized me?" "No delusion -- no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy." "And where is the speaker?
I cannot see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst.
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?
It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus -- and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me."
" "Never will, says the vision?
But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned -- my life dark, lonely, hopeless -- my soul athirst and forbidden to drink -- my heart famished and never to be fed.
Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before you go -- embrace me, Jane." "There, sir -- and there!"' I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes -- I swept his hair from his brow, and kissed that too.
He suddenly seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this seized him. "
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!"
A rich woman?" "If you won't let me live with you, I can build a house of my own close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when you want company of an evening." "But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who will look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind lameter like me?" "I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own mistress." "And you will stay with me?" "Certainly -- unless you object
I 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.
The world may laugh -- may call me absurd, selfish -- but it does not signify.
My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame." "Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so." "Yes -- but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I understand another.
I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment.
"It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you," said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks; "for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort.
You have a 'faux air' of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed." "On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails," he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me.
"It is a mere stump -- a ghastly sight! Don't you think so, Jane?" "It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes -- and the scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you."
Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up.
My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long time after.
Blind as he was, smiles played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead: his lineaments softened and warmed.
Besides, I wished to touch no deep-thrilling chord -- to open no fresh well of emotion in his heart: my sole present aim was to cheer him.
If a moment's silence broke the conversation, he would turn restless, touch me, then say, "Jane."
I stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question, expecting John's wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear."
Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past?
Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again.
"Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit, when, at some fatal moment, you will again desert me -- passing like a shadow, whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards undiscoverable? "Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir?" "What for, Jane?" "Just to comb out this shaggy black mane.
The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever you have sojourned."
"Who the deuce have you been with?" "If you twist in that way you will make me pull the hair out of your head; and then I think you will cease to entertain doubts of my substantiality." "Who have you been with, Jane?" "You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir; you must wait till to-morrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know, be a sort of security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it.
If Saul could have had you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without the aid of the harp." "There, sir, you are redd up and made decent.
He sat in his chair -- still, but not at rest: expectant evidently; the lines of now habitual sadness marking his strong features.
His countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be re-lit -- and alas!
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.
"The rain is over and gone, and there is a tender shining after it: you shall have a walk soon.
" I had wakened the glow: his features beamed. "Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark!
I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high over the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than the rising sun had rays.
All the melody on earth is concentrated in my Jane's tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a silent one): all the sunshine I can feel is in her presence." The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence; just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced to entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor.
But I would not be lachrymose: I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself with preparing breakfast.
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.
Pilot lay beside us: all was quiet.
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?
Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short," I answered: and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received at Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, &c. The accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in due order.
Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in frequently in the progress of my tale.
When I had done, that name was immediately taken up. "
A person whose goodness consists rather in his guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue." "He is untiringly active.
Great and exalted deeds are what he lives to perform."
His brain is first-rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous."
" "His appearance, -- I forget what description you gave of his appearance; -- a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?" "St. John dresses well.
Jealousy had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy.
Why not, Mr. Rochester?" "The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too overwhelming contrast.
Your words have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination, -- tall, fair, blue- eyed, and with a Grecian profile.
Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan, -- a real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered: and blind and lame into the bargain."
"How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship was discovered?" "Five months."
"Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?" "Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near the window, and we by the table."
"No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not with me: it is with this cousin -- this St. John.
"Who is that?" "You know -- this St. John Rivers." "He is not my husband, nor ever will be.
Is such really the state of matters between you and Rivers?" "Absolutely, sir!
Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease you a little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better than grief.
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 heart swelled.
And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?"
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."
"Choose then, sir -- her who loves you best ."
To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth."
I preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of servants; but Jane's soft ministry will be a perpetual joy.
" He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising.
"We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but the licence to get -- then we marry." "Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from its meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner.
Don't you feel hungry?" "The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane.
"The sun has dried up all the rain-drops, sir.
The breeze is still: it is quite hot."
you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now.
He sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but far more wisely.
Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death.
His chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for ever.
You know I was proud of my strength: but what is it now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its weakness?
Some days since: nay, I can number them -- four; it was last Monday night, a singular mood came over me: one in which grief replaced frenzy -- sorrow, sullenness.
That I merited all I endured, I acknowledged -- that I could scarcely endure more, I pleaded; and the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broke involuntarily from my lips in the words -- 'Jane! Jane! Jane!'" "Did you speak these words aloud?" "I did, Jane.
If any listener had heard me, he would have thought me mad: I pronounced them with such frantic energy." "And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?" "Yes; but the time is of no consequence: what followed is the strange point.
You will think me superstitious, -- some superstition I have in my blood, and always had: nevertheless, this is true -- true at least it is that I heard what I now relate. "As I exclaimed 'Jane! Jane! Jane!' a voice -- I cannot tell whence the voice came, but I know whose voice it was -- replied, 'I am coming: wait for me;' and a moment after, went whispering on the wind the words -- 'Where are you?' "I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words opened to my mind: yet it is difficult to express what I want to express.
Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where sound falls dull, and dies unreverberating. '
Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my brow: I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane were meeting.
You no doubt were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were your accents -- as certain as I live -- they were yours!
The coincidence struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be communicated or discussed.
If I told anything, my tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression on the mind of my hearer: and that mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural.
"You cannot now wonder," continued my master, "that when you rose upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you any other than a mere voice and vision, something that would melt to silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had melted before.
Only the last words of the worship were audible.
Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang suspended in air; and for the same space of time John's knives also had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending again over the roast, said only -- "Have you, Miss?
I telled Mary how it would be," he said: "I knew what Mr. Edward" (John was an old servant, and had known his master when he was the cadet of the house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian name) -- "I knew what Mr. Edward would do; and I was certain he would not wait long neither: and he's done right, for aught I know.
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.
She had better not wait till then, Jane," said Mr. Rochester, when I read her letter to him; "if she does, she will be too late, for our honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade over your grave or mine."
His letter was then calm, and, though very serious, kind.
He has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence ever since: he hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not of those who live without God in the world, and only mind earthly things.
Her frantic joy at beholding me again moved me much.
I found the rules of the establishment were too strict, its course of study too severe for a child of her age: I took her home with me.
I meant to become her governess once more, but I soon found this impracticable; my time and cares were now required by another -- my husband needed them all.
My tale draws to its close: one word respecting my experience of married life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose names have most frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have done.
No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character -- perfect concord is the result.
He saw nature -- he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam -- of the landscape before us; of the weather round us -- and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye.
He loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance: he felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.
He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense; and that now he was sure of it.
He cannot now see very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he can find his way without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a blank to him -- the earth no longer a void.
When his first-born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once were -- large, brilliant, and black.
Diana's husband is a captain in the navy, a gallant officer and a good man.
A more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers.
Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he labours for his race; he clears their painful way to improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it.
He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon.
His is the exaction of the apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he says -- "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me."
His is the ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth -- who stand without fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful.
Himself has hitherto sufficed to the toil, and the toil draws near its close: his glorious sun hastens to its setting.
The last letter I received from him drew from my eyes human tears, and yet filled my heart with divine joy: he anticipated his sure reward, his incorruptible crown.
I know that a stranger's hand will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful servant has been called at length into the joy of his Lord.
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.