APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/books/jane_eyre/CHAP_20_29

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                       CHAPTER XX


I HAD forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also
to let down my window-blind. The consequence was, that when the
moon, which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in
her course to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked
in at me through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me.
Awaking in the dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disk-
silver-white and crystal clear. It was beautiful, but too solemn: I
half rose, and stretched my arm to draw the curtain.

Good God! What a cry!

The night- its silence- its rest, was rent in twain by a savage,
a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.

My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was
paralysed. The cry died, and was not renewed. Indeed, whatever being
uttered that fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the
widest-winged condor on the Andes could, twice in succession, send out
such a yell from the cloud shrouding his eyrie. The thing delivering
such utterance must rest ere it could repeat the effort.

It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And
overhead- yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling- I now
heard a struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a
half-smothered voice shouted-

'Help! help! help!' three times rapidly.

'Will no one come?' it cried; and then, while the staggering and
stamping went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:-

'Rochester! Rochester! for God's sake, come!'

A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the
gallery. Another step stamped on the flooring above and something
fell; and there was silence.

I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I
issued from my apartment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations,
terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one
looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and
ladies alike had quitted their beds; and 'Oh! what is it?'- 'Who is
hurt?'- 'What has happened?'- 'Fetch a light!'- 'Is it fire?'- 'Are
there robbers?'- 'Where shall we run?' was demanded confusedly on
all hands. But for the moon-light they would have been in complete
darkness. They ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed,
some stumbled: the confusion was inextricable.

'Where the devil is Rochester?' cried Colonel Dent. 'I cannot
find him in his bed.'

'Here! here!' was shouted in return. 'Be composed, all of you:
I'm coming.'

And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester
advanced with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey.
One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss
Ingram.

'What awful event has taken place?' said she. 'Speak! let us know
the worst at once!'

'But don't pull me down or strangle me,' he replied: for the Misses
Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast
white wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail.

'All's right!- all's right!' he cried. 'It's a mere rehearsal of
Much Ado about Nothing. Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous.'

And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming
himself by an effort, he added-

'A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She's an
excitable, nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition,
or something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with
fright. Now, then, I must see you all back into your rooms; for,
till the house is settled, she cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have
the goodness to set the ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you
will not fail in evincing superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa,
return to your nests like a pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames' (to
the dowagers), 'you will take cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in
this chill gallery any longer.'

And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived
to get them all once more enclosed in their separate dormitories. I
did not wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated unnoticed, as
unnoticed I had left it.

Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed
myself carefully. The sounds I had heard after the scream, and the
words that had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for
they had proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me
that it was not a servant's dream which had thus struck horror through
the house; and that the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely
an invention framed to pacify his guests. I dressed, then, to be ready
for emergencies. When dressed, I sat a long time by the window looking
out over the silent grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew
not what. It seemed to me that some event must follow the strange cry,
struggle, and call.

No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased
gradually, and in about an hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as
a desert. It seemed that sleep and night had resumed their empire.
Meantime the moon declined: she was about to set. Not liking to sit in
the cold and darkness, I thought I would lie down on my bed, dressed
as I was. I left the window, and moved with little noise across the
carpet; as I stooped to take off my shoes, a cautious hand tapped
low at the door.

'Am I wanted?' I asked.

'Are you up?' asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my
master's.

'Yes, sir.'

'And dressed?'

'Yes.'

'Come out, then, quietly.'

I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.

'I want you,' he said: 'come this way: take your time, and make
no noise.'

My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a
cat. He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the
dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and
stood at his side.

'Have you a sponge in your room?' he asked in a whisper.

'Yes, sir.'

'Have you any salts- volatile salts?'

'Yes.'

'Go back and fetch both.'

I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my
drawer, and once more retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a
key in his hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put
it in the lock; he paused, and addressed me again.

'You don't turn sick at the sight of blood?'

'I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.'

I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no
faintness.

'Just give me your hand,' he said: 'it will not do to risk a
fainting fit.'

I put my fingers into his. 'Warm and steady,' was his remark: he
turned the key and opened the door.

I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax
showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the
tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent,
which had then been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out
of the room within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost
like a dog quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said
to me, 'Wait a minute,' and he went forward to the inner apartment.
A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and
terminating in Grace Poole's own goblin ha! ha! She then was there. He
made some sort of arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low
voice address him: he came out and closed the door behind him.

'Here, Jane!' he said; and I walked round to the other side of a
large bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable
portion of the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat
in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his
head leant back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle
over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face- the
stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side and one arm, was
almost soaked in blood.

'Hold the candle,' said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched
a basin of water from the washstand: 'Hold that,' said he. I obeyed.
He took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like
face; he asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils.
Mr. Mason shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester
opened the shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were
bandaged: he sponged away blood, trickling fast down.

'Is there immediate danger?' murmured Mr. Mason.

'Pooh! No- a mere scratch. Don't be so overcome, man: bear up! I'll
fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you'll be able to be removed by
morning, I hope. Jane,' he continued.

'Sir?'

'I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an
hour, or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when
it returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that
stand to his lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to
him on any pretext- and- Richard, it will be at the peril of your life
if you speak to her: open your lips- agitate yourself- and I'll not
answer for the consequences.'

Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move;
fear, either of death or of something else, appeared almost to
paralyse him. Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand,
and I proceeded to use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then
saying, 'Remember!- No conversation,' he left the room. I
experienced a strange feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the
sound of his retreating step ceased to be heard.

Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its
mystic cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my
eyes and hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door:
yes- that was appalling- the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the
thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me.

I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly
countenance- these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose- these eyes
now shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on
me, and ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand
again and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the
trickling gore. I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on
my employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry
round me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old bed, and
quiver strangely over the doors of a great cabinet opposite- whose
front, divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads
of the twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in a
frame; while above them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a dying
Christ.

According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered
here or glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that
bent his brow; now St. John's long hair that waved; and anon the
devilish face of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed
gathering life and threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor- of
Satan himself- in his subordinate's form.

Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for
the movements of the wild beast or the fiend in yonder side den. But
since Mr. Rochester's visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I
heard but three sounds at three long intervals,- a step creak, a
momentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human
groan.

Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this, that lived
incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled
nor subdued by the owner?- what mystery, that broke out now in fire
and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it,
that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice,
now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?

And this man I bent over- this commonplace, quiet stranger- how had
he become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at
him? What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely
season, when he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr.
Rochester assign him an apartment below- what brought him here? And
why, now, was he so tame under the violence or treachery done him? Why
did he so quietly submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced?
Why did Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment? His guest had been
outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted
against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in
oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester;
that the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway over the
inertness of the former: the few words which had passed between them
assured me of this. It was evident that in their former intercourse,
the passive disposition of the one had been habitually influenced by
the active energy of the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Rochester's
dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason's arrival? Why had the mere name
of this unresisting individual- whom his word now sufficed to
control like a child- fallen on him, a few hours since, as a
thunderbolt might fall on an oak?

Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered:
'Jane, I have got a blow- I have got a blow, Jane.' I could not forget
how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no
light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the
vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester.

'When will he come? When will he come?' I cried inwardly, as the
night lingered and lingered- as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned,
sickened: and neither day nor aid arrived. I had, again and again,
held the water to Mason's white lips; again and again offered him
the stimulating salts: my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or
mental suffering, or loss of blood, or all three combined, were fast
prostrating his strength. He moaned so, and looked so weak, wild,
and lost, I feared he was dying; and I might not even speak to him.

The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived
streaks of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then
approaching. Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his
distant kennel in the courtyard: hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted:
in five minutes more the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me
my watch was relieved. It could not have lasted more than two hours:
many a week has seemed shorter.

Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to
fetch.

'Now, Carter, be on the alert,' he said to this last: 'I give you
but half an hour for dressing the wound, fastening the bandages,
getting the patient downstairs and all.'

'But is he fit to move, sir?'

'No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his
spirits must be kept up. Come, set to work.'

Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland
blind, let in all the daylight he could; and I was surprised and
cheered to see how far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were
beginning to brighten the east. Then he approached Mason, whom the
surgeon was already handling.

'Now, my good fellow, how are you?' he asked.

'She's done for me, I fear,' was the faint reply.

'Not a whit!- courage! This day fortnight you'll hardly be a pin
the worse of it: you've lost a little blood; that's all. Carter,
assure him there's no danger.'

'I can do that conscientiously,' said Carter, who had now undone
the bandages; 'only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would
not have bled so much- but how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is
torn as well as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there
have been teeth here!'

'She bit me,' he murmured. 'She worried me like a tigress, when
Rochester got the knife from her.'

'You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her
at once,' said Mr. Rochester.

'But under such circumstances, what could one do?' returned
Mason. 'Oh, it was frightful!' he added, shuddering. 'And I did not
expect it: she looked so quiet at first.'

'I warned you,' was his friend's answer; 'I said- be on your
guard when you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till
to-morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the
interview to-night, and alone.'

'I thought I could have done some good.'

'You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear
you: but, however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer
enough for not taking my advice; so I'll say no more. Carter-
hurry!- hurry! The sun will soon rise, and I must have him off.'

'Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to
this other wound in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think.'

'She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart,' said Mason.

I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of
disgust, horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to
distortion, but he only said-

'Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don't
repeat it.'

'I wish I could forget it,' was the answer.

'You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to
Spanish Town, you may think of her as dead and buried- or rather,
you need not think of her at all.'

'Impossible to forget this night!'

'It is not impossible: have some energy, man. You thought you
were as dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive and
talking now. There!- Carter has done with you or nearly so; I'll
make you decent in a trice. Jane' (he turned to me for the first
time since his re-entrance), 'take this key: go down into my
bedroom, and walk straight forward into my dressing-room: open the top
drawer of the wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and
neck-handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble.'

I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the
articles named, and returned with them.

'Now,' said he, 'go to the other side of the bed while I order
his toilet; but don't leave the room: you may be wanted again.'

I retired as directed.

'Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?' inquired Mr.
Rochester presently.

'No, sir; all was very still.'

'We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both
for your sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have
striven long to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at
last. Here, Carter, help him on with his waistcoat. Where did you
leave your furred cloak? You can't travel a mile without that, I know,
in this damned cold climate. In your room?- Jane, run down to Mr.
Mason's room,- the one next mine,- and fetch a cloak you will see
there.'

Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined
and edged with fur.

'Now, I've another errand for you,' said my untiring master; you
must away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet,
Jane!- a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You
must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little
phial and a little glass you will find there,- quick!'

I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.

'That's well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of
administering a dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this
cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan- a fellow you would have
kicked, Carter. It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately, but
it is good upon occasion: as now, for instance. Jane, a little water.'

He held out the tiny glass, and I half-filled it from the
water-bottle on the washstand.

'That will do;- now wet the lip of the phial.'

I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and
presented it to Mason.

'Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour
or so.'

'But will it hurt me?- is it inflammatory?'

'Drink! drink! drink!'

Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He
was dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and
sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had
swallowed the liquid; he then took his arm-

'Now I am sure you can get on your feet,' he said- 'try.'

The patient rose.

'Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer,
Richard; step out- that's it!'

'I do feel better,' remarked Mr. Mason.

'I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the
backstairs; unbolt the side-passage door, and tell the driver of the
post-chaise you will see in the yard- or just outside, for I told
him not to drive his rattling wheels over the pavement- to be ready;
we are coming: and, Jane, if any one is about, come to the foot of the
stairs and hem.'

It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of
rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent. The
side-passage door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as
possible: all the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and
there was a post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver
seated on the box, stationed outside. I approached him, and said the
gentlemen were coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully round and
listened. The stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere; the
curtains were yet drawn over the servants' chamber windows; little
birds were just twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees,
whose boughs drooped like white garlands over the wall enclosing one
side of the yard; the carriage horses stamped from time to time in
their closed stables: all else was still.

The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and
the surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him
into the chaise; Carter followed.

'Take care of him,' said Mr. Rochester to the latter, 'and keep him
at your house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a day or two
to see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you?'

'The fresh air revives me, Fairfax.'

'Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind-
good-bye, Dick.'

'Fairfax-'

'Well, what is it?'

'Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may
be: let her- ' he stopped and burst into tears.

'I do my best; and have done it, and will do it,' was the answer:
he shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.

'Yet would to God there was an end of all this!' added Mr.
Rochester, as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates.

This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a
door in the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done
with me, prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard
him call 'Jane!' He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for
me.

'Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments,' he said;
'that house is a mere dungeon: don't you feel it so?'

'It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.'

'The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,' he answered;
'and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that
the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble
is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly
bark. Now here' (he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered)
'all is real, sweet, and pure.'

He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear
trees, and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of
all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses,
pansies, mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various
fragrant herbs. They were fresh now as a succession of April showers
and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them:
the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumined
the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks
under them.

'Jane, will you have a flower?'

He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered
it to me.

'Thank you, sir.'

'Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light
clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm- this
placid and balmy atmosphere?'

'I do, very much.'

'You have passed a strange night, Jane.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And it has made you look pale- were you afraid when I left you
alone with Mason?'

'I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room.'

'But I had fastened the door- I had the key in my pocket: I
should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb- my pet
lamb- so near a wolf's den, unguarded: you were safe.'

'Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?'

'Oh yes! don't trouble your head about her- put the thing out of
your thoughts.'

'Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays.'

'Never fear- I will take care of myself.'

'Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?'

'I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even
then. To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may
crack and spue fire any day.'

'But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is
evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or
wilfully injure you.'

'Oh no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me-
but, unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word,
deprive me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness.'

'Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and show
him how to avert the danger.'

He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw
it from him.

'If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be?
Annihilated in a moment. Ever since I have known Mason, I have only
had to say to him "Do that," and the thing has been done. But I cannot
give him orders in this case: I cannot say "Beware of harming me,
Richard"; for it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that
harm to me is possible. Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you
further. You are my little friend, are you not?'

'I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right.'

'Precisely: I see you do. I see genuine contentment in your gait
and mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing
me- working for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically say,
"all that is right": for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, there
would be no light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no lively
glance and animated complexion. My friend would then turn to me, quiet
and pale, and would say, "No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot do it,
because it is wrong"; and would become immutable as a fixed star.
Well, you too have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare not
show you where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you
are, you should transfix me at once.'

'If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from
me, sir, you are very safe.'

'God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down.'

The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained
a rustic seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me:
but I stood before him.

'Sit,' he said; 'the bench is long enough for two. You don't
hesitate to take a place at my side, do you? Is that wrong, Jane?'

I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been
unwise.

'Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew- while all the
flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their
young ones' breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do
their first spell of work- I'll put a case to you, which you must
endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me
you are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or
that you err in staying.'

'No, sir; I am content.'

'Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:- suppose you were no
longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged
from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land;
conceive that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what
nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences must follow
you through life and taint all your existence. Mind, I don't say a
crime; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act,
which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is
error. The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly
insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures,
but neither unlawful nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope
has quitted you on the very confines of life: your sun at noon darkens
in an eclipse, which you feel will not leave it till the time of
setting. Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of
your memory: you wander here and there, seeking rest in exile:
happiness in pleasure- I mean in heartless, sensual pleasure- such
as dulls intellect and blights feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered,
you come home after years of voluntary banishment: you make a new
acquaintance- how or where no matter: you find in this stranger much
of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty
years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh,
healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives,
regenerates: you feel better days come back-higher wishes, purer
feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what
remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To
attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of
custom-a mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience
sanctifies nor your judgment approves?'

He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good
spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain
aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle
Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the
tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate.

Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query:

'Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant,
man justified in daring the world's opinion, in order to attach to him
for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing
his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?'

'Sir,' I answered, 'a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation
should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die;
philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any
one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his
equals for strength to amend and solace to heal.'

'But the instrument- the instrument! God, who does the work,
ordains the instrument. I have myself- I tell it you without
parable- been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I
have found the instrument for my cure in-'

He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly
rustling. I almost wondered they did not check their songs and
whispers to catch the suspended revelation; but they would have had to
wait many minutes- so long was the silence protracted. At last I
looked up at the tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me.

'Little friend,' said he, in quite a changed tone- while his face
changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh
and sarcastic- 'you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram:
don't you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a
vengeance?'

He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and
when he came back he was humming a tune.

'Jane, Jane,' said he, stopping before me, 'you are quite pale with
your vigils: don't you curse me for disturbing your rest?'

'Curse you? No, sir.'

'Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers! They
were warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the
mysterious chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?'

'Whenever I can be useful, sir.'

'For instance, the night before I am married! I am sure I shall not
be able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me
company? To you I can talk of my lovely one: for now you have seen her
and know her.'

'Yes, sir.'

'She's a rare one, is she not, Jane?'

'Yes, sir.'

'A strapper- a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom; with
hair just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me!
there's Dent and Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery,
through that wicket.'

As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard,
saying cheerfully-

'Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before
sunrise: I rose at four to see him off.'

                      CHAPTER XXI


PRESENTIMENTS are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are
signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has
not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life,
because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe,
exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly
estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the
unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose workings
baffle mortal comprehension. And signs, for aught we know, may be
but the sympathies of Nature with man.

When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard
Bessie Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a
little child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of
trouble, either to one's self or one's kin. The saying might have worn
out of my memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed which
served indelibly to fix it there. The next day Bessie was sent for
home to the deathbed of her little sister.

Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for
during the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that
had not brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed
in my arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing
with daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its hands in running water.
It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it
nestled close to me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the
apparition evinced, whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven
successive nights to meet me the moment I entered the land of slumber.

I did not like this iteration of one idea- this strange
recurrence of one image, and I grew nervous as bedtime approached
and the hour of the vision drew near. It was from companionship with
this baby-phantom I had been roused on that moonlight night when I
heard the cry; and it was on the afternoon of the day following I
was summoned downstairs by a message that some one wanted me in Mrs.
Fairfax's room. On repairing thither, I found a man waiting for me,
having the appearance of a gentleman's servant: he was dressed in deep
mourning, and the hat he held in his hand was surrounded with a
crape band.

'I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss,' he said, rising as I
entered; 'but my name is Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed
when you were at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live
there still.'

'Oh, Robert! how do you do? I remember you very well: you used to
give me a ride sometimes on Miss Georgiana's bay pony. And how is
Bessie? You are married to Bessie?'

'Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me
another little one about two months since- we have three now- and both
mother and child are thriving.'

'And are the family well at the house, Robert?'

'I am sorry I can't give you better news of them, Miss: they are
very badly at present- in great trouble.'

'I hope no one is dead,' I said, glancing at his black dress. He
too looked down at the crape round his hat and replied-

'Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London.'

'Mr. John?'

'Yes.'

'And how does his mother bear it?'

'Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life has
been very wild: these last three years he gave himself up to strange
ways, and his death was shocking.'

'I heard from Bessie he was not doing well.'

'Doing well! He could not do worse: he ruined his health and his
estate amongst the worst men and the worst women. He got into debt and
into jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free
he returned to his old companions and habits. His head was not strong:
the knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond anything I ever heard.
He came down to Gateshead about three weeks ago and wanted missis to
give up all to him. Missis refused: her means have long been much
reduced by his extravagance; so he went back again, and the next
news was that he was dead. How he died, God knows!- they say he killed
himself.'

I was silent: the tidings were frightful. Robert Leaven resumed-

'Missis had been out of health herself for some time: she had got
very stout, but was not strong with it; and the loss of money and fear
of poverty were quite breaking her down. The information about Mr.
John's death and the manner of it came too suddenly: it brought on a
stroke. She was three days without speaking; but last Tuesday she
seemed rather better: she appeared as if she wanted to say
something, and kept making signs to my wife and mumbling. It was
only yesterday morning, however, that Bessie understood she was
pronouncing your name; and at last she made out the words, "Bring
Jane- fetch Jane Eyre: I want to speak to her." Bessie is not sure
whether she is in her right mind, or means anything by the words;
but she told Miss Reed and Miss Georgiana, and advised them to send
for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but their mother grew
so restless, and said, "Jane, Jane," so many times, that at last
they consented. I left Gateshead yesterday: and if you can get
ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with me early to-morrow
morning.'

'Yes, Robert, I shall be ready: it seems to me that I ought to go.'

'I think so too, Miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not
refuse: but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can get
off?'

'Yes; and I will do it now'; and having directed him to the
servants' hall, and recommended him to the care of John's wife, and
the attentions of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester.

He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the
stables, or the grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him;-
yes: she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram. To the
billiard-room I hastened: the click of balls and the hum of voices
resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton,
and their admirers, were all busied in the game. It required some
courage to disturb so interesting a party; my errand, however, was one
I could not defer, so I approached the master where he stood at Miss
Ingram's side. She turned as I drew near, and looked at me
haughtily: her eyes seemed to demand, 'What can the creeping
creature want now?' and when I said, in a low voice, 'Mr.
Rochester,' she made a movement as if tempted to order me away. I
remember her appearance at the moment- it was very graceful and very
striking: she wore a morning robe of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure
scarf was twisted in her hair. She had been all animation with the
game, and irritated pride did not lower the expression of her
haughty lineaments.

'Does that person want you?' she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr.
Rochester turned to see who the 'person' was. He made a curious
grimace- one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations- threw down
his cue and followed me from the room.

'Well, Jane?' he said, as he rested his back against the
school-room door, which he had shut.

'If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two.'

'What to do?- where to go?'

'To see a sick lady who has sent for me.'

'What sick lady?- where does she live?'
for people to see her that distance?'

'Her name is Reed sir- Mrs. Reed.'

'Reed of Gateshead? There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate.'

'It is his widow, sir.'

'And what have you to do with her? How do you know her?'

'Mr. Reed was my uncle- my mother's brother.'

'The deuce he was! You never told me that before: you always said
you had no relations.'

'None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast
me off.'

'Why?'

'Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me.'

'But Reed left children?- you must have cousins? Sir George Lynn
was talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said, was one of
the veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana
Reed of the same place, who was much admired for her beauty a season
or two ago in London.'

'John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and half-ruined his
family, and is supposed to have committed suicide. The news so shocked
his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack.'

'And what good can you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never
think of running a hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps,
be dead before you reach her: besides, you say she cast you off.'

'Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were
very different: I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now.'

'How long will you stay?'

'As short a time as possible, sir.'

'Promise me only to stay a week-'

'I had better not pass my word: I might be obliged to break it.'

'At all events you will come back: you will not be induced under
any pretext to take up a permanent residence with her?'

'Oh, no! I shall certainly return if all be well.'

'And who goes with you? You don't travel a hundred miles alone.'

'No, sir, she has sent her coachman.'

'A person to be trusted?'

'Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the family.'

Mr. Rochester meditated. 'When do you wish to go?'

'Early to-morrow morning, sir.'

'Well, you must have some money; you can't travel without money,
and I daresay you have not much: I have given you no salary yet. How
much have you in the world, Jane?' he asked, smiling.

I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. 'Five shillings,
sir.' He took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and
chuckled over it as if its scantiness amused him. Soon he produced his
pocket-book: 'Here,' said he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds,
and he owed me but fifteen. I told him I had no change.

'I don't want change; you know that. Take your wages.'

I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first;
then, as if recollecting something, he said-

'Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps,
stay away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten; is it
not plenty?'

'Yes, sir, but now you owe me five.'

'Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds.'

'Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to
you while I have the opportunity.'

'Matter of business? I am curious to hear it.'

'You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly
to be married?'

'Yes; what then?'

'In that case, sir, Adele ought to go to school: I am sure you will
perceive the necessity of it.'

'To get her out of my bride's way, who might otherwise walk over
her rather too emphatically? There's sense in the suggestion; not a
doubt of it. Adele, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course,
must march straight to- the devil?'

'I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere.'

'In course!' he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion
of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some
minutes.

'And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be
solicited by you to seek a place, I suppose?'

'No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify
me in asking favours of them- but I shall advertise.'

'You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!' he growled. 'At your
peril you advertise! I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead
of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I've a use for it.'

'And so have I, sir,' I returned, putting my hands and my purse
behind me. 'I could not spare the money on any account.'

'Little niggard!' said he, 'refusing me a pecuniary request! Give
me five pounds, Jane.'

'Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence.'

'Just let me look at the cash.'

'No, sir; you are not to be trusted.'

'Jane!'

'Sir?'

'Promise me one thing.'

'I'll promise you anything, sir, that I think I am likely to
perform.'

'Not to advertise: and to trust this quest of a situation to me.
I'll find you one in time.'

'I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will
promise that I and Adele shall be both safe out of the house before
your bride enters it.'

'Very well! very well! I'll pledge my word on it. You go to-morrow,
then?'

'Yes, sir; early.'

'Shall you come down to the drawing-room after dinner?'

'No, sir, I must prepare for the journey.'

'Then you and I must bid good-bye for a little while?'

'I suppose so, sir.'

'And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach
me; I'm not quite up to it.'

'They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer.'

'Then say it.'

'Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present.'

'What must I say?'

'The same, if you like, sir.'

'Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?'

'Yes.'

'It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I
should like something else: a little addition to the rite. If one
shook hands, for instance; but no- that would not content me either.
So you'll do no more than say Farewell, Jane?'

'It is enough, sir: as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty
word as in many.'

'Very likely; but it is blank and cool- "Farewell."'

'How long is he going to stand with his back against that door?'
I asked myself; 'I want to commence my packing.' The dinner-bell rang,
and suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable: I saw him no
more during the day, and was off before he had risen in the morning.

I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o'clock in the
afternoon of the first of May: I stepped in there before going up to
the hall. It was very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were hung
with little white curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and
fire-irons were burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear. Bessie sat
on the hearth, nursing her last-born, and Robert and his sister played
quietly in a corner.

'Bless you!- I knew you would come!' exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as I
entered.

'Yes, Bessie,' said I, after I had kissed her; 'and I trust I am
not too late. How is Mrs. Reed?- Alive still, I hope.'

'Yes, she is alive; and more sensible and collected than she was.
The doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly thinks
she will finally recover.'

'Has she mentioned me lately?'

'She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would
come: but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was up
at the house. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the
afternoon, and wakes up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself
here an hour, Miss, and then I will go up with you?'

Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the
cradle and went to welcome him: afterwards she insisted on my taking
off my bonnet and having some tea; for she said I looked pale and
tired. I was glad to accept her hospitality; and I submitted to be
relieved of my travelling garb just as passively as I used to let
her undress me when a child.

Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling
about- setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and
butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert
or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in
former days. Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light
foot and good looks.

Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to
sit still, quite in her old peremptory tones. I must be served at
the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round
stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to
accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery
chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.

She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort
of a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a
master, whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I told
her he was rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he
treated me kindly, and I was content. Then I went on to describe to
her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house; and
to these details Bessie listened with interest: they were precisely of
the kind she relished.

In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me
my bonnet, etc., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for
the hall. It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years
ago, walked down the path I was now ascending. On a dark, misty, raw
morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and
embittered heart- a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation- to
seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and
unexplored. The same hostile roof now again rose before me: my
prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart. I still
felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced
firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread
of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite
healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.

'You shall go into the breakfast-room first,' said Bessie, as she
preceded me through the hall; 'the young ladies will be there.'

In another moment I was within that apartment. There was every
article of furniture looking just as it did on the morning I was first
introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon still
covered the hearth. Glancing at the bookcases, I thought I could
distinguish the two volumes of Bewick's British Birds occupying
their old place on the third shelf, and Gulliver's Travels and the
Arabian Nights ranged just above. The inanimate objects were not
changed; but the living things had altered past recognition.

Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall, almost as
tall as Miss Ingram- very thin too, with a sallow face and severe
mien. There was something ascetic in her look, was augmented by the
extreme plainness of a straight-skirted, black, stuff dress, a
starched linen collar, hair combed away from the temples, and the
nun-like ornament of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix. This I
felt sure was Eliza, though I could trace little resemblance to her
former self in that elongated and colourless visage.

The other was as certainly Georgiana: but not the Georgiana I
remembered- the slim and fairy-like girl of eleven. This was a
full-blown, very plump damsel, fair as waxwork, with handsome and
regular features, languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair.
The hue of her dress was black too; but its fashion was so different
from her sister's- so much more flowing and becoming- it looked as
stylish as the other's looked puritanical.

In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother- and
only one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent's
Cairngorm eye: the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour
of jaw and chin- perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an
indescribable hardness to the countenance, otherwise so voluptuous and
buxom.

Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both
addressed me by the name of 'Miss Eyre.' Eliza's greeting was
delivered in a short, abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she
sat down again, fixed her eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me.
Georgiana added to her 'How d 'ye do?' several commonplaces about my
journey, the weather, and so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone:
and accompanied by sundry side-glances that measured me from head to
foot-now traversing the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now
lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young ladies
have a remarkable way of letting you know that they think you a 'quiz'
without actually saying the words. A certain superciliousness of look,
coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their
sentiments on the point, without committing them by any positive
rudeness in word or deed.

A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that
power over me it once possessed: as I sat between my cousins, I was
surprised to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one
and the semi-sarcastic attentions of the other- Eliza did not mortify,
nor Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had other things to think
about; within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so
much more potent than any they could raise- pains and pleasures so
much more acute and exquisite had been excited than any it was in
their power to inflict or bestow- that their airs gave me no concern
either for good or bad.

'How is Mrs. Reed?' I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana,
who thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an
unexpected liberty.

'Mrs. Reed? Ah, mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt if
you can see her to-night.'

'If,' said I, 'you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come,
I should be much obliged to you.'

Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and
wide. 'I know she had a particular wish to see me,' I added, 'and I
would not defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely
necessary.'

'Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening,' remarked Eliza. I
soon rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and
said I would just step out to Bessie- who was, I dared say, in the
kitchen- and ask her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to
receive me or not to-night. I went, and having found Bessie and
despatched her on my errand, I proceeded to take further measures.
It had heretofore been my habit always to shrink from arrogance:
received as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago, have resolved
to quit Gateshead the very next morning; now, it was disclosed to me
all at once that that would be a foolish plan. I had taken a journey
of a hundred miles to see my aunt, and I must stay with her till she
was better- or dead: as to her daughters' pride or folly, I must put
it on one side, make myself independent of it. So I addressed the
housekeeper; asked her to show me a room, told her I should probably
be a visitor here for a week or two, had my trunk conveyed to my
chamber, and followed it thither myself: I met Bessie on the landing.

'Missis is awake,' said she; 'I have told her you are here: come
and let us see if she will know you.'

I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I
had so often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former
days. I hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded
light stood on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the
great four-post bed with amber hangings as of old; there the
toilet-table, the arm-chair, and the footstool, at which I had a
hundred times been sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by
me uncommitted. I looked into a certain corner near, half expecting to
see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk
there, waiting to leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or
shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened the curtains and
leant over the high-piled pillows.

Well did I remember Mrs. Reed's face, and I eagerly sought the
familiar image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of
vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had left
this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with
no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a
strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries- to be reconciled
and clasp hands in amity.

The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever- there was
that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised,
imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace and
hate! and how the recollection of childhood's terrors and sorrows
revived as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped down and
kissed her: she looked at me.

'Is this Jane Eyre?' she said.

'Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?'

I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I
thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had
fastened on her hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine
kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But
unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural
antipathies so readily eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away,
and, turning her face rather from me, she remarked that the night
was warm. Again she regarded me so icily, I felt at once that her
opinion of me- her feeling towards me- was unchanged and unchangeable.
I knew by her stony eye- opaque to tenderness, indissoluble to
tears- that she was resolved to consider me bad to the last; because
to believe me good would give her no generous pleasure: only a sense
of mortification.

I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination
to subdue her- to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and
her will. My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them
back to their source. I brought a chair to the bed-head: I sat down
and leaned over the pillow.

'You sent for me,' I said, 'and I am here; and it is my intention
to stay till I see how you get on.'

'Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?'

'Yes.'

'Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some
things over with you I have on my mind: to-night it is too late, and I
have a difficulty in recalling them. But there was something I
wished to say- let me see-'

The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had
taken place in her once vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew
the bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the
quilt, fixed it down: she was at once irritated.

'Sit up!' said she; 'don't annoy me with holding the clothes
fast. Are you Jane Eyre?'

'I am Jane Eyre.'

'I have had more trouble with that child than any one would
believe. Such a burden to be left on my hands- and so much annoyance
as she caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible
disposition, and her sudden starts of temper, and her continual,
unnatural watchings of one's movements! I declare she talked to me
once like something mad, or like a fiend- no child ever spoke or
looked as she did; I was glad to get her away from the house. What did
they do with her at Lowood? The fever broke out there, and many of the
pupils died. She, however, did not die: but I said she did- I wish she
had died!'

'A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?'

'I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband's
only sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family's
disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of
her death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby;
though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its
maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it- a
sickly, whining, pining thing! It would wail in its cradle all night
long- not screaming heartily like any other child, but whimpering
and moaning. Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and notice it
as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than he ever noticed his
own at that age. He would try to make my children friendly to the
little beggar: the darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with
them when they showed their dislike. In his last illness, he had it
brought continually to his bedside; and but an hour before he died, he
bound me by vow to keep the creature. I would as soon have been
charged with a pauper brat out of a workhouse: but he was weak,
naturally weak. John does not at all resemble his father, and I am
glad of it: John is like me and like my brothers- he is quite a
Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease tormenting me with letters for
money! I have no more money to give him: we are getting poor. I must
send away half the servants and shut up part of the house; or let it
off. I can never submit to do that- yet how are we to get on?
Two-thirds of my income goes in paying the interest of mortgages. John
gambles dreadfully, and always loses- poor boy! He is beset by
sharpers: John is sunk and degraded- his look is frightful- I feel
ashamed for him when I see him.'

She was getting much excited. 'I think I had better leave her now,'
said I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed.

'Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards
night- in the morning she is calmer.'

I rose. 'Stop!' exclaimed Mrs. Reed, 'there is another thing I
wished to say. He threatens me- he continually threatens me with his
own death, or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid out with
a great wound in his throat, or with a swollen and blackened face. I
am come to a strange pass: I have heavy troubles. What is to be
done? How is the money to be had?'

Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative
draught: she succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew
more composed, and sank into a dozing state. I then left her.

More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with
her. She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor
forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I got
on as well as I could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very cold,
indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing, reading, or
writing, and scarcely utter a word either to me or her sister.
Georgiana would chatter nonsense to her canary bird by the hour, and
take no notice of me. But I was determined not to seem at a loss for
occupation or amusement: I had brought my drawing materials with me,
and they served me for both.

Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used
to take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in
sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened
momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of
imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon,
and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and
a naiad's head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an elf
sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-bloom.

One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it
was to be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it
a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad
and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that
contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it
with features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced
under that brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined nose, with a
straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-looking mouth, by no
means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided cleft down the middle
of it: of course, some black whiskers were wanted, and some jetty
hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above the forehead. Now for the
eyes: I had left them to the last, because they required the most
careful working. I drew them large; I shaped them well: the
eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the irids lustrous and large.
'Good! but not quite the thing,' I thought, as I surveyed the
effect: 'they want more force and spirit'; and I wrought the shades
blacker, that the lights might flash more brilliantly- a happy touch
or two secured success. There, I had a friend's face under my gaze;
and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs
on me? I looked at it; I smiled at the speaking likeness: I was
absorbed and content.

'Is that a portrait of some one you know?' asked Eliza, who had
approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy
head, and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied: it
was, in fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester. But
what was that to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana also
advanced to look. The other drawings pleased her much, but she
called that 'an ugly man.' They both seemed surprised at my skill. I
offered to sketch their portraits; and each, in turn, sat for a pencil
outline. Then Georgiana produced her album. I promised to contribute a
water-colour drawing: this put her at once into good humour. She
proposed a walk in the grounds. Before we had been out two hours, we
were deep in a confidential conversation: she had favoured me with a
description of the brilliant winter she had spent in London two
seasons ago- of the admiration she had there excited- the attention
she had received; and I even got hints of the titled conquest she
had made. In the course of the afternoon and evening these hints
were enlarged on: various soft conversations were reported, and
sentimental scenes represented; and, in short, a volume of a novel
of fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my benefit. The
communications were renewed from day to day: they always ran on the
same theme- herself, her loves, and woes. It was strange she never
once adverted either to her mother's illness, or her brother's
death, or the present gloomy state of the family prospects. Her mind
seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety, and
aspirations after dissipations to come. She passed about five
minutes each day in her mother's sick-room, and no more.

Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk. I
never saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was
difficult to say what she did: or rather, to discover any result of
her diligence. She had an alarm to call her up early. I know not how
she occupied herself before breakfast, but after that meal she divided
her time into regular portions, and each hour had its allotted task.
Three times a day she studied a little book, which I found, on
inspection, was a Common Prayer Book. I asked her once what was the
great attraction of that volume, and she said, 'the Rubric.' Three
hours she gave to stitching, with gold thread, the border of a
square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a carpet. In answer to
my inquiries after the use of this article, she informed me it was a
covering for the altar of a new church lately erected near
Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her diary; two to working by
herself in the kitchen-garden; and one to the regulation of her
accounts. She seemed to want no company; no conversation. I believe
she was happy in her way: this routine sufficed for her; and nothing
annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident which forced her
to vary its clockwork regularity.

She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative
than usual, that John's conduct, and the threatened ruin of the
family, had been a source of profound affliction to her: but she had
now, she said, settled her mind, and formed her resolution. Her own
fortune she had taken care to secure; and when her mother died- and it
was wholly improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should either
recover or linger long- she would execute a long-cherished project:
seek a retirement where punctual habits would be permanently secured
from disturbance, and place safe barriers between herself and a
frivolous world. I asked if Georgiana would accompany her.

'Of course not. Georgiana and she had nothing in common: they never
had had. She would not be burdened with her society for any
consideration. Georgiana should take her own course; and she, Eliza,
would take hers.'

Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of
her time in lying on the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the
house, and wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send
her an invitation up to town. 'It would be so much better,' she
said, 'if she could only get out of the way for a month or two, till
all was over.' I did not ask what she meant by 'all being over,' but I
suppose she referred to the expected decease of her mother and the
gloomy sequel of funeral rites. Eliza generally took no more notice of
her sister's indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring,
lounging object had been before her. One day, however, as she put away
her account-book and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up
thus-

'Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly
never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born, for
you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself,
as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness
on some other person's strength: if no one can be found willing to
burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you
cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too,
existence for you must be a scene of continual change and
excitement, or else the world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you
must be courted, you must be flattered- you must have music,
dancing, and society- or you languish, you die away. Have you no sense
to devise a system which will make you independent of all efforts, and
all wills, but your own? Take one day; share it into sections; to each
section apportion its task: leave no stray unemployed quarters of an
hour, ten minutes, five minutes- include all; do each piece of
business in its turn with method, with rigid regularity. The day
will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are
indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment:
you have had to seek no one's company, conversation, sympathy
forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought
to do. Take this advice: the first and last I shall offer you; then
you will not want me or any one else, happen what may. Neglect it-
go on as heretofore, craving, whining, and idling- and suffer the
results of your idiocy, however bad and insufferable they may be. I
tell you this plainly; and listen: for though I shall no more repeat
what I am now about to say, I shall steadily act on it. After my
mother's death, I wash my hands of you: from the day her coffin is
carried to the vault in Gateshead Church, you and I will be as
separate as if we had never known each other. You need not think
that because we chanced to be born of the same parents, I shall suffer
you to fasten me down by even the feeblest claim: I can tell you this-
if the whole human race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, and we
two stood alone on the earth, I would leave you in the old world,
and betake myself to the new.'

She closed her lips.

'You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that
tirade,' answered Georgiana. 'Everybody knows you are the most
selfish, heartless creature in existence: and I know your spiteful
hatred towards me: I have had a specimen of it before in the trick you
played me about Lord Edwin Vere: you could not bear me to be raised
above you, to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare
not show your face, and so you acted the spy and informer, and
ruined my prospects for ever.' Georgiana took out her handkerchief and
blew her nose for an hour afterwards; Eliza sat cold, impassible,
and assiduously industrious.

True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here
were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other
despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment
is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too
bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.

It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on
the sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a
saint's-day service at the new church- for in matters of religion
she was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual
discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or
foul, she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on
week-days as there were prayers.

I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped,
who lay there almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a
remittent attention: the hired nurse, being little looked after, would
slip out of the room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful; but
she had her own family to mind, and could only come occasionally to
the hall. I found the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected: no nurse
was there; the patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid
face sunk in the pillows: the fire was dying in the grate. I renewed
the fuel, re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could
not now gaze on me, and then I moved away to the window.

The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew
tempestuously: 'One lies there,' I thought, 'who will soon be beyond
the war of earthly elements. Whither will that spirit- now
struggling to quit its material tenement- flit when at length
released?'

In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns,
recalled her dying words- her faith- her doctrine of the equality of
disembodied souls. I was still listening in thought to her
well-remembered tones- still picturing her pale and spiritual
aspect, her wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid
deathbed, and whispered her longing to be restored to her divine
Father's bosom- when a feeble voice murmured from the couch behind:
'Who is that?'

I knew Mrs. Reed had not spoken for days: was she reviving? I
went up to her.

'It is I, Aunt Reed.'

'Who- I?' was her answer. 'Who are you?' looking at me with
surprise and a sort of alarm, but still not wildly. 'You are quite a
stranger to me- where is Bessie?'

'She is at the lodge, aunt.'

'Aunt,' she repeated. 'Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the
Gibsons; and yet I know you- that face, and the eyes and forehead, are
quite familiar to me: you are like- why, you are like Jane Eyre!'

I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring
my identity.

'Yet,' said she, 'I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts
deceive me. I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where
none exists: besides, in eight years she must be so changed.' I now
gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me
to be: and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were
quite collected, I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to
fetch me from Thornfield.

'I am very ill, I know,' she said ere long. 'I was trying to turn
myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as
well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in
health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the
nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?'

I assured her we were alone.

'Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in
breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own
child; the other-' she stopped. 'After all, it is of no great
importance, perhaps,' she murmured to herself: 'and then I may get
better; and to humble myself so to her is painful.'

She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face
changed; she seemed to experience some inward sensation- the
precursor, perhaps, of the last pang.

'Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me: I had better tell
her.- Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you
will see there.'

I obeyed her directions. 'Read the letter,' she said.

It was short, and thus conceived:-


'MADAM,- Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my
niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is? It is my intention to
write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence
has blessed my endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am
unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and
bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave.- I am, Madam,
etc., etc.,

                                             'JOHN EYRE, Madeira.'


It was dated three years back.

'Why did I never hear of this?' I asked.

'Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a
hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct
to me, Jane- the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in
which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the
world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the
very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated
you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations
when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt
fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me
with human eyes and cursed me in a man's voice.- Bring me some
water! Oh, make haste!'

'Dear Mrs. Reed,' said I, as I offered her the draught she
required, 'think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind.
Forgive me for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight, nine
years have passed since that day.'

She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the
water and drawn breath, she went on thus-

'I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge: for you
to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and
comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was
sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died
of typhus fever at Lowood. Now act as you please: write and contradict
my assertion- expose my falsehood as soon as you like. You were
born, I think, to be my torment: my last hour is racked by the
recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been
tempted to commit.'

'If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to
regard me with kindness and forgiveness-'

'You have a very bad disposition,' said she, 'and one to this day I
feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be
patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break
out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend.'

'My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but
not vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been
glad to love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to
be reconciled to you now: kiss me, aunt.'

I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She said
I oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded water.
As I laid her down- for I raised her and supported her on my arm while
she drank- I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine: the
feeble fingers shrank from my touch- the glazing eyes shunned my gaze.

'Love me, then, or hate me, as you will,' I said at last, 'you have
my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God's, and be at peace.'

Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the
effort to change her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever
hated me- dying, she must hate me still.

The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half
an hour longer, hoping to see some sign of amity: but she gave none.
She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally: at
twelve o'clock that night she died. I was not present to close her
eyes, nor were either of her daughters. They came to tell us the
next morning that all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza
and I went to look at her: Georgiana, who had burst out into loud
weeping, said she dared not go. There was stretched Sarah Reed's
once robust and active frame, rigid and still: her eye of flint was
covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore yet the
impress of her inexorable soul. A strange and solemn object was that
corpse to me. I gazed on it with gloom and pain: nothing soft, nothing
sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or subduing did it inspire; only a
grating anguish for her woes- not my loss- and a sombre tearless
dismay at the fearfulness of death in such a form.

Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes
she observed-

'With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her
life was shortened by trouble.' And then a spasm constricted her mouth
for an instant: as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so
did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear.

                      CHAPTER XXII


MR. ROCHESTER had given me but one week's leave of absence: yet a
month elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave
immediately after the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till
she could get off to London, whither she was now at last invited by
her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down to direct his sister's
interment and settle the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded
being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in
her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I
bore with her feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as
well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and packing her
dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would idle; and I
thought to myself, 'If you and I were destined to live always
together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing.
I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I
should assign you your share of labour, and compel you to accomplish
it, or else it should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your
keeping some of those drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in
your own breast. It is only because our connection happens to be
very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I
consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on my part.'

At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza's turn to request
me to stay another week. Her plans required all her time and
attention, she said; she was about to depart for some unknown
bourne; and all day long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted
within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, and
holding no communication with any one. She wished me to look after the
house, to see callers, and answer notes of condolence.

One morning she told me I was at liberty. 'And,' she added, 'I am
obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct!
There is some difference between living with such an one as you and
with Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no one.
To-morrow,' she continued, 'I set out for the Continent. I shall
take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle- a nunnery you
would call it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote
myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and
to a careful study of the workings of their system: if I find it to
be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the
doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the
tenets of Rome and probably take the veil.'

I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to
dissuade her from it. 'The vocation will fit you to a hair,' I
thought: 'much good may it do you!'

When we parted, she said: 'Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you
well: you have some sense.'

I then returned: 'You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what
you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a
French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I
don't much care.'

'You are in the right,' said she; and with these words we each went
our separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to
her or her sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana
made an advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and
that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of
the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and which
she endowed with her fortune.

How people feel when they are returning home from an absence,
long or short, I did not know: I had never experienced the
sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a
child after a long walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and
later, what it was to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a
plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either.
Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no
magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of
attraction the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be
tried.

My journey seemed tedious- very tedious: fifty miles one day, a
night spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first
twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her
disfigured and discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered
voice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black
train of tenants and servants- few was the number of relatives- the
gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service. Then I thought of
Eliza and Georgiana; I beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the
other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on and analysed
their separate peculiarities of person and character. The evening
gave them quite another turn: laid down on my traveller's bed, I
left reminiscence for anticipation.

I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there?
Not long; of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the
interim of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr.
Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was then
expected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was
gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of
purchasing a new carriage: she said the idea of his marrying Miss
Ingram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said,
and from what she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the
event would shortly take place. 'You would be strangely incredulous if
you did doubt it,' was my mental comment. 'I don't doubt it.'

The question followed, 'Where was I to go?' I dreamt of Miss Ingram
all the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of
Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr.
Rochester looked on with his arms folded- smiling sardonically, as
it seemed, at both her and me.

I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return;
for I did not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I
proposed to walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly,
after leaving my box in the ostler's care, did I slip away from the
George Inn, about six o'clock of a June evening, and take the old road
to Thornfield: a road which lay chiefly through fields, and was now
little frequented.

It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and
soft: the haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky,
though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future:
its blue- where blue was visible- was mild and settled, and its
cloud strata high and thin. The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam
chilled it- it seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burning
behind its screen of marbled vapour, and out of apertures shone a
golden redness.

I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped
once to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it
was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to
a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival.
'Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure,' said I; 'and
little Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know
very well you are thinking of another than they, and that he is not
thinking of you.'

But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as
inexperience? These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the
privilege of again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me
or not; and they added- 'Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may:
but a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him for
ever!' And then I strangled a new-born agony- a deformed thing which I
could not persuade myself to own and rear- and ran on.

They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the
labourers are just quitting their work, and returning home with
their rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have
but a field or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and
reach the gates. How full the hedges are of roses! But I have no
time to gather any; I want to be at the house. I passed a tall
briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path; I see
the narrow stile with stone steps; and I see- Mr. Rochester sitting
there, a book and a pencil in his hand; he is writing.

Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for
a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not
think I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or
the power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can
stir: I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I know another way
to the house. It does not signify if I knew twenty ways; for he has
seen me.

'Hillo!' he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. 'There
you are! Come on, if you please.'

I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; being
scarcely cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear
calm; and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face- which
I feel rebel insolently against my will, and struggle to express
what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a veil- it is down: I may
make shift yet to behave with decent composure.

'And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on
foot? Yes- just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and
come clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to
steal into the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if
you were a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with
yourself this last month?'

'I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.'

'A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard. She comes from the
other world- from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so
when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch
you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!- but I'd as
soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh.
Truant! truant!' he added, when he had paused an instant. 'Absent from
me a whole month, and forgetting me quite, I'll be sworn!'

I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even
though broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my
master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there
was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the
power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he
scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast
genially. His last words were balm: they seemed to imply that it
imported something to him whether I forgot him or not. And he had
spoken of Thornfield as my home- would that it were my home!

He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I
inquired soon if he had not been to London.

'Yes; I suppose you found that out by second-sight.'

'Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter.'

'And did she inform you what I went to do?'

'Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand.'

'You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don't think it
will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won't look like
Queen Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish,
Jane, I were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally.
Tell me now, fairy as you are- can't you give me a charm, or a
philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?'

'It would be past the power of magic, sir'; and, in thought, I
added, 'A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome
enough; or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty.'

Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an
acumen to me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no
notice of my abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain
smile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He
seemed to think it too good for common purposes: it was the real
sunshine of feeling- he shed it over me now.

'Pass, Janet,' said he, making room for me to cross the stile:
'go up home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend's
threshold.'

All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to
colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant
to leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast- a force turned me round.
I said- or something in me said for me, and in spite of me-

'Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am
strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my
home- my only home.'

I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had
he tried. Little Adele was half wild with delight when she saw me.
Mrs. Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah
smiled, and even Sophie bid me 'bon soir' with glee. This was very
pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by your
fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to
their comfort.

I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I
stopped my ears against the voice that kept warning me of near
separation and coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had
taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and
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. Once she said she had actually put the question to Mr.
Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but he
had answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she
could not tell what to make of him.

One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no
journeyings backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be sure
it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; but what
was that distance to an ardent lover? To so practised and
indefatigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but a morning's
ride. I began to cherish hopes I had no right to conceive: that the
match was broken off; that rumour had been mistaken; that one or
both parties had changed their minds. I used to look at my master's
face to see if it were sad or fierce; but I could not remember the
time when it had been so uniformly clear of clouds or evil feelings.
If, in the moments I and my pupil spent with him, I lacked spirits and
sank into inevitable dejection, he became even gay. Never had he
called me more frequently to his presence; never been kinder to me
when there- and, alas! never had I loved him so well.

                     CHAPTER XXIII


A SPLENDID Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so
radiant as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour even
singly, our wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had
come from the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and
lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got
in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads
white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime; hedge and wood,
full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of
the cleared meadows between.

On Midsummer-eve, Adele, weary with gathering wild strawberries
in Hay Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched
her drop asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden.

It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:- 'Day its fervid
fires had wasted,' and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched
summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple state- pure of the
pomp of clouds- spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of
red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and
extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven.
The east had its own charm of fine deep blue, and its own modest
gem, a rising and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she
was yet beneath the horizon.

I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent-
that of a cigar- stole from some window; I saw the library casement
open a hand-breadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart
into the orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more
Eden-like; it was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very
high wall shut it out from the court, on one side; on the other, a
beech avenue screened it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk
fence; its sole separation from lonely fields: a winding walk,
bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horse-chestnut,
circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here one could
wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such silence reigned, such
gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever; but
in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the
enclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising moon cast on this
more open quarter, my step is stayed-not by sound, not by sight, but
once more by a warning fragrance.

Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long
been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is
neither of shrub nor flower; it is- I know it well- it is Mr.
Rochester's cigar. I look round and I listen. I see trees laden with
ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile
off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but that
perfume increases: I must flee. I make for the wicket leading to the
shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy
recess; he will not stay long: he will soon return whence he came, and
if I sit still he will never see me.

But no- eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique
garden as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the
gooseberry-tree branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with
which they are laden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now
stooping towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance
or to admire the dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes
humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester's foot: he
sees it, and bends to examine it.

'Now, he has his back towards me,' thought I, 'and he is occupied
too; perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed.'

I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly
gravel might not betray me: he was standing among the beds at a yard
or two distant from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged
him. 'I shall get by very well,' I meditated. As I crossed his shadow,
thrown long over the garden by the moon, not yet risen high, he said
quietly, without turning-

'Jane, come and look at this fellow.'

I had made no noise: he had not eyes behind- could his shadow feel?
I started at first, and then I approached him.

'Look at his wings,' said he, 'he reminds me rather of a West
Indian insect; one does not often see so large and gay a night-rover
in England; there! he is flown.'

The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also; but Mr.
Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said-

'Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house;
and surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at
meeting with moonrise.'

It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt
enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing
an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile
word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful
embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this hour alone with Mr.
Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not find a reason to
allege for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and thoughts
busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself
looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling
any confusion: the evil- if evil existent or prospective there was-
seemed to lie with me only; his mind was unconscious and quiet.

'Jane,' he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly
strayed down in the direction of the sunk fence and the
horse-chestnut, 'Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?'

'Yes, sir.'

'You must have become in some degree attached to the house,- you,
who have an eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the organ
of Adhesiveness?'

'I am attached to it, indeed.'

'And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have
acquired a degree of regard for that foolish little child 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. 'It is always the way of
events in this life,' he continued presently: 'no sooner have you
got settled in a pleasant resting-place, than a voice calls out to you
to rise and move on, for the hour of repose is expired.'

'Must I move on, sir?' I asked. 'Must I leave Thornfield?'

'I believe you must, Jane. I am sorry, Janet, but I believe
indeed you must.'

This was a blow: but I did not let it prostrate me.

'Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes.'

'It is come now- I must give it to-night.'

'Then you are going to be married, sir?'

'Ex-act-ly- pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit
the nail straight on the head.'

'Soon, sir?'

'Very soon, my- that is, Miss Eyre: and you'll remember, Jane,
the first time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my
intention to put my old bachelor's neck into the sacred noose, to
enter into the holy estate of matrimony- to take Miss Ingram to my
bosom, in short (she's an extensive armful: but that's not to the
point- one can't have too much of such a very excellent thing as my
beautiful Blanche): well, as I was saying- listen to me, Jane!
You're not turning your head to look after more moths, are you? That
was only a lady-clock, child, "flying away home." I wish to remind you
that it was you who first said to me, with that discretion I respect
in you- with that foresight, prudence, and humility which befit your
responsible and dependent position- that in case I married Miss
Ingram, both you and little Adele had better trot forthwith. I pass
over the sort of slur conveyed in this suggestion on the character
of my beloved; indeed, when you are far away, Janet, I'll try to
forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom; which is such that I have
made it my law of action. 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.

'In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom,' continued Mr.
Rochester; 'and in the interim, I shall myself look out for employment
and an asylum for you.'

'Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give-'

'Oh, no need to apologise! I consider that when a dependant does
her duty as well as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim
upon her employer for any little assistance he can conveniently render
her; indeed I have already, through my future mother-in-law, heard
of a place that I think will suit: it is to undertake the education of
the five daughters of Mrs. Dionysius O'Gall of Bitternutt Lodge,
Connaught, Ireland. You'll like Ireland, I think: they're such
warmhearted people there, they say.'

'It is a long way off, sir.'

'No matter- a girl of your sense will not object to the voyage or
the distance.'

'Not the voyage, but the distance: and then the sea is a barrier-'

'From what, Jane?'

'From England and from Thornfield: and-'

'Well?'

'From you, sir.'

I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of
free will, my tears gushed out. I did not cry so as to be heard,
however; I avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O'Gall and
Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to my heart; and colder the thought of
all the brine and foam, destined, as it seemed, to rush between me and
the master at whose side I now walked, and coldest the remembrance
of the wider ocean- wealth, caste, custom intervened between me and
what I naturally and inevitably loved.

'It is a long way,' I again said.

'It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge,
Connaught, Ireland, I shall never see you again, Jane: that's
morally certain. I never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of
a fancy for the country. We have been good friends, Jane; have we
not?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to
spend the little time that remains to them close to each other.
Come! we'll talk over the voyage and the parting quietly half an
hour or so, while the stars enter into their shining life up in heaven
yonder: here is the chestnut tree: here is the bench at its old roots.
Come, we will sit there in peace to-night, though we should never more
be destined to sit there together.' He seated me and himself.

'It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my
little friend on such weary travels: but if I can't do better, how
is it to be helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?'

I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.

'Because,' he said, 'I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard
to you- especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a
string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably
knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of
your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel and two hundred
miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of
communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should
take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,- you'd forget me.'

'That I never should, sir: you know-' Impossible to proceed.

'Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!'

In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I
endured no longer; I was obliged to yield, and I was shaken from
head to foot with acute distress. When I did speak, it was only to
express an impetuous wish that I had never been born, or never come to
Thornfield.

'Because you are sorry to leave it?'

The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me,
was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a
right to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last:
yes,- and to speak.

'I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:- I love it,
because I have lived in it a full and delightful life,- momentarily at
least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I
have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every
glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high. I
have talked, face to face, with what I reverence, with what I
delight in,- with an original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have
known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to
feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the
necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of
death.'

'Where do you see the necessity?' he asked suddenly.

'Where? You, sir, have placed it before me.'

'In what shape?'

'In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman,- your
bride.'

'My bride! What bride? I have no bride!'

'But you will have.'

'Yes;- I will!'- I will!' He set his teeth.

'Then I must go:- you have said it yourself.'

'No: you must stay! I swear it- and the oath shall be kept.'

'I tell you I must go!' I retorted, roused to something like
passion. 'Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you
think I am an automaton?- a machine without feelings? and can bear
to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of
living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor,
obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think
wrong!- I have as much soul as you,- and full as much heart! And if
God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made
it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am
not talking to you now through the medium of custom,
conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;- it is my spirit that
addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave,
and we stood at God's feet, equal,- as we are!'

'As we are!' repeated Mr. Rochester- 'so,' he added, enclosing me
in his arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips:
'so, Jane!'

'Yes, so, sir,' I rejoined: 'and yet not so; for you are a
married man- or as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to
you- to one with whom you have no sympathy- whom I do not believe
you truly love; for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would
scorn such a union: therefore I am better than you- let me go!'

'Where, Jane? To Ireland?'

'Yes- to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now.'

'Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that
is rending its own plumage in its desperation.'

'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with
an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.'

Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him.

'And your will shall decide your destiny,' he said: 'I offer you my
hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.'

'You play a farce, which I merely laugh at.'

'I ask you to pass through life at my side- to be my second self,
and best earthly companion.'

'For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by
it.'

'Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be
still too.'

A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk and trembled
through the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away- away- to an
indefinite distance- it died. The nightingale's song was then the only
voice of the hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat
quiet, looking at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before
he spoke; he at last said-

'Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one
another.'

'I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and
cannot return.'

'But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to
marry.'

I was silent: I thought he mocked me.

'Come, Jane- come hither.'

'Your bride stands between us.'

He rose, and with a stride reached me.

'My bride is here,' he said, again drawing me to him, 'because my
equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?'

Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his
grasp: for I was still incredulous.

'Do you doubt me, Jane?'

'Entirely.'

'You have no faith in me?'

'Not a whit.'

'Am I a liar in your eyes?' he asked passionately. 'Little sceptic,
you shall be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and
that you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains
to prove: I caused a rumour to reach her that my fortune was not a
third of what was supposed, and after that I presented myself to see
the result; it was coldness both from her and her mother. I would not-
I could not- marry Miss Ingram. You- you strange, you almost unearthly
thing!- I love as my own flesh. You- poor and obscure, and small and
plain as you are- I entreat to accept me as a husband.'

'What, me!' I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness- and
especially in his incivility- to credit his sincerity: 'me who have
not a friend in the world but you- if you are my friend: not a
shilling but what you have given me?'

'You, Jane, I must have you for my own- entirely my own. Will you
be mine? Say yes, quickly.'

'Mr. Rochester, let me look at your face: turn to the moonlight.'

'Why?'

'Because I want to read your countenance- turn!'

'There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled,
scratched page. Read on: only make haste, for I suffer.'

His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there
were strong workings in the features, and strange gleams in the eyes.

'Oh, Jane, you torture me!' he exclaimed. 'With that searching
and yet faithful and generous look, you torture me!'

'How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only
feelings to you must be gratitude and devotion- they cannot torture.'

'Gratitude!' he ejaculated; and added wildly- 'Jane, accept me
quickly. Say, Edward- give me my name- Edward- I will marry you.'

'Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me
to be your wife?'

'I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it.'

'Then, sir, I will marry you.'

'Edward- my little wife!'

'Dear Edward!'

'Come to me- come to me entirely now,' said he; and added, in his
deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine,
'Make my happiness- I will make yours.'

'God pardon me!' he subjoined ere long; 'and man meddle not with
me: I have her, and will hold her.'

'There is no one to meddle, sir. I have no kindred to interfere.'

'No- that is the best of it,' he said. And if I had loved him
less I should have thought his accent and look of exultation savage;
but, sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of parting- called to
the paradise of union- I thought only of the bliss given me to drink
in so abundant a flow. Again and again he said, 'Are you happy, Jane?'
And again and again I answered, 'Yes,' After which he murmured, 'It
will atone- it will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and
cold, and comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace
her? Is there not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves? It
will expiate at God's tribunal. I know my Maker sanctions what I do.
For the world's judgment- I wash my hands thereof. For man's
opinion- I defy it.'

But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we
were all in shadow: I could scarcely see my master's face, near as I
was. And what ailed the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned; while
wind roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us.

'We must go in,' said Mr. Rochester: 'the weather changes. I
could have sat with thee till morning, Jane.'

'And so,' thought I, 'could I with you.' I should have said so,
perhaps, but a livid, vivid spark leapt out of a cloud at which I
was looking, and there was a crack, a crash, and a close rattling
peal; and I thought only of hiding my dazzled eyes against Mr.
Rochester's shoulder.

The rain rushed down. He hurried me up the walk, through the
grounds, and into the house; but we were quite wet before we could
pass the threshold. He was taking off my shawl in the hall, and
shaking the water out of my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax emerged
from her room. I did not observe her at first, nor did Mr.
Rochester. The lamp was lit. The dock was on the stroke of twelve.

'Hasten to take off your wet things,' said he; 'and before you
go, good-night- good-night, my darling!'

He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked up, on leaving his arms,
there stood the widow, pale, grave, and amazed. I only smiled at
her, and ran upstairs. 'Explanation will do for another time,' thought
I. Still, when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she
should even temporarily misconstrue what she had seen. But joy soon
effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and
deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning
gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours'
duration, I experienced no fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came
thrice to my door in the course of it, to ask if I was safe and
tranquil: and that was comfort, that was strength for anything.

Before I left my bed in the morning, little 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. I could not be certain of the reality
till I had seen Mr. Rochester again, and heard him renew his words
of love and promise.

While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt
it was no longer plain: there was hope in its aspect and life in its
colour; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of
fruition, and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often
been unwilling to look at my master, because I feared he could not
be pleased at my look; but I was sure I might lift my face to his now,
and not cool his affection by its expression. I took a plain but clean
and light summer dress from my drawer and put it on: it seemed no
attire had ever so well become me, because none had I ever worn in
so blissful a mood.

I was not surprised, when I ran down into the hall, to see that a
brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the night;
and to feel, through the open glass door, the breathing of a fresh and
fragrant breeze. Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy. A
beggar-woman and her little boy- pale, ragged objects both- were
coming up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all the money I
happened to have in my purse- some three or four shillings: good or
bad, they must partake of my jubilee. The rooks cawed, and blither
birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing
heart.

Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out of the window with a sad
countenance, and saying gravely- 'Miss Eyre, will you come to
breakfast?' During the meal she was quiet and cool: but I could not
undeceive her then. I must wait for my master to give explanations;
and so must she. I ate what I could, and then I hastened upstairs. I
met Adele leaving the schoolroom.

'Where are you going? It is time for lessons.'

'Mr. Rochester has sent me away to the nursery.'

'Where is he?'

'In there,' pointing to the apartment she had left; and I went
in, and there he stood.

'Come and bid me good-morning,' said he. I gladly advanced; and
it was not merely a cold word now, or even a shake of the hand that
I received, but an embrace and a kiss. It seemed natural: it seemed
genial to be so well loved, so caressed by him.

'Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty,' said he: 'truly
pretty this morning. Is this my pale, little elf? Is this my
mustard-seed? This little sunny-faced girl with the dimpled cheek
and rosy lips; the satin-smooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel
eyes?' (I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake: for
him they were new-dyed, I suppose.)

'It is Jane Eyre, sir.'

'Soon to be Jane Rochester,' he added: 'in four weeks, Janet; not a
day more. Do you hear that?'

I did, and I could not quite comprehend it: it made me giddy. The
feeling, the announcement sent through me, was something stronger than
was consistent with joy- something that smote and stunned: it was, I
think, almost fear.

'You blushed, and now you are white, Jane: what is that for?'

'Because you gave me a new name- Jane Rochester; and it seems so
strange.'

'Yes, Mrs. Rochester,' said he; 'young Mrs. Rochester- Fairfax
Rochester's girl-bride.'

'It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely. Human beings never
enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different
destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling
me is a fairy tale- a day-dream.'

'Which I can and will realise. I shall begin to-day. This morning I
wrote to my banker in London to send me certain jewels he has in his
keeping,- heirlooms for the ladies of Thornfield. In a day or two I
hope to pour them into your lap: for every privilege, every
attention shall be yours that I would accord a peer's daughter, if
about to marry her.'

'Oh, sir!- never mind jewels! I don't like to hear them spoken
of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would
rather not have them.'

'I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the
circlet on your forehead,- which it will become: for nature, at least,
has stamped her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I will
clasp the bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-like
fingers with rings.'

'No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things,
and in another strain. Don't address me as if I were a beauty; I am
your plain, Quakerish governess.'

'You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of
my heart,- delicate and aerial.'

'Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir,- or you
are sneering. For God's sake, don't be ironical!'

'I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too,' he went
on, while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted, because
I felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. 'I
will attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her
hair; and I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil.'

'And then you won't know me, sir; and I shall not be your Jane Eyre
any longer, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket- a jay in borrowed
plumes. I would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in
stage-trappings, as myself clad in a court-lady's robe; and I don't
call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too
dearly to flatter you. Don't flatter me.'

He pursued his theme, however, without noticing my deprecation.
'This very day I shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and you
must choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we shall be
married in four weeks. The wedding is to take place quietly, in the
church down below yonder; and then I shall waft you away at once to
town. After a brief stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions
nearer the sun: to French vineyards and Italian plains; and she
shall see whatever is famous in old story and in modern record: she
shall taste, too, of the life of cities; and she shall learn to
value herself by just comparison with others.'

'Shall I travel?- and with you, sir?'

'You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice,
and Vienna: all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden by
you: wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot shall step also.
Ten years since, I flew through Europe half mad; with disgust, hate,
and rage as my companions: now I shall revisit it healed and
cleaned, with a very angel as my comforter.'

I laughed at him as he said this. 'I am not an angel,' I
asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr.
Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me-
for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which
I do not at all anticipate.'

'What do you anticipate of me?'

'For a little while you will perhaps be as you are now,- a very
little while; and then you will turn cool; and then you will be
capricious; and then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to
please you: but when you get well used to me, you will perhaps like me
again,- like me, I say, not love me. I suppose your love will
effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by
men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband's
ardour extends. Yet, after all, as a friend and companion, I hope
never to become quite distasteful to my dear master.'

'Distasteful! and like you again! I think I shall like you again,
and yet again: and I will make you confess I do not only like, but
love you- with truth, fervour, constancy.'

'Yet are you not capricious, sir?'

'To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil
when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts- when they open
to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility,
coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent
tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but
does not break- at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent- I
am ever tender and true.'

'Had you ever experience of such a character, sir? Did you ever
love such an one?'

'I love it now.'

'But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your
difficult standard?'

'I never met your likeness. Jane, you please me, and you master me-
you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and
while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends
a thrill up my arm to my heart. I am influenced- conquered; and the
influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo
has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile, Jane?
What does that inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance mean?'

'I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was
involuntary), I was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their
charmers-'

'You were, you little elfish-'

'Hush, sir! You don't talk very wisely just now; any more than
those gentlemen acted very wisely. However, had they been married,
they would no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for
their softness as suitors; and so will you, I fear. I wonder how you
will answer me a year hence, should I ask a favour it does not suit
your convenience or pleasure to grant.'

'Ask me something now, Janet- the least thing: I desire to be
entreated-'

'Indeed I will sir; I have my petition all ready.'

'Speak! But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall
swear concession before I know to what, and that will make a fool of
me.'

'Not at all, sir; I ask only this: don't send for the jewels, and
don't crown me with roses: you might as well put a border of gold lace
round that plain pocket-handkerchief you have there.'

'I might as well "gild refined gold." I know it: your request is
granted then- for the time. I will remand the order I despatched to my
banker. But you have not yet asked for anything; you have prayed a
gift to be withdrawn: try again.'

'Well, then, sir, have the goodness to gratify my curiosity,
which is much piqued on one point.'

He looked disturbed. 'What? what?' he said hastily. 'Curiosity is a
dangerous petition: it is well I have not taken a vow to accord
every request-'

'But there can be no danger in complying with this, sir.'

'Utter it, Jane: but I wish that instead of a mere inquiry into,
perhaps, a secret, it was a wish for half my estate.'

'Now, King Ahasuerus! What do I want with half your estate? Do
you think I am a Jew-usurer, seeking good investment in land? I
would much rather have all your confidence. You will not exclude me
from your confidence if you admit me to your heart?'

'You are welcome to all my confidence that is worth having, Jane;
but for God's sake, don't desire a useless burden! Don't long for
poison- don't turn out a downright Eve on my hands!'

'Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you liked
to be conquered, and how pleasant over-persuasion is to you. Don't you
think I had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and
coax and entreat- even cry and be sulky if necessary- for the sake
of a mere essay of my power?'

'I dare you to any such experiment. Encroach, presume, and the game
is up.'

'Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern you look now! Your
eyebrows have become as thick as my finger, and your forehead
resembles what, in some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled, "a
blue-piled thunderloft." That will be your married look, sir, I
suppose?'

'If that will be your married look, I, as a Christian, will soon
give up the notion of consorting with a mere sprite or salamander. But
what had you to ask, thing,- out with it?'

'There, you are less than civil now; and I like rudeness a great
deal better than flattery. I had rather be a thing than an angel. This
is what I have to ask,- Why did you take such pains to make me believe
you wished to marry Miss Ingram?'

'Is that all? Thank God it is no worse!' And now he unknit his
black brows; looked down, smiling at me, and stroked my hair, as if
well pleased at seeing a danger averted. 'I think I may confess,' he
continued, 'even although I should make you a little indignant,
Jane- and I have seen what a fire-spirit you can be when you are
indignant. You glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you
mutinied against fate, and claimed your rank as my equal. Janet, by
the bye, it was you who made me the offer.'

'Of course I did. But to the point if you please, sir- Miss
Ingram?'

'Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to
render you as madly in love with me as I was with you; and I knew
jealousy would be the best ally I could call in for the furtherance of
that end.'

'Excellent! Now you are small- not one whit bigger than the end
of my little finger. It was a burning shame and a scandalous
disgrace to act in that way. Did you think nothing of Miss Ingram's
feelings, sir?'

'Her feelings are concentrated in one- pride; and that needs
humbling. Were you jealous, Jane?'

'Never mind, Mr. Rochester: it is in no way interesting to you to
know that. Answer me truly once more. Do you think Miss Ingram will
not suffer from your dishonest coquetry? Won't she feel forsaken and
deserted?'

'Impossible!- when I told you how she, on the contrary, deserted
me: the idea of my insolvency cooled, or rather extinguished, her
flame in a moment.'

'You have a curious, designing mind, Mr. Rochester. I am afraid
your principles on some points are eccentric.'

'My principles were never trained, Jane: they may have grown a
little awry for want of attention.'

'Once again, seriously; may I enjoy the great good that has been
vouchsafed to me, without fearing that any one else is suffering the
bitter pain I myself felt a while ago?'

'That you may, my good little girl: there is not another being in
the world has the same pure love for me as yourself- for I lay that
pleasant unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in your affection.'

I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my shoulder. I loved him
very much- more than I could trust myself to say- more than words
had power to express.

'Ask something more,' he said presently; 'it is my delight to be
entreated, and to yield.'

I was again ready with my request. 'Communicate your intentions
to Mrs. Fairfax, sir: she saw me with you last night in the hall,
and she was shocked. Give her some explanation before I see her again.
It pains me to be misjudged by so good a woman.'

'Go to your room, and put on your bonnet,' he replied. 'I mean
you to accompany me to Millcote this morning; and while you prepare
for the drive, I will enlighten the old lady's understanding. Did
she think, Janet, you had given the world for love, and considered
it well lost?'

'I believe she thought I had forgotten my station, and yours, sir.'

'Station! station!- your station is in my heart, and on the necks
of those who would insult you, now or hereafter.- Go.'

I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs.
Fairfax's parlour, I hurried down to it. The old lady had been reading
her morning portion of Scripture- the Lesson for the day; her Bible
lay open before her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her
occupation, suspended by Mr. Rochester's announcement, seemed now
forgotten: her eyes, fixed on the blank wall opposite, expressed the
surprise of a quiet mind stirred by unwonted tidings. Seeing me, she
roused herself: she made a sort of effort to smile, and framed a few
words of congratulation; but the smile expired, and the sentence was
abandoned unfinished. She put up her spectacles, shut the Bible, and
pushed her chair back from the table.

'I feel so astonished,' she began, 'I hardly know what to say to
you, Miss Eyre. I have surely not been dreaming, have I? Sometimes I
half fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that have
never happened. It has seemed to me more than once when I have been in
a doze, that my dear husband, who died fifteen years since, has come
in and sat down beside me; and that I have even heard him call me by
my name, Alice, as he used to do. Now, can you tell me whether it is
actually true that Mr. Rochester has asked you to marry him? Don't
laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here five minutes ago,
and said that in a month you would be his wife.'

'He has said the same thing to me,' I replied.

'He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?'

'Yes.'

She looked at me bewildered.

'I could never have thought it. He is a proud man: all the
Rochesters were proud: and his father, at least, liked money. He, too,
has always been called careful. He means to marry you?'

'He tells me so.'

She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had
there found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma.

'It passes me!' she continued; 'but no doubt it is true since you
say so. How it will answer, I cannot tell: I really don't know.
Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and
there are twenty years of difference in your ages. He might almost
be your father.'

'No, indeed, Mrs. Fairfax!' exclaimed I, nettled; 'he is nothing
like my father! No one, who saw us together, would suppose it for an
instant. Mr. Rochester looks as young, and is as young, as some men at
five-and-twenty.'

'Is it really for love he is going to marry you?' she asked.

I was so hurt by her coldness and scepticism, that the tears rose
to my eyes.

'I am sorry to grieve you,' pursued the widow; 'but you are so
young, and so little acquainted with men, I wished to put you on
your guard. It is an old saying that "all is not gold that
glitters"; and in this case I do fear there will be something found to
be different to what either you or I expect.'

'Why?- am I a monster?' I said: 'is it impossible that Mr.
Rochester should have a sincere affection for me?'

'No: you are very well; and much improved of late; and Mr.
Rochester, I daresay, is fond of you. I have always noticed that you
were a sort of pet of his. There are times when, for your sake, I have
been a little uneasy at his marked preference, and have wished to
put you on your guard: but I did not like to suggest even the
possibility of wrong. I knew such an idea would shock, perhaps
offend you; and you were so discreet, and so thoroughly modest and
sensible, I hoped you might be trusted to protect yourself. Last night
I cannot tell you what I suffered when I sought all over the house,
and could find you nowhere, nor the master either; and then, at twelve
o'clock, saw you come in with him.'

'Well, never mind that now,' I interrupted impatiently; 'it is
enough that all was right.'

'I hope all will be right in the end,' she said: 'but believe me,
you cannot be too careful. Try and keep Mr. Rochester at a distance:
distrust yourself as well as him. Gentlemen in his station are not
accustomed to marry their governesses.'

I was growing truly irritated: happily, Adele ran in.

'Let me go,- let me go to Millcote too!' she cried. 'Mr.
Rochester won't: though there is so much room in the new carriage. Beg
him to let me go, mademoiselle.'

'That I will, Adele'; and I hastened away with her, glad to quit my
gloomy monitress. The carriage was ready: they were bringing it
round to the front, and my master was pacing the pavement, Pilot
following him backwards and forwards.

'Adele may accompany us, may she not, sir?'

'I told her no. I'll have no brats!- I'll have only you.'

'Do let her go, Mr. Rochester, if you please: it would be better.'

'Not it: she will be a restraint.'

He was quite peremptory, both in look and voice. The chill of
Mrs. Fairfax's warnings, and the damp of her doubts were upon me:
something of unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes. I
half lost the sense of power over him. I was about mechanically to
obey him, without further remonstrance; but as he helped me into the
carriage, he looked at my face.

'What is the matter?' he asked; 'all the sunshine is gone. Do you
really wish the bairn to go? Will it annoy you if she is left behind?'

'I would far rather she went, sir.'

'Then off for your bonnet, and back like a flash of lightning!'
cried he to Adele.

She obeyed him with what speed she might.

'After all, a single morning's interruption will not matter
much,' said he, 'when I mean shortly to claim you- your thoughts,
conversation, and company- for life.'

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.

'Let her come to me,' I entreated: 'she will, perhaps, trouble you,
sir: there is plenty of room on this side.'

He handed her over as if she had been a lapdog. 'I'll send her to
school yet,' he said, but now he was smiling.

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.

'I shall gather manna for her morning and night: the plains and
hillsides in the moon are bleached with manna, Adele.'

'She will want to warm herself: what will she do for a fire?'

'Fire rises out of the lunar mountains: when she is cold, I'll
carry her up to a peak, and lay her down on the edge of a crater.'

'Oh, qu'elle y sera mal- peu comfortable! And her clothes, they
will wear out: how can she get new ones?'

Mr. Rochester professed to be puzzled. 'Hem!' said he. 'What
would you do, Adele? Cudgel your brains for an expedient. How would
a white or a pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could
cut a pretty enough scarf out of a rainbow.'

'She is far better as she is,' concluded Adele, after musing some
time: 'besides, she would get tired of living with only you in the
moon. If I were mademoiselle, I would never consent to go with you.'

'She has consented: she has pledged her word.'

'But you can't get her there; there is no road to the moon: it is
all air; and neither you nor she can fly.'

'Adele, look at that field.' We were now outside Thornfield
gates, and bowling lightly along the smooth road to Millcote, where
the dust was well laid by the thunderstorm, and where the low hedges
and lofty timber trees on each side glistened green and
rain-refreshed.

'In that field, 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 looked at it. It was a little
thing with a veil of gossamer on its head. I beckoned it to come
near me; it stood soon at my knee. I never spoke to it, and it never
spoke to me, in words; but I read its eyes, and it read mine; and
our speechless colloquy was to this effect-

'It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said; and its errand
was to make me happy: I must go with it out of the common world to a
lonely place- such as the moon, for instance- and it nodded its head
towards her horn, rising over Hayhill: it told me of the alabaster
cave and silver vale where we might live. I said I should like to
go; but reminded it, as you did me, that I had no wings to fly.

'"Oh," returned the fairy, "that does not signify! Here is a
talisman will remove all difficulties"; and she held out a pretty gold
ring. "Put it," she said, "on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I
am yours, and you are mine; and we shall leave earth, and make our own
heaven yonder." She nodded again at the moon. The ring, 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? I don't care for the
fairy: you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon?'

'Mademoiselle is a fairy,' he said, whispering mysteriously.
Whereupon I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part,
evinced a fund of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr.
Rochester 'un vrai menteur,' and assuring him that she made no account
whatever of his 'contes de 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.
Mr. Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse: there I
was ordered to choose half a dozen dresses. I hated the business, I
begged leave to defer it: no- it should be gone through with now. By
dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I reduced the
half-dozen to two: these, however, he vowed he would select himself.
With anxiety I watched his eye rove over the gay stores: he fixed on a
rich silk of the most brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink satin.
I told him in a new series of whispers, that he might as well buy me a
gold gown and a silver bonnet at once: I should certainly never
venture to wear his choice. With infinite difficulty, for he was
stubborn as a stone, I persuaded him to make an exchange in favour
of a sober black satin and pearl-grey silk. 'It might pass for the
present,' he said; 'but he would yet see me glittering like a
parterre.'

Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of
a jeweller's shop: the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned
with a sense of annoyance and degradation. As we re-entered the
carriage, and I sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered what, in
the hurry of events, dark and bright, I had wholly forgotten- the
letter of my uncle, John Eyre, to Mrs. Reed: his intention to adopt me
and make me his legatee. 'It would, indeed, be a relief,' I thought,
'if I had ever so small an independency; I never can bear being
dressed like a doll by Mr. Rochester, or sitting like a second Danae
with the golden shower falling daily round me. I will write to Madeira
the moment I get home, and tell my uncle John I am going to be
married, and to whom: if I had but a prospect of one day bringing
Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I could better endure to be
kept by him now.' And somewhat relieved by this idea (which I failed
not to execute that day), I ventured once more to meet my master's and
lover's eye, which most pertinaciously sought mine, though I averted
both face and gaze. He smiled; and I thought his smile was such as a
sultan might, in a blissful and fond moment, bestow on a slave his
gold and gems had enriched: I crushed his hand, which was ever hunting
mine, vigorously, and thrust it back to him red with the passionate
pressure.

'You need not look in that way,' I said; 'if you do, I'll wear
nothing but my old Lowood frocks to the end of the chapter. I'll be
married in this lilac gingham: you may make a dressing-gown for
yourself out of the pearl-grey silk, and an infinite series of
waistcoats out of the black satin.'

He chuckled; he rubbed his hands. 'Oh, it is rich to see and hear
her!' he exclaimed. 'Is she original? Is she piquant? I would not
exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk's whole
seraglio, gazelle-eyes, houri forms, and all!'

The Eastern allusion bit me again. 'I'll not stand you an inch in
the stead of a seraglio,' I said; 'so don't consider me an
equivalent for one. If you have a fancy for anything in that line,
away with you, sir, to the bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and
lay out in extensive slave-purchases some of that spare cash you
seem at a loss to spend satisfactorily here.'

'And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many
tons of flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?'

'I'll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach
liberty to them that are enslaved- your harem inmates amongst the
rest. I'll get admitted there, and I'll stir up mutiny; and you,
three-tailed bashaw as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself
fettered amongst our hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your
bonds till you have signed a charter, the most liberal that despot
ever yet conferred.'

'I would consent to be at your mercy, Jane.'

'I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if you supplicated for it
with an eye like that. While you looked so, I should be certain that
whatever charter you might grant under coercion, your first act,
when released, would be to violate its conditions.'

'Why, Jane, what would you have? I fear you will compel me to go
through a private marriage ceremony, besides that performed at the
altar. You will stipulate, I see, for peculiar terms- what will they
be?'

'I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations.
Do you remember what you said of Celine Varens?- of the diamonds,
the cashmeres you gave her? I will not be your English Celine
Varens. I shall continue to act as Adele's governess; by that I
shall earn my board and lodging, and thirty pounds a year besides.
I'll furnish my own wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give
me nothing but-'

'Well, but what?'

'Your regard; and if I give you mine in return, that debt will be
quit.'

'Well, for cool native impudence and pure innate pride, you haven't
your equal,' said he. We were now approaching Thornfield. 'Will it
please you to dine with me to-day?' he asked, as we re-entered the
gates.

'No, thank you, sir.'

'And what for, "no, thank you?" if one may inquire.'

'I never have dined with you, sir: and I see no reason why I should
now: till-'

'Till what? You delight in half-phrases.'

'Till I can't help it.'

'Do you suppose I eat like an ogre or a ghoul, that you dread being
the companion of my repast?'

'I have formed no supposition on the subject, sir; but I want to go
on as usual for another month.'

'You will give up your governessing slavery at once.'

'Indeed, begging your pardon, sir, I shall not. I shall just go
on with it as usual. I shall keep out of your way all day, as I have
been accustomed to do: you may send for me in the evening, when you
feel disposed to see me, and I'll come then; but at no other time.'

'I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff, to comfort me under all
this, "pour me donner une contenance," as Adele would say; and
unfortunately I have neither my cigar-case nor my snuff-box. But
listen- whisper. It is your time now, little tyrant, but it will be
mine presently; and when once I have fairly seized you, to have and to
hold, I'll just- figuratively speaking- attach you to a chain like
this' (touching his watch-guard). 'Yes, bonny wee thing, I'll wear you
in my bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne.'

He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage, and while
he afterwards lifted out Adele, I entered the house, and made good
my retreat upstairs.

He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had
prepared an occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend
the whole time in a 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.

'Did I like his voice?' he asked.

'Very much.' I was not fond of pampering that susceptible vanity of
his; but for once, and from motives of expediency, I would e'en soothe
and stimulate it.

'Then, Jane, you must play the accompaniment.'

'Very well, sir, I will try.'

I did try, but was presently swept off the stool and denominated 'a
little bungler.' Being pushed unceremoniously to one side- which was
precisely what I wished- he usurped my place, and proceeded to
accompany himself: for he could play as well as sing. I hied me to the
window-recess. And while I sat there and looked out on the still trees
and dim lawn, to a sweet air was sung in mellow tones the following
strain:-


             'The truest love that ever heart

               Felt at its kindled core,

             Did through each vein, in quickened start,

               The tide of being pour.


             Her coming was my hope each day,

               Her parting was my pain;

             The chance that did her steps delay

               Was ice in every vein.


             I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,

               As I loved, loved to be;

             And to this object did I press

               As blind as eagerly.


             But wide as pathless was the space

               That lay our lives between,

             And dangerous as the foamy race

               Of ocean-surges green.


             And haunted as a robber-path

               Through wilderness or wood;

             For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,

               Between our spirits stood.


             I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned;

               I omens did defy:

             Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,

               I passed impetuous by.


             On sped my rainbow, fast as light;

               I flew as in a dream;

             For glorious rose upon my sight

               That child of Shower and Gleam.


             Still bright on clouds of suffering dim

               Shines that soft, solemn joy;

             Nor care I now, how dense and grim

               Disasters gather nigh.


             I care not in this moment sweet,

               Though all I have rushed o'er

             Should come on pinion, strong and fleet,

               Proclaiming vengeance sore:


             Though haughty Hate should strike me down,

               Right, bar approach to me,

             And grinding Might, with furious frown,

               Swear endless enmity.


             My love has placed her little hand

               With noble faith in mine,

             And vowed that wedlock's sacred band

               Our nature shall entwine.


             My love has sworn, with sealing kiss,

               With me to live- to die;

             I have at last my nameless bliss:

               As I love- loved am I!'


He rose and came towards me, and I saw his face all kindled, and
his full falcon-eye flashing, and tenderness and passion in every
lineament. I quailed momentarily- then I rallied. Soft scene, daring
demonstration, I would not have; and I stood in peril of both: a
weapon of defence must be prepared- I whetted my tongue: as he reached
me, I asked with asperity, 'whom he was going to marry now?'

'That was a strange question to be put by his darling Jane.'

'Indeed! I considered it a very natural and necessary one: he had
talked of his future wife dying with him. What did he mean by such a
pagan idea? I had no intention of dying with him- he might depend on
that.'

'Oh, all he longed, all he prayed for, was that I might live with
him! Death was not for such as I.'

'Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as
he had: but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a
suttee.'

'Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a
reconciling kiss?'

'No: I would rather be excused.'

Here I heard myself apostrophised as a 'hard little thing'; and
it was added, 'any other woman would have been melted to marrow at
hearing such stanzas crooned in her praise.'

I assured him I was naturally hard- very flinty, and that he
would often find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show
him divers rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks
elapsed: he should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made,
while there was yet time to rescind it.

'Would I be quiet and talk rationally?'

'I would be quiet if he liked, and as to talking rationally, I
flattered myself I was doing that now.'

He fretted, pished, and pshawed. 'Very good,' I thought; 'you may
fume and fidget as you please: but this is the best plan to pursue
with you, I am certain. I like you more than I can say; but I'll not
sink into a bathos of sentiment: and with this needle of repartee I'll
keep you from the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover, maintain by its
pungent aid that distance between you and myself most conducive to our
real mutual advantage.'

From less to more, I worked him up to considerable irritation;
then, after he had retired, in dudgeon, quite to the other end of
the room, I got up, and saying, 'I wish you good-night, sir,' in my
natural and wonted respectful manner, I slipped out by the side-door
and got away.

The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of
probation; and with the best success. He was kept, to be sure,
rather cross and crusty; but on the whole I could see he was
excellently entertained, and that a lamb-like submission and
turtle-dove sensibility, while fostering his despotism more, would
have pleased his judgment, satisfied his common sense, and even suited
his taste less.

In other people's presence I was, as formerly, deferential and
quiet; any other line of conduct being uncalled for: it was only in
the evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him. He
continued to send for me punctually the moment the clock struck seven;
though when I appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as
'love' and 'darling' on his lips: the best words at my service were
'provoking puppet,' 'malicious elf,' 'sprite,' 'changeling,' etc.
For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a
pinch on the arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the
ear. It was all right: at present I decidedly preferred these fierce
favours to anything more tender. Mrs. Fairfax, I saw, approved me: her
anxiety on my account vanished; therefore I was certain I did well.
Meantime, Mr. Rochester affirmed I was wearing him to skin and bone,
and threatened awful vengeance for my present conduct at some period
fast coming. I laughed in my sleeve at his menaces. 'I can keep you in
reasonable check now,' I reflected; 'and I don't doubt to be able to
do it hereafter: if one expedient loses its virtue, another must be
devised.'

Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather
have pleased than teased him. My future husband was becoming to me
my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven.
He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse
intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those
days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.

                      CHAPTER XXV


THE month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being
numbered. There was no putting off the day that advanced- the bridal
day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. I, at
least, had nothing more to do: there were my trunks, packed, locked,
corded, ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber;
to-morrow, at this time, they would be far on their road to London:
and so should I (D.V.),- or rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a
person whom as yet I knew not. The cards of address alone remained
to nail on: they lay, four little squares, in the drawer. Mr.
Rochester had himself written the direction, 'Mrs. Rochester,-
Hotel, London,' on each: I could not persuade myself to affix them, or
to have them affixed. Mrs. Rochester! She did not exist: she would not
be born till to-morrow, some time after eight o'clock A.M.; and I
would wait to be assured she had come into the world alive before I
assigned to her all that property. It was enough that in yonder
closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had
already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for
not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the pearl-coloured
robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped portmanteau. I shut
the closet to conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained;
which, at this evening hour- nine o'clock- gave out certainly a most
ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment. 'I will leave
you by yourself, white dream,' I said. 'I am feverish: I hear the wind
blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it.'

It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not
only the anticipation of the great change- the new life which was to
commence to-morrow: both these circumstances had their share,
doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me
forth at this late hour into the darkening grounds: but a third
cause influenced my mind more than they.

I had at heart a strange and anxious thought. Something had
happened which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen
the event but myself: it had taken place the preceding night. Mr.
Rochester that night was absent from home; nor was he yet returned:
business had called him to a small estate of two or three farms he
possessed thirty miles off- business it was requisite he should settle
in person, previous to his meditated departure from England. I
waited now his return; eager to disburthen my mind, and to seek of him
the solution of the enigma that perplexed me. Stay till he comes,
reader: and, when I disclose my secret to him, you shall share the
confidence.

I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which
all day had blown strong and full from the south, without, however,
bringing a speck of rain. Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it
seemed to augment its rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew
steadfastly one way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back
their boughs once in an hour; so continuous was the strain bending
their branchy heads northward- the clouds drifted from pole to pole,
fast following, mass on mass: no glimpse of blue sky had been
visible that July day.

It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind,
delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent
thundering through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the
wreck of the chestnut-tree; it stood up black and riven: the trunk,
split down the centre, gaped ghastly. The cloven halves were not
broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them
unsundered below; though community of vitality was destroyed- the
sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead, and
next winter's tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth:
as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree- a ruin, but an
entire ruin.

'You did right to hold fast to each other,' I said: as if the
monster-splinters were living things, and could hear me. 'I think,
scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a
little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the
faithful, honest roots: you will never have green leaves more- never
more see birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time
of pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate:
each of you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay.' As I
looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the
sky which filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half
overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and
buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind
fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and
water, poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and
I ran off again.

Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathered up the
apples with which the grass round the tree roots was thickly strewn;
then I employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe; I carried
them into the house and put them away in the storeroom. 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 timepiece in the
room and the old clock in the hall simultaneously struck ten.

'How late it grows!' I said. 'I will run down to the gates: it is
moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on the road. He may be
coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense.'

The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the
gates; but the road as far as I could see, to the right hand and the
left, was all still and solitary: save for the shadows of clouds
crossing it at intervals as the moon looked out, it was a long pale
line, unvaried by one moving speck.

A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked- a tear of
disappointment and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away. I
lingered; the moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew
close her curtain of dense cloud: the night grew dark; rain came
driving fast on the gale.

'I wish he would come! I wish he would come!' I exclaimed, seized
with hypochondriac foreboding. I had expected his arrival before
tea; now it was dark: what could keep him? Had an accident happened?
The event of last night again recurred to me. I interpreted it as a
warning of disaster. I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised;
and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune
had passed its meridian, and must now decline.

'Well, I cannot return to the house,' I thought; 'I cannot sit by
the fireside, while he is abroad in inclement weather: better tire
my limbs than strain my heart; I will go forward and meet him.'

I set out; I walked fast, but not far: ere I had measured a quarter
of a mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs; a horseman came on, full
gallop; a dog ran by his side. Away with evil presentiment! It was he:
here he was, mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot. He saw me; for the
moon had opened a blue field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright:
he took his hat off, and waved it round his head. I now ran to meet
him.

'There!' he exclaimed, as he stretched out his hand and bent from
the saddle: 'you can't do without me, that is evident. Step on my
boot-toe; give me both hands: mount!'

I obeyed: joy made me agile: I sprang up before him. A hearty
kissing I got for a welcome, and some boastful triumph, which I
swallowed as well as I could. He checked himself in his exultation
to demand, 'But is there anything the matter, Janet, that you come
to meet me at such an hour? Is there anything wrong?'

'No, but I thought you would never come. I could not bear to wait
in the house for you, especially with this rain and wind.'

'Rain and wind, indeed! Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid;
pull my cloak round you: but I think you are feverish, Jane: both your
cheek and hand are burning hot. I ask again, is there anything the
matter?'

'Nothing now; I am neither afraid nor unhappy.'

'Then you have been both?'

'Rather: but I'll tell you all about it by and by, sir; and I
daresay you will only laugh at me for my pains.'

'I'll laugh at you heartily when to-morrow is past; till then I
dare not: my prize is not certain. This is you, who have been as
slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose? I
could not lay a finger anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to
have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms. You wandered out of the fold
to seek your shepherd, did you, Jane?'

'I wanted you: but don't boast. Here we are at Thornfield: now
let me get down.'

He landed me on the pavement. As John took his horse, and he
followed me into the hall, he told me to make haste and put
something dry on, and then return to him in the library; and he
stopped me, as I made for the staircase, to extort a promise that I
would not be long: nor was I long; in five minutes I rejoined him. I
found him at supper.

'Take a seat and bear me company, Jane: please God, it is the
last meal but one you will eat at Thornfield Hall for a long time.'

I sat down near him, but told him I could not eat.

'Is it because you have the prospect of a journey before you, Jane?
Is it the thoughts of going to London that takes away your appetite?'

'I cannot see my prospects clearly to-night, sir; and I hardly know
what thoughts I have in my head. Everything in life seems unreal.'

'Except me: I am substantial enough- touch me.'

'You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream.'

He held out his hand, laughing. 'Is that a dream?' said he, placing
it close to my eyes. He had a rounded, muscular, and vigorous hand, as
well as a long, strong arm.

'Yes; though I touch it, it is a dream,' said I, as I put it down
from before my face. 'Sir, have you finished supper?'

'Yes, Jane.'

I rang the bell and ordered away the tray. When we were again
alone, I stirred the fire, and then took a low seat at my master's
knee.

'It is near midnight,' I said.

'Yes: but remember, Jane, you promised to wake with me the night
before my wedding.'

'I did; and I will keep my promise, for an hour or two at least:
I have no wish to go to bed.'

'Are all your arrangements complete?'

'All, sir.'

'And on my part likewise,' he returned, 'I have settled everything;
and we shall leave Thornfield to-morrow, within half an hour after our
return from church.'

'Very well, sir.'

'With what an extraordinary smile you uttered that word- "very
well," Jane! What a bright spot of colour you have on each cheek!
and how strangely your eyes glitter! Are you well?'

'I believe I am.'

'Believe! What is the matter? Tell me what you feel.'

'I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this
present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next day
may come charged?'

'This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over-excited, or
over-fatigued.'

'Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?'

'Calm?- no: but happy- to the heart's core.'

I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was
ardent and flushed.

'Give me your confidence, Jane,' he said: 'relieve your mind of any
weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear?-
that I shall not prove a good husband?'

'It is the idea farthest from my thoughts.'

'Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?- of
the new life into which you are passing?'

'No.'

'You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity
perplex and pain me. I want an explanation.'

'Then, sir, listen. You were from home last night?'

'I was: I know that; and you hinted a while ago at something
which had happened in my absence:- nothing, probably, of
consequence; but, in short, it has disturbed you. Let me hear it. Mrs.
Fairfax has said something, perhaps? or you have overheard the
servants talk?- your sensitive self-respect has been wounded?'

'No, sir.' It struck twelve- I waited till the timepiece had
concluded its silver chime, and the clock its hoarse, vibrating
stroke, and then I proceeded.

'All day yesterday I was very busy, and very happy in my
ceaseless bustle; for I am not, as you seem to think, troubled by
any haunting fears about the new sphere, et cetera: I think it a
glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, because I love
you. No, sir, don't caress me now- let me talk undisturbed.
Yesterday I trusted well in Providence, and believed that events
were working together for your good and mine: it was a fine day, if
you recollect- the calmness of the air and sky forbade apprehensions
respecting your safety or comfort on your journey. I walked a little
while on the pavement after tea, thinking of you; and I beheld you
in imagination so near me, I scarcely missed your actual presence. I
thought of the life that lay before me- your life, sir- an existence
more expansive and stirring than my own: as much more so as the depths
of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows of its own
strait channel. I wondered why moralists call this world a dreary
wilderness: for me it blossomed like a rose. Just at sunset, the air
turned cold and the sky cloudy: I went in, Sophie called me upstairs
to look at my wedding-dress, which they had just brought; and under it
in the box I found your present- the veil which, in your princely
extravagance, you sent for from London: resolved, I suppose, since I
would not have jewels, to cheat me into accepting something as costly.
I smiled as I unfolded it, and devised how I would tease you about
your aristocratic tastes, and your efforts to masque your plebeian
bride in the attributes of a peeress. I thought how I would carry down
to you the square of unembroidered blond I had myself prepared as a
covering for my low-born head, and ask if that was not good enough for
a woman who could bring her husband neither fortune, beauty, nor
connections. I saw plainly how you would look; and heard your
impetuous republican answers, and your haughty disavowal of any
necessity on your part to augment your wealth, or elevate your
standing, by marrying either a purse or a coronet.'

'How well you read me, you witch!' interposed Mr. Rochester: 'but
what did you find in the veil besides its embroidery? Did you find
poison, or a dagger, that you look so mournful now?'

'No, no, sir; besides the delicacy and richness of the fabric, I
found nothing save Fairfax Rochester's pride; and that did not scare
me, because I am used to the sight of the demon. But, sir, as it
grew dark, the wind rose: it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows
now- wild and high- but "with a sullen, moaning sound" far more eerie.
I wished you were at home. I came into this room, and the sight of the
empty chair and fireless hearth chilled me. For some time after I went
to bed, I could not sleep- a sense of anxious excitement distressed
me. The gale still rising, seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful
under-sound; whether in the house or abroad I could not at first tell,
but it recurred, doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made
out it must be some dog howling at a distance. I was glad when it
ceased. On sleeping, I continued in dreams the idea of a dark and
gusty night. I continued also the wish to be with you, and experienced
a strange, regretful consciousness of some barrier dividing us. During
all my first sleep, I was following the windings of an unknown road;
total obscurity environed me; rain pelted me; I was burdened with
the charge of a little child: a very small creature, too young and
feeble to walk, and which shivered in my cold arms, and wailed
piteously in my ear. I thought, sir, that you were on the road a
long way before me; and I strained every nerve to overtake you, and
made effort on effort to utter your name and entreat you to stop-
but my movements were fettered, and my voice still died away
inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew farther and farther every
moment.'

'And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am
close to you? Little nervous subject! Forget visionary woe, and
think only of real happiness! You say you love me, Janet: yes- I
will not forget that; and you cannot deny it. Those words did not
die inarticulate on your lips. I heard them clear and soft: a
thought too solemn perhaps, but sweet as music- "I think it is a
glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, Edward, because
I love you." Do you love me, Jane?- repeat it.'

'I do, sir- I do, with my whole heart.'

'Well,' he said, after some minutes' silence, 'it is strange; but
that sentence has penetrated my breast painfully. Why? I think because
you said it with such an earnest, religious energy, and because your
upward gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and
devotion: it is too much as if some spirit were near me. Look
wicked, Jane: as you know well how to look: coin one of your wild,
shy, provoking smiles, tell me you hate me- tease me, vex me; do
anything but move me: I would rather be incensed than saddened.'

'I will tease you and vex you to your heart's content, when I
have finished my tale: but hear me to the end.'

'I thought, Jane, you had told me all. I thought I had found the
source of your melancholy in a dream.'

I shook my head. 'What! is there more? But I will not believe it to
be anything important. I warn you of incredulity beforehand. Go on.'

The disquietude of his air, the somewhat apprehensive impatience of
his manner, surprised me: but I proceeded.

'I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary
ruin, the retreat of bats and owls. I thought that of all the
stately front nothing remained but a shell-like wall, very high and
very fragile-looking. I wandered, on a moonlight night, through the
grass-grown enclosure within: here I stumbled over a marble hearth,
and there over a fallen fragment of cornice. Wrapped up in a shawl,
I still carried the unknown little child: I might not lay it down
anywhere, however tired were my arms- however much its weight
impeded my progress, I must retain it. I heard the gallop of a horse
at a distance on the road; I was sure it was you; and you were
departing for many years and for a distant country. I climbed the thin
wall with frantic perilous haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you
from the top: the stones rolled from under my feet, the ivy branches I
grasped gave way, the child clung round my neck in terror, and
almost strangled me; at last I gained the summit. I saw you like a
speck on a white track, lessening every moment. The blast blew so
strong I could not stand. I sat down on the narrow ledge; I hushed the
scared infant in my lap: you turned an angle of the road: I bent
forward to take a last look; the wall crumbled; I was shaken; the
child rolled from my knee, I lost my balance, fell, and woke.'

'Now, Jane, that is all.'

'All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come. On waking, a
gleam dazzled my eyes; I thought- Oh, it is daylight! But I was
mistaken; it was only candlelight. Sophie, I supposed, had come in.
There was a light in the dressing-table, and the door of the closet,
where, before going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil,
stood open; I heard a rustling there. I asked, "Sophie, what are you
doing?" No one answered; but a form emerged from the closet; it took
the light, held it aloft, and surveyed the garments pendent from the
portmanteau. "Sophie! Sophie!" I again cried: and still it was silent.
I had risen up in bed, I bent forward: first surprise, then
bewilderment, came over me; and then my blood crept cold through my
veins. Mr. Rochester, this was not Sophie, it was not Leah, it was not
Mrs. Fairfax: it was not- no, I was sure of it, and am still- it was
not even that strange woman, Grace Poole.'

'It must have been one of them,' interrupted my master.

'No, sir, I solemnly assure you to the contrary. The shape standing
before me had never crossed my eyes within the precincts of Thornfield
Hall before; the height, the contour were new to me.'

'Describe it, Jane.'

'It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark
hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on:
it was white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I
cannot tell.'

'Did you see her face?'

'Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place; she
held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head,
and turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the
visage and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass.'

'And how were they?'

'Fearful and ghastly to me- oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It
was a discoloured face- it was a savage face. I wish I could forget
the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the
lineaments!'

'Ghosts are usually pale, Jane.'

'This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow
furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes.
Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?'

'You may.'

'Of the foul German spectre- the Vampyre.'

'Ah!- what did it do?'

'Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts,
and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them.'

'Afterwards?'

'It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw
dawn approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door.
Just at my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon me-
she thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under
my eyes. I was aware her lurid visage flamed over mine, and I lost
consciousness: for the second time in my life- only the second time- I
became insensible from terror.'

'Who was with you when you revived?'

'No one, sir, but the broad day. I rose, bathed my head and face in
water, drank a long draught; felt that though enfeebled I was not ill,
and determined that to none but you would I impart this vision. Now
sir, tell me who and what that woman was?'

'The creature of an over-stimulated brain; that is certain. I
must be careful of you, my treasure: nerves like yours were not made
for rough handling.'

'Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in fault; the thing was
real: the transaction actually took place.'

'And your previous dreams, were they real too? Is Thornfield Hall a
ruin? Am I severed from you by insuperable obstacles? Am I leaving you
without a tear- without a kiss- without a word?'

'Not yet.'

'Am I about to do it? Why, the day is already commenced which is to
bind us indissolubly; and when we are once united, there shall be no
recurrence of these mental terrors: I guarantee that.'

'Mental terrors, sir! I wish I could believe them to be only
such: I wish it more now than ever; since even you cannot explain to
me the mystery of that awful visitant.'

'And since I cannot do it, Jane, it must have been unreal.'

'But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and
when I looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the
cheerful aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there- on
the carpet- I saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis,- the
veil, torn from top to bottom in two halves!'

I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder; he hastily flung his arms
round me. 'Thank God!' he exclaimed, 'that if anything malignant did
come near you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed. Oh, to
think what might have happened!'

He drew his breath short, and strained me so close to him, I
could scarcely pant. After some minutes' silence, he continued,
cheerily-

'Now, Janet, I'll explain to you all about it. It was half dream,
half reality. A woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that
woman was- must have been- Grace Poole. You call her a strange being
yourself: from all you know, you have reason so to call her- what
did she do to me? what to Mason? In a state between sleeping and
waking, you noticed her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost
delirious as you were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance
different from her own: the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black
face, the exaggerated stature, were figments of imagination; results
of nightmare: the spiteful tearing of the veil was real: and it is
like her. I see you would ask why I keep such a woman in my house:
when we have been married a year and a day, I will tell you; but not
now. Are you satisfied, Jane? Do you accept my solution of the
mystery?'

I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me the only possible
one: satisfied I was not, but to please him I endeavoured to appear
so- relieved, I certainly did feel; so I answered him with a contented
smile. And now, as it was long past one, I prepared to leave him.

'Does not Sophie sleep with Adele in the nursery?' he asked, as I
lit my candle.

'Yes, sir.'

'And there is room enough in Adele's little bed for you. You must
share it with her to-night, Jane: it is no wonder that the incident
you have related should make you nervous, and I would rather you did
not sleep alone: promise me to go to the nursery.'

'I shall be very glad to do so, sir.'

'And fasten the door securely on the inside. Wake Sophie when you
go upstairs, under pretence of requesting her to rouse you in good
time to-morrow; for you must be dressed and have finished breakfast
before eight. And now, no more sombre thoughts: chase dull care
away, Janet. Don't you hear to what soft whispers the wind has fallen?
and there is no more beating of rain against the window-panes: look
here' (he lifted up the curtain)- 'it is a lovely night!'

It was. Half heaven was pure and stainless: the clouds, now
trooping before the wind, which had shifted to the west, were filing
off eastward in long, silvered columns. The moon shone peacefully.

'Well,' said Mr. Rochester, gazing inquiringly into my eyes, 'how
is my Janet now?'

'The night is serene, sir; and so am I.'

'And you will not dream of separation and sorrow to-night; but of
happy love and blissful union.'

This prediction was but half fulfilled: I did not indeed dream of
sorrow, but as little did I dream of joy; for I never slept at all.
With little 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 remember Adele clung to me as I left her: I
remember I kissed her as I loosened her little hands from my neck; and
I cried over her with strange emotion, and quitted her because I
feared my sobs would break her still sound repose. She seemed the
emblem of my past life; and he I was now to array myself to meet,
the dread, but adored, type of my unknown future day.

                      CHAPTER XXVI


SOPHIE came at seven to dress me: she was very long indeed in
accomplishing her task; so long that Mr. Rochester, grown, I
suppose, impatient of my delay, sent up to ask why I did not come. She
was just fastening my veil (the plain square of blond after all) to my
hair with a brooch; I hurried from under her hands as soon as I could.

'Stop!' she cried in French. 'Look at yourself in the mirror: you
have not taken one peep.'

So I turned at the door: I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike
my usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger. 'Jane!'
called a voice, and I hastened down. I was received at the foot of the
stairs by Mr. Rochester.

'Lingerer!' he said, 'my brain is on fire with impatience, and
you tarry so long!'

He took me into the dining-room, surveyed me keenly all over,
pronounced me 'fair as a lily, and not only the pride of his life, but
the desire of his eyes,' and then telling me he would give me but
ten minutes to eat some breakfast, he rang the bell. One of his lately
hired servants, a footman, answered it.

'Is John getting the carriage ready?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Is the luggage brought down?'

'They are bringing it down, sir.'

'Go you to the church: see if Mr. Wood (the clergyman) and the
clerk are there: return and tell me.'

The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates; the
footman soon returned.

'Mr. Wood is in the vestry, sir, putting on his surplice.'

'And the carriage?'

'The horses are harnessing.'

'We shall not want it to go to church; but it must be ready the
moment we return: all the boxes and luggage arranged and strapped
on, and the coachman in his seat.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Jane, are you ready?'

I rose. There were no groomsmen, no bridesmaids, no relatives to
wait for or marshal: none but Mr. Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax
stood in the hall as we passed. I would fain have spoken to her, but
my hand was held by a grasp of iron: I was hurried along by a stride I
could hardly follow; and to look at Mr. Rochester's face was to feel
that not a second of delay would be tolerated for any purpose. I
wonder what other bridegroom ever looked as he did- so bent up to a
purpose, so grimly resolute: or who, under such steadfast brows,
ever revealed such flaming and flashing eyes.

I know not whether the day was fair or foul; in descending the
drive, I gazed neither on sky nor earth: my heart was with my eyes;
and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester's frame. I wanted to see
the invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to
fasten a glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose
force he seemed breasting and resisting.

At the churchyard wicket he stopped: he discovered I was quite
out of breath. 'Am I cruel in my love?' he said. 'Delay an instant:
lean on me, Jane.'

And now I can recall the picture of the grey old house of God
rising calm before me, of a rook wheeling round the steeple, of a
ruddy morning sky beyond. I remember something, too, of the green
grave-mounds; and I have not forgotten, either, two figures of
strangers straying amongst the low hillocks and reading the
mementoes graven on the few mossy head-stones. I noticed them,
because, as they saw us, they passed round to the back of the
church; and I doubted not they were going to enter by the side-aisle
door and witness the ceremony. By Mr. Rochester they were not
observed; he was earnestly looking at my face, from which the blood
had, I daresay, momentarily fled: for I felt my forehead dewy, and
my cheeks and lips cold. When I rallied, which I soon did, he walked
gently with me up the path to the porch.

We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his
white surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was
still: two shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had
been correct: the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now
stood by the vault of the Rochesters, their backs towards us,
viewing through the rails the old times-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 farther forward, and, bending
slightly towards Mr. Rochester, went on.

'I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful
day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed),
that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be
joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well
assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's Word
doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony
lawful.'

He paused, as the custom is. When is the pause after that
sentence ever broken by reply? Not, perhaps, once in a hundred
years. And the clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his book,
and had held his breath but for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was
already stretched towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to
ask, 'Wilt thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?-' when a distinct
and near voice said-

'The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an
impediment.'

The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk
did the same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had
rolled under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his
head or eyes, he said, 'Proceed.'

Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep
but low intonation. Presently Mr. Wood said-

'I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been
asserted, and evidence of its truth or falsehood.'

'The ceremony is quite broken off,' subjoined the voice behind
us. 'I am in a condition to prove my allegation: an insuperable
impediment to this marriage exists.'

Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid,
making no movement but to possess himself of my hand. What a hot and
strong grasp he had! and how like quarried marble was his pale,
firm, massive front at this moment! How his eye shone, still watchful,
and yet wild beneath!

Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. 'What is the nature of the
impediment?' he asked. 'Perhaps it may be got over- explained away?'

'Hardly,' was the answer. 'I have called it insuperable, and I
speak advisedly.'

The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued,
uttering each word distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly-

'It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr.
Rochester has a wife now living.'

My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never
vibrated to thunder- my blood felt their subtle violence as it had
never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of
swooning. I looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His
whole face was colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He
disavowed nothing: he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without
speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a
human being, he only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to
his side.

'Who are you?' he asked of the intruder.

'And you would thrust on me a wife?'

'I would remind you of your lady's existence, sir, which the law
recognises, if you do not.'

'Favour me with an account of her- with her name, her parentage,
her place of abode.'

'Certainly.' Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and
read out in a sort of official, nasal voice:-
date of fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield
England, was married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter
of Jonas Mason, merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at-
church, Spanish Town, Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be
found in the register of that church- a copy of it is now in my
possession. Signed, Richard Mason."'

'That- if a genuine document- may prove I have been married, but it
does not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still
living.'

'She was living three months ago,' returned the lawyer.

'How do you know?'

'I have a witness to the fact, whose testimony even you, sir,
will scarcely controvert.'

'Produce him- or go to hell.'

'I will produce him first- he is on the spot. Mr. Mason, have the
goodness to step forward.'

Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he
experienced, too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I
was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through
his frame. The second stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the
background, now drew near; a pale face looked over the solicitor's
shoulder- yes, it was Mason himself. Mr. Rochester turned and glared
at him. His eye, as I have often said, was a black eye: it had now a
tawny, nay, a bloody light in its gloom; and his face flushed- olive
cheek and hueless forehead received a glow as from spreading,
ascending heart-fire: and he stirred, lifted his strong arm- he
could have struck Mason, dashed him on the church-floor, shocked by
ruthless blow the breath from his body- but Mason shrank away and
cried faintly, 'Good God!' Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester- his
passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he only asked- 'What
have you to say?'

An inaudible reply escaped Mason's white lips.

'The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again
demand, what have you to say?'

'Sir- sir,' interrupted the clergyman, 'do not forget you are in
a sacred place.' Then addressing Mason, he inquired gently, 'Are you
aware, sir, whether or not this gentleman's wife is still living?'

'Courage,' urged the lawyer,- 'speak out.'

'She is now living at Thornfield Hall,' said Mason, in more
articulate tones: 'I saw her there last April. I am her brother.'

'At Thornfield Hall!' ejaculated the clergyman. 'Impossible! I am
an old resident in this neighbourhood, sir, and I never heard of a
Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield Hall.'

I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester's lips, and he muttered-

'No, by God! I took care that none should hear of it- or of her
under that name.' He mused- for ten minutes he held counsel with
himself: he formed his resolve, and announced it-

'Enough! all shall bolt out at once, like the bullet from the
barrel. Wood, close your book and take off your surplice; John Green
(to the clerk), leave the church: there will be no wedding to-day.'
The man obeyed.

Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: 'Bigamy is an ugly
word!- I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out-manoeuvred
me, or Providence has checked me,- perhaps the last. I am little
better than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell
me, deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God, even to the
quenchless fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen, my plan is broken
up:- what this lawyer and his client say is true: I have been married,
and the woman to whom I was married lives! You say you never heard
of a Mrs. Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood; but I daresay you
have many a time inclined your ear to gossip about the mysterious
lunatic kept there under watch and ward. Some have whispered to you
that she is my bastard half-sister: some, my cast-off mistress. I
now inform you that she is my wife, whom I married fifteen years ago,-
Bertha Mason by name; sister of this resolute personage, who is now,
with his quivering limbs and white cheeks, showing you what a stout
heart men may bear. Cheer up, Dick!- never fear me!- I'd almost as
soon strike a woman as you. Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad
family; idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her mother,
the Creole, was both a mad-woman and a drunkard!- as I found out after
I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before.
Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points. I
had a charming partner- pure, wise, modest: you can fancy I was a
happy man. I went through rich scenes! Oh! my experience has been
heavenly, if you only knew it! But I owe you no further explanation.
Briggs, Wood, Mason, I invite you all to come up to the house and
visit Mrs. Poole's patient, and my wife! You shall see what sort of
a being I was cheated into espousing, and judge whether or not I had a
right to break the compact, and seek sympathy with something at
least human. This girl,' he continued, looking at me, 'knew no more
than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret: she thought all was fair and
legal, and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into a feigned
union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and
embruted partner! Come all of you- follow!'

Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came
after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage.

'Take it back to the coach-house, John,' said Mr. Rochester coolly:
'it will not be wanted to-day.'

At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adele, Sophie, Leah, advanced to
meet and greet us.

'To the right-about- every soul!' cried the master; 'away with your
congratulations! Who wants them? Not I!- they are fifteen years too
late!'

He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, and
still beckoning the gentlemen to follow him, which they did. We
mounted the first staircase, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the
third storey: the low, black door, opened by Mr. Rochester's
master-key, admitted us to the tapestried room, with its great bed and
its pictorial cabinet.

'You know this place, Mason,' said our guide; 'she bit and
stabbed you here.'

He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door:
this, too, he opened. In a room without a window, there burnt a fire
guarded by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the
ceiling by a chain. Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently cooking
something in a saucepan. In the deep shade, at the farther end of
the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether
beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it
grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like
some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a
quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and
face.

'Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole!' said Mr. Rochester. 'How are you? and
how is your charge to-day?'

'We're tolerable, sir, I thank you,' replied Grace, lifting the
boiling mess carefully on to the hob: 'rather snappish, but not
'rageous.'

A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report: the
clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet.

'Ah! sir, she sees you!' exclaimed Grace: 'you'd better not stay.'

'Only a few moments, Grace: you must allow me a few moments.'

'Take care then, sir!- for God's sake, take care!'

The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage,
and gazed wildly at her visitors. I recognised well that purple face,-
those bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced.

'Keep out of the way,' said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside:
'she has no knife now, I suppose, and I'm on my guard!'

'One never knows what she has, sir: she is so cunning: it is not in
mortal discretion to fathom her craft.'

'We had better leave her,' whispered Mason.

'Go to the devil!' was his brother-in-law's recommendation.

''Ware!' cried Grace. The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously.
Mr. Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled his
throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled. She
was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and
corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the contest- more than
once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have
settled her with a well-planted blow: but he would not strike: he
would only wrestle. At last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him
a cord, and he pinioned them behind her: with more rope, which was
at hand, he bound her to a chair. The operation was performed amidst
the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then
turned to the spectators: he looked at them with a smile both acrid
and desolate.

'That is my wife,' said he. 'Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am
ever to know- such are the endearments which are to solace my
leisure hours! And this is what I wished to have' (laying his hand
on my shoulder): 'this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at
the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon. I
wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs,
look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls
yonder- this face with that mask- this form with that bulk; then judge
me, priest of the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what
judgment ye judge ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up
my prize.'

We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a moment behind us, to give
some further order to Grace Poole. The solicitor addressed me as he
descended the stair.

'You, madam,' said he, 'are cleared from all blame: your uncle will
be glad to hear it- if, indeed, he should be still living- when Mr.
Mason returns to Madeira.'

'My uncle! What of him? Do you know him?'

'Mr. Mason does. Mr. Eyre has been the Funchal correspondent of his
house for some years. When your uncle received your letter
intimating the contemplated union between yourself and Mr.
Rochester, Mr. Mason, who was staying at Madeira to recruit his
health, on his way back to Jamaica, happened to be with him. Mr.
Eyre mentioned the intelligence; for he knew that my client here was
acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Rochester. Mr. Mason,
astonished and distressed as you may suppose, revealed the real
state of matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to say, is now on a sick-bed;
from which, considering the nature of his disease- decline- and the
stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will ever rise. He could not
then hasten to England himself, to extricate you from the snare into
which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason to lose no time in
taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He referred him to me
for assistance. I used all despatch, and am thankful I was not too
late: as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I not morally certain that
your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would advise you to
accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I think you had better
remain in England till you can hear further, either from or of Mr.
Eyre. Have we anything else to stay for?' he inquired of Mr. Mason.

'No, no- let us be gone,' was the anxious reply; and without
waiting to take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the
hall door. The clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of
admonition or reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done,
he too departed.

I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room,
to which I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in,
fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded- not to weep,
not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but- mechanically to take
off the wedding-dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn
yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt
weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on
them. And now I thought: till now I had only heard, seen, moved-
followed up and down where I was led or dragged- watched event rush on
event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but now, I thought.

The morning had been a quiet morning enough- all except the brief
scene with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been
noisy; there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no
dispute, no defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words
had been spoken, a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage made;
some stern, short questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers,
explanations given, evidence adduced; an open admission of the truth
had been uttered by my master; then the living proof had been seen;
the intruders were gone, and all was over.

I was in my own room as usual- just myself, without obvious change:
nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where was
the Jane Eyre of yesterday?- where was her life?- where were her
prospects?

Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman- almost a bride,
was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were
desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December
storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts
crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen
shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were
pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours
since waved leafy and fragrant as groves between the tropics, now
spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway. My
hopes were all dead- struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night,
fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt. I looked on my
cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark,
chill, livid corpses that could never revive. I looked at my love:
that feeling which was my master's- which he had created; it
shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle;
sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr.
Rochester's arms- it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh,
never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted- confidence
destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been; for he was
not what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice to him; I would
not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless truth was
gone from his idea, and from his presence I must go: that I
perceived well. When- how- whither, I could not yet discern; but he
himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real
affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only
fitful passion: that was balked; he would want me no more. I should
fear even to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him. Oh,
how blind had been my eyes! How weak my conduct!

My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim
round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow.
Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down
in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in
remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to
flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only
still throbbed life-like within me- a remembrance of God: it begot
an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my
rayless mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was
found to express them-

'Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help.'

It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it-
as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my
lips- it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The
whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched,
my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen
mass. That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, 'the waters came
into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing: I came into
deep waters; the floods overflowed me.'

                     CHAPTER XXVII


SOME time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round
and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the
wall, I asked, 'What am I to do?'

But the answer my mind gave- 'Leave Thornfield at once'- was so
prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such
words now. 'That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part
of my woe,' I alleged: 'that I have wakened out of most glorious
dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and
master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is
intolerable. I cannot do it.'

But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and
foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I
wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further
suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held
Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her
dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he
would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.

'Let me be torn away, then!' I cried. 'Let another help me!'

'No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall
yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand:
your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.'

I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless
a judge haunted,- at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My
head swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from
excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips
that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I
now reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had
been sent to ask how I was, or to invite me to come down: not even
little 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 could not soon recover myself. I fell, but not on to the
ground; an outstretched arm caught me. I looked up- I was supported by
Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber threshold.

'You come out at last,' he said. 'Well, I have been waiting for you
long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob:
five minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced
the lock like a burglar. So you shun me?- you shut yourself up and
grieve alone! I would rather you had come and upbraided me with
vehemence. You are passionate: I expected a scene of some kind. I
was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be
shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your
drenched handkerchief. But I err: you have not wept at all! I see a
white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose, then,
your heart has been weeping blood?

'Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter- nothing
poignant? Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly
where I have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look.

'Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but
one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of
his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some
mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his
bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?'

Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such
deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy
in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole
look and mien- I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly;
only at my heart's core.

'You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?' ere long he inquired
wistfully- wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness,
the result rather of weakness than of will.

'Yes, sir.'

'Then tell me so roundly and sharply- don't spare me.'

'I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water.' He heaved a
sort of shuddering sigh, and taking me in his arms, carried me
downstairs. At first I did not know to what room he had borne me;
all was cloudy to my glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving
warmth of a fire; for, summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my
chamber. He put wine to my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate
something he offered me, and was soon myself. I was in the library-
sitting in his chair- he was quite near. 'If I could go out of life
now, without too sharp a pang, it would be well for me,' I thought;
'then I should not have to make the effort of cracking my
heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester's. I must leave
him, it appears. I do not want to leave him- I cannot leave him.'

'How are you now, Jane?'

'Much better, sir; I shall be well soon.'

'Taste the wine again, Jane.'

I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before
me, and looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an
inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind;
he walked fast through the room and came back; he stooped towards me
as if to kiss me; but I remembered caresses were now forbidden. I
turned my face away and put his aside.

'What!- How is this?' he exclaimed hastily. 'Oh, I know! you
won't kiss the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled
and my embraces appropriated?'

'At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir.'

'Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will
answer for you- Because I have a wife already, you would reply.- I
guess rightly?'

'Yes.'

'If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must
regard me as a plotting profligate- a base and low rake who has been
simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare
deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of
self-respect. What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing: in
the first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw
your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself
to accuse and revile me, and besides, the flood-gates of tears are
opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and you have no
desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking
how to act- talking you consider is of no use. I know you- I am on
my guard.'

'Sir, I do not wish to act against you,' I said; and my unsteady
voice warned me to curtail my sentence.

'Not in your sense of the word, but in mine you are scheming to
destroy me. You have as good as said that I am a married man- as a
married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have
refused to kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to
me: to live under this roof only as 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 cleared and steadied my voice to reply: 'All is changed about me,
sir; I must change too- there is no doubt of that; and to avoid
fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections
and associations, there is only one way- Adele must have a new
governess, sir.'

'Oh, Adele will go to school- I have settled that already; nor do I
mean to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections of
Thornfield Hall- this accursed place- this tent of Achan- this
insolent vault, offering the ghastliness of living death to the
light of the open sky- this narrow stone hell, with its one real
fiend, worse than a legion of such as we imagine. Jane, you shall
not stay here, nor will I. I was wrong ever to bring you to Thornfield
Hall, knowing as I did how it was haunted. I charged them to conceal
from you, before I ever saw you, all knowledge of the curse of the
place; merely because I feared 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. It is cruel- she cannot help being mad.'

'Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are),
you don't know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it
is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think
I should hate you?'

'I do indeed, sir.'

'Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and
nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of
your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would
still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it
would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine
you, and not a strait waistcoat- your grasp, even in fury, would
have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did
this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond
as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with
disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no
watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring
tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary
of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of
recognition for me.- But why do I follow that train of ideas? I was
talking of removing you from Thornfield. All, you know, is prepared
for prompt departure: to-morrow you shall go. I only ask you to endure
one more night under this roof, Jane; and then, farewell to its
miseries and terrors for ever! I have a place to repair to, which will
be a secure sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from unwelcome
intrusion- even from falsehood and slander.'

'And take Adele with you, sir,' I interrupted; 'she will be a
companion for you.'

'What do you mean, Jane? I told you I would send Adele to school;
and what do I want with a child for a companion, and not my own
child,- a French dancer's bastard? Why do you importune me about
her! I say, why do you assign Adele to me for a companion?'

'You spoke of a retirement, sir; and retirement and solitude are
dull: too dull for you.'

'Solitude! solitude!' he reiterated with irritation. 'I see I
must come to an explanation. I don't know what sphynx-like
expression is forming in your countenance. You are to share my
solitude. Do you understand?'

I shook my head: it required a degree of courage, excited as he was
becoming, even to risk that mute sign of dissent. He had been
walking fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly rooted
to one spot. He looked at me long and hard: I turned my eyes from him,
fixed them on the fire, and tried to assume and maintain a quiet,
collected aspect.

'Now for the hitch in Jane's character,' he said at last,
speaking more calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak.
'The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew
there would come a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation,
and exasperation, and endless trouble! By God! I long to exert a
fraction of Samson's strength, and break the entanglement like tow!'

He recommenced his walk, but soon again stopped, and this time just
before me.

'Jane! will you hear reason?' (he stooped and approached his lips
to my ear); 'because, if you won't, I'll try violence. His voice was
hoarse; his look that of a man who is just about to burst an
insufferable bond and plunge headlong into wild license. I saw that in
another moment, and with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be
able to do nothing with him. The present- the passing second of
time- was all I had in which to control and restrain him: a movement
of repulsion, flight, fear would have sealed my doom,- and his. But
I was not afraid: not in the least. I felt an inward power; a sense of
influence, which supported me. The crisis was perilous; but not
without its charm: such as the Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips
over the rapid in his canoe. I took hold of his clenched hand,
loosened the contorted fingers, and said to him, soothingly-

'Sit down; I'll talk to you as long as you like, and hear all you
have to say, whether reasonable or unreasonable.'

He sat down: but he did not get leave to speak directly. I had been
struggling with tears for some time: I had taken great pains to
repress them, because I knew he would not like to see me weep. Now,
however, I considered it well to let them flow as freely and as long
as they liked. If the flood annoyed him, so much the better. So I gave
way and cried heartily.

Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed. I said I
could not while he was in such a passion.

'But I am not angry, Jane: I only love you too well; and you had
steeled your little pale face with such a resolute, frozen look, I
could not endure it. Hush, now, and wipe your eyes.'

His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so I, in my turn,
became calm. Now he made an effort to rest his head on my shoulder,
but I would not permit it. Then he would draw me to him: no.

'Jane! Jane!' he said, in such an accent of bitter sadness it
thrilled along every nerve I had; 'you don't love me, then? It was
only my station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued? Now that
you think me disqualified to become your husband, you recoil from my
touch as if I were some toad or ape.'

These words cut me: yet what could I do or say? I ought probably to
have done or said nothing; but I was so tortured by a sense of remorse
at thus hurting his feelings, I could not control the wish to drop
balm where I had wounded.

'I do love you,' I said, 'more than ever: but I must not show or
indulge the feeling: and this is the last time I must express it.'

'The last time, Jane! What! do you think you can live with me,
and see me daily, and yet, if you still love me, be always cold and
distant?'

'No, sir; that I am certain I could not; and therefore I see
there is but one way: but you will be furious if I mention it.'

'Oh, mention it! If I storm, you have the art of weeping.'

'Mr. Rochester, I must leave you.'

'For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair-
which is somewhat dishevelled; and bathe your face- which looks
feverish?'

'I must leave Adele and Thornfield. I must part with you for my
whole life: I must begin a new existence among strange faces and
strange scenes.'

'Of course: I told you you should. I pass over the madness about
parting from me. You mean you must become a part of me. As to the
new existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not
married. You shall be Mrs. Rochester- both virtually and nominally.
I shall keep only to you so long as you and I live. You shall go to
a place I have in the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the
shores of the Mediterranean. There you shall live a happy, and
guarded, and most innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you
into error- to make you my mistress. Why did you shake your head?
Jane, you must be reasonable, or in truth I shall again become
frantic.'

His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye
blazed: still I dared to speak.

'Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning
by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be
your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical- is false.'

'Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man- you forget that: I am not
long-enduring; I am not cool and dispassionate. Out of pity to me
and yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and-
beware!'

He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking
his cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all
hands. To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was
cruel: to yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do
instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity- looked for
aid to one higher than man: the words 'God help me!' burst
involuntarily from my lips.

'I am a fool!' cried Mr. Rochester suddenly. 'I keep telling her
I am not married, and do not explain to her why. I forget she knows
nothing of the character of that woman, or of the circumstances
attending my infernal union with her. Oh, I am certain Jane will agree
with me in opinion, when she knows all that I know! Just put your hand
in mine, Janet- that I may have the evidence of touch as well as
sight, to prove you are near me- and I will in a few words show you
the real state of the case. Can you listen to me?'

'Yes, sir; for hours if you will.'

'I ask only minutes. Jane, did you ever hear or know that I was not
the eldest son of my house: that I had once a brother older than I?'

'I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once.'

'And did you ever hear that my father was an avaricious, grasping
man?'

'I have understood something to that effect.'

'Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to keep the property
together; he could not bear the idea of dividing his estate and
leaving me a fair portion: all, he resolved, should go to my
brother, Rowland. Yet as little could he endure that a son of his
should be a poor man. I must be provided for by a wealthy marriage. He
sought me a partner betimes. Mr. Mason, a West India planter and
merchant, was his old acquaintance. He was certain his possessions
were real and vast: he made inquiries. Mr. Mason, he found, had a
son and daughter; and he learned from him that he could and would give
the latter a fortune of thirty thousand pounds: that sufficed. When
I left college, I was sent out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride
already courted for me. My father said nothing about her money; but he
told me Miss Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for her beauty: and
this was no lie. I found her a fine woman, in the style of Blanche
Ingram: tall, dark, and majestic. Her family wished to secure me
because I was of a good race; and so did she. They showed her to me in
parties, splendidly dressed. I seldom saw her alone, and had very
little private conversation with her. She flattered me, and lavishly
displayed for my pleasure her charms and accomplishments. All the
men in her circle seemed to admire her and envy me. I was dazzled,
stimulated: my senses were excited; and being ignorant, raw, and
inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no folly so besotted
that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness,
the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission. Her
relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she allured me: a
marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was. Oh, I have
no respect for myself when I think of that act!- an agony of inward
contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not even
know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her nature:
I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candour, nor
refinement in her mind or manners- and, I married her:- gross,
grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might
have- But let me remember to whom I am speaking.

'My bride's mother I had never seen: I understood she was dead. The
honeymoon over, I learned my mistake; she was only mad, and shut up in
a lunatic asylum. There was a younger brother, too- a complete dumb
idiot. The elder one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot hate,
whilst I abhor all his kindred, because he has some grains of
affection in his feeble mind, shown in the continued interest he takes
in his wretched sister, and also in a dog-like attachment he once bore
me), will probably be in the same state one day. My father and my
brother Rowland knew all this; but they thought only of the thirty
thousand pounds, and joined in the plot against me.

'These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of
concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my
wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes
obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and
singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to
anything larger- when I found that I could not pass a single
evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that
kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because
whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once
coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile- when I perceived that I
should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant
would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable
temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting
orders- even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I
curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in
secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.

'Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details: some
strong words shall express what I have to say. I lived with that woman
upstairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed: her
character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices
sprang up fast and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty could check
them, and I would not use cruelty. What a pigmy intellect she had, and
what giant propensities! How fearful were the curses those
propensities entailed on me! Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an
infamous mother, dragged me through all the hideous and degrading
agonies which must attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate
and unchaste.

'My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four
years my father died too. I was rich enough now- yet poor to hideous
indigence: a nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was
associated with mine, and called by the law and by society a part of
me. And I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings: for the
doctors now discovered that my wife was mad- her excesses had
prematurely developed the germs of insanity. Jane, you don't like my
narrative; you look almost sick- shall I defer the rest to another
day?'

'No, sir, finish it now; I pity you- I do earnestly pity you.'

'Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of
tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of
those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous,
selfish hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes,
crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But
that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole
face is full at this moment- with which your eyes are now almost
overflowing- with which your heart is heaving- with which your hand is
trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of
love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion. I
accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free advent- my arms wait to
receive her.'

'Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?'

'Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect
was all that intervened between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the
world, I was doubtless covered with grimy dishonour; but I resolved to
be clean in my own sight- and to the last I repudiated the
contamination of her crimes, and wrenched myself from connection
with her mental defects. Still, society associated my name and
person with hers; I yet saw her and heard her daily: something of
her breath (faugh!) mixed with the air I breathed; and besides, I
remembered I had once been her husband- that recollection was then,
and is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover, I knew that while
she lived I could never be the husband of another and better wife;
and, though five years my senior (her family and her father had lied
to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live as
long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind. Thus,
at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless.

'One night I had been awakened by her yells- (since the medical men
had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up)- it was a
fiery West Indian night; one of the description that frequently
precede the hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in
bed, I got up and opened the window. The air was like
sulphur-steams- I could find no refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes
came buzzing in and hummed sullenly round the room; the sea, which I
could hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake- black
clouds were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves,
broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball- she threw her last bloody
glance over a world quivering with the ferment of tempest. I was
physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were
filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she
momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with
such language!- no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary
than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word- the thin
partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction
to her wolfish cries.

'"This life," said I at last, "is hell: this is the air- those
are the sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself
from it if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me
with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic's
burning eternity I have no fear: there is not a future state worse
than this present one- let me break away, and go home to God!"

'I said this whilst I knelt down at, and unlocked a trunk which
contained a brace of loaded pistols: I meant to shoot myself. I only
entertained the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the
crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair, which had originated the
wish and design of self-destruction, was past in a second.

'A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through
the open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and
the air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. While I
walked under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst
its drenched pomegranates and pineapples, and while the refulgent dawn
of the tropics kindled round me- I reasoned thus, Jane- and now
listen; for it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and
showed me the right path to follow.

'The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed
leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart,
dried up and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled
with living blood- my being longed for renewal- my soul thirsted for a
pure draught. I saw hope revive- and felt regeneration possible.
From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea-
bluer than the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened
thus:-

'"Go," said Hope, "and live again in Europe: there it is not
known what a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is
bound to you. You may take the maniac with you to England; confine her
with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield: then travel
yourself to what clime you will, and form what new tie you like.
That woman, who has so abused your long-suffering, so sullied your
name, so outraged your honour, so blighted your youth, is not your
wife, nor are you her husband. See that she is cared for as her
condition demands, and you have done all that God and humanity require
of you. Let her identity, her connection with yourself, be buried in
oblivion: you are bound to impart them to no living being. Place her
in safety and comfort: shelter her degradation with secrecy, and leave
her."

'I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had
not made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very
first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union- having already
begun to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the
family character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening
to me- I added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the
infamous conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as
to make him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring
to publish the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as
myself.

'To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such
a monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to
Thornfield, and saw her safely lodged in that third storey room, of
whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild
beast's den- a goblin's cell. I had some trouble in finding an
attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity
dependence could be placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my
secret: besides, she had lucid intervals of days- sometimes weeks-
which she filled up with abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole from
the Grimsby Retreat. She and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed
Mason's wounds that night he was stabbed and worried), are the only
two I have ever admitted to my confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed
have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise
knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the whole, proved a good
keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her own, of which it
appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to her harassing
profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and
baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never
failed to take advantage of her guardian's temporary lapses; once to
secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to
possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the
night-time. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the
attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid that ghastly
visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she
then spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps brought
back vague reminiscences of her own bridal days: but on what might
have happened, I cannot endure to reflect. When I think of the thing
which flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet
visage over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles-'

'And what, sir,' I asked, while he paused, 'did you do when you had
settled her here? Where did you go?'

'What did I do, Jane? I transformed myself into a will-o'-the-wisp.
Where did I go? I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the
March-spirit. I sought the Continent, and went devious through all its
lands. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent
woman, whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at
Thornfield-'

'But you could not marry, sir.'

'I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It
was not my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I
meant to tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals openly: and it
appeared to me so absolutely rational that I should be considered free
to love and be loved, I never doubted some woman might be found
willing and able to understand my case and accept me, in spite of
the curse with which I was burdened.'

'Well, sir?'

'When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile. You open
your eyes like an eager bird, and make every now and then a restless
movement, as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you,
and you wanted to read the tablet of one's heart. But before I go
on, tell me what you mean by your "Well, sir?" It is a small phrase
very frequent with you; and which many a time has drawn me on and on
through interminable talk: I don't very well know why.'

'I mean,- What next? How did you proceed? What came of such an
event?'

'Precisely! and what do you wish to know now?'

'Whether you found any one you liked: whether you asked her to
marry you; and what she said.'

'I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I
asked her to marry me: but what she said is yet to be recorded in
the book of Fate. For ten long years I roved about, living first in
one capital, then another: sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in
Paris; occasionally in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with
plenty of money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own
society: no circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a
woman amongst English ladies, French countesses, Italian signoras, and
German grafinnen. I could not find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting
moment, I thought I caught a glance, heard a tone, beheld a form,
which announced the realisation of my dream: but I was presently
undeceived. You are not to suppose that I desired perfection, either
of mind or person. I longed only for what suited me- for the antipodes
of the Creole: and I longed vainly. Amongst them all I found not one
whom, had I been ever so free, I- warned as I was of the risks, the
horrors, the loathings of incongruous unions- would have asked to
marry me. Disappointment made me reckless. I tried dissipation-
never debauchery: that I hated, and hate. That was my Indian
Messalina's attribute: rooted disgust at it and her restrained me
much, even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed
to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it.

'Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of
mistresses. The first I chose was 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. She had two
successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered
singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks?
Giacinta was unprincipled and violent: I tired of her in three months.
Clara was honest and quiet; but heavy, mindless, and unimpressible:
not one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to
set her up in a good line of business, and so get decently rid of her.
But, Jane, I see by your face you are not forming a very favourable
opinion of me just now. You think me an unfeeling, loose-principled
rake: don't you?'

'I don't like you so well as I have done sometimes, indeed, sir.
Did it not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way, first
with one mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of
course.'

'It was with me; and I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion
of existence: I should never like to return to it. Hiring a mistress
is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature,
and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with
inferiors is degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I
passed with Celine, Giacinta, and Clara.'

I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain
inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching
that had ever been instilled into me, as- under any pretext- with
any justification- through any temptation- to become the successor
of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same
feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not
give utterance to this conviction: it was enough to feel it. I
impressed it on my heart, that it might remain there to serve me as
aid in the time of trial.

'Now, Jane, why don't you say "Well, sir?" I have not done. You are
looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to
the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses- in a harsh, bitter
frame of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life-
corroded with disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and
especially against all womankind (for I began to regard the notion
of an intellectual, faithful, loving woman as a mere dream),
recalled by business, I came back to England.

'On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield
Hall. Abhorred spot! I expected no peace- no pleasure there. On a
stile in Hay Lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I
passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it: I
had no presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning
that the arbitress of my life- my genius for good or evil- waited
there in humble guise. I did not know it, even when, on the occasion
of Mesrour's accident, it came up and gravely offered me help.
Childish and slender creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped
to my foot and proposed to bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly;
but the thing would not go: it stood by me with strange
perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort of authority. I must be
aided, and by that hand: and aided I was.

'When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something new- a fresh
sap and sense- stole into my frame. It was well I had learnt that this
elf must return to me- that it belonged to my house down below- or I
could not have felt it pass away from under my hand, and seen it
vanish behind the dim hedge, without singular regret. I heard you come
home that night, Jane, though probably you were not aware that I
thought of you or watched for you. The next day I observed you- myself
unseen- for half an hour, while you played with Adele in the
gallery. It was a snowy day, I recollect, and you could not go out
of doors. I was in my room; the door was ajar: I could both listen and
watch. Adele claimed your outward attention for a while; yet I fancied
your thoughts were elsewhere: but you were very patient with her, my
little Jane; you talked to her and amused her a long time. When at
last she left you, you lapsed at once into deep reverie: you betook
yourself slowly to pace the gallery. Now and then, in passing a
casement, you glanced out at the thick-falling snow; you listened to
the sobbing wind, and again you paced gently on and dreamed. I think
those day visions were not dark: there was a pleasurable
illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft excitement in your
aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, hypochondriac brooding: your
look revealed rather the sweet musings of youth when its spirit
follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up and on to an ideal
heaven. The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the
hall, wakened you: and how curiously you smiled to and at yourself,
Janet! There was much sense in your smile: it was very shrewd, and
seemed to make light of your own abstraction. It seemed to say- "My
fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are
absolutely unreal. I have a rosy sky and a green flowery Eden in my
brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my feet a rough
tract to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter."
You ran downstairs and demanded of Mrs. Fairfax some occupation: the
weekly house accounts to make up, or something of that sort, I think
it was. I was vexed with you for getting out of my sight.

'Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my
presence. An unusual- to me- a perfectly new character I suspected was
yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better. You entered
the room with a look and air at once shy and independent: you were
quaintly dressed- much as you are now. I made you talk: ere long I
found you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were
restricted by rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether
that of one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a
good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by
some solecism or blunder; yet when addressed, you lifted a keen, a
daring, and a glowing eye to your interlocutor's face: there was
penetration and power in each glance you gave; when plied by close
questions, you found ready and round answers. Very soon you seemed
to get used to me: I believe you felt the existence of sympathy
between you and your grim and cross master, Jane; for it was
astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquillised
your manner: snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear,
annoyance, or displeasure at my moroseness; you watched me, and now
and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot
describe. I was at once content and stimulated with what I saw: I
liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long time, I
treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely. I was an
intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of
making this novel and piquant acquaintance: besides, I was for a while
troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely
its bloom would fade- the sweet charm of freshness would leave it. I
did not then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the
radiant resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover,
I wished to see whether you would seek me if I shunned you- but you
did not; you kept in the schoolroom as still as your own desk and
easel; if by chance I met you, you passed me as soon, and with as
little token of recognition, as was consistent with respect. Your
habitual expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not
despondent, for you were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had
little hope, and no actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of
me, or if you ever thought of me, and resolved to find this out.

'I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your
glance, and genial in your manner, when you conversed: I saw you had a
social heart; it was the silent schoolroom- it was the tedium of
your life- that made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of
being kind to you; kindness stirred emotion soon: your face became
soft in expression, your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by
your lips in a grateful happy accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting
with you, Jane, at this time: there was a curious hesitation in your
manner: you glanced at me with a slight trouble- a hovering doubt: you
did not know what my caprice might be- whether I was going to play the
master and be stern, or the friend and be benignant. I was now too
fond of you often to simulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my
hand out cordially, such bloom and light and bliss rose to your young,
wistful features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and
there to my heart.'

'Don't talk any more of those days, sir,' I interrupted,
furtively dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was
torture to me; for I knew what I must do- and do soon- and these
reminiscences, and these revelations of his feelings, only made my
work more difficult.

'No, Jane,' he returned: 'what necessity is there to dwell on the
Past, when the Present is so much surer- the Future so much brighter?'

I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion.

'You see now how the case stands- do you not?' he continued. 'After
a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in
dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly
love- I have found you. You are my sympathy- my better self- my good
angel. I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good,
gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my
heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life,
wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame,
fuses you and me in one.

'It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you.
To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now
that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you;
but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared
early instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before
hazarding confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to
your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now- opened to you
plainly my life of agony- described to you my hunger and thirst
after a higher and worthier existence- shown to you, not my resolution
(that word is weak), but my resistless bent to love faithfully and
well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should
have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours.
Jane- give it me now.'

A pause.

'Why are you silent, Jane?'

I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my
vitals. Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a
human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was
loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must
renounce love and idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable
duty- 'Depart!'

'Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise- "I
will be yours, Mr. Rochester."'

'Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours.'

Another long silence.

'Jane!' recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with
grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror- for this still
voice was the pant of a lion rising- 'Jane, do you mean to go one
way in the world, and to let me go another?'

'I do.'

'Jane' (bending towards and embracing me), 'do you mean it now?'

'I do.'

'And now?' softly kissing my forehead and cheek.

'I do,' extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely.

'Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This- this is wicked. It would not be
wicked to love me.'

'It would to obey you.'

A wild look raised his brows- crossed his features: he rose; but he
forbore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I
shook, I feared- but I resolved.

'One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you
are gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left?
For a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer
me to some corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do, Jane? Where
turn for a companion and for some hope?'

'Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope
to meet again there.'

'Then you will not yield?'

'No.'

'Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?' His
voice rose.

'I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil.'

'Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on
lust for a passion- vice for an occupation?'

'Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at
it for myself. We were born to strive and endure- you as well as I: do
so. You will forget me before I forget you.'

'You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I
declared I could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change
soon. And what a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in
your ideas, is proved by your conduct! Is it better to drive a
fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law, no man
being injured by the breach? for you have neither relatives nor
acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me?'

This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason
turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting
him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured
wildly. 'Oh, comply!' it said. 'Think of his misery; think of his
danger- look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong
nature; consider the recklessness following on despair- soothe him;
save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in
the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?'

Still indomitable was the reply- 'I care for myself. The more
solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I
will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by
man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and
not mad- as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when
there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body
and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they;
inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break
them, what would be their worth? They have a worth- so I have always
believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane-
quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating
faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone
determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant
my foot.'

I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so.
His fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment,
whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and
grasped my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance:
physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the
draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul,
and with it the certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately,
has an interpreter- often an unconscious, but still a truthful
interpreter- in the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his
fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and
my overtaxed strength almost exhausted.

'Never,' said he, as he ground his teeth, 'never was anything at
once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!'
(And he shook me with the force of his hold.) 'I could bend her with
my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore,
if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free
thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage- with a
stern triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it- the
savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my
outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the
house; but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call
myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit-
with will and energy, and virtue and purity- that I want: not alone
your brittle frame. Of yourself you could come with soft flight and
nestle against my heart, if you would: seized against your will, you
will elude the grasp like an essence- you will vanish ere I inhale
your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come!'

As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at
me. The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only
an idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled
his fury; I must elude his sorrow: retired to the door.

'You are going, Jane?'

'I am going, sir.'

'You are leaving me?'

'Yes.'

'You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My
deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?'

What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to
reiterate firmly, 'I am going.'

'Jane!'

'Mr. Rochester!'

'Withdraw, then,- I consent; but remember, you leave me here in
anguish. Go up to your own room; think over all I have said, and,
Jane, cast a glance on my sufferings- think of me.'

He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. 'Oh,
Jane! my hope- my love- my life!' broke in anguish from his lips. Then
came a deep, strong sob.

I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back- walked
back as determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him; I turned
his face from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; I smoothed his
hair with my hand.

'God bless you, my dear master!' I said. 'God keep you from harm
and wrong- direct you, solace you- reward you well for your past
kindness to me.'

'Little Jane's love would have been my best reward,' he answered;
'without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love:
yes- nobly, generously.'

Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his
eyes; erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded the embrace,
and at once quitted the room.

'Farewell!' was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added,
'Farewell for ever!'


                .    .    .    .    .    .


That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me as
soon as I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to the
scenes of childhood: I dreamt I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that
the night was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears. The
light that long ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this
vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause
in the centre of the obscured ceiling. I lifted up my head to look:
the roof resolved to clouds, high and dim; the gleam was such as the
moon imparts to vapours she is about to sever. I watched her come-
watched with the strangest anticipation; as though some word of doom
were to be written on her disk. She broke forth as never moon yet
burst from cloud: a hand first penetrated the sable folds and waved
them away; then, not a moon, but a white human form shone in the
azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and gazed on
me. It spoke to my spirit: immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so
near, it whispered in my heart-

'My daughter, flee temptation.'

'Mother, I will.'

So I answered after I had waked from the trancelike dream. It was
yet night, but July nights are short: soon after midnight, dawn comes.
'It cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfil,'
thought I. I rose: I was dressed; for I had taken off nothing but my
shoes. I knew where to find in my drawers some linen, a locket, a
ring. In seeking these articles, I encountered the beads of a pearl
necklace Mr. Rochester had forced me to accept a few days ago. I
left that; it was not mine: it was the visionary bride's who had
melted in air. The other articles I made up in a parcel; my purse,
containing twenty shillings (it was all I had), I put in my pocket:
I tied on my straw bonnet, pinned my shawl, took the parcel and my
slippers, which I would not put on yet, and stole from my room.

'Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!' I whispered, as I glided past her
door. 'Farewell, my darling Adele! I said, as I glanced towards the
nursery. No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I
had to deceive a fine ear: for aught I knew it might now be listening.

I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without a pause;
but my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my
foot was forced to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate was
walking restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed
while I listened. There was a heaven- a temporary heaven- in this room
for me, if I chose: I had but to go in and to say-

'Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till
death,' and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thought of
this.

That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with
impatience for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be
gone. He would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself
forsaken; his love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow
desperate. I thought of this too. My hand moved towards the lock: I
caught it back, and glided on.

Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and
I did it mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in the
kitchen; I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the
key and the lock. I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I
should have to walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late,
must not break down. All this I did without one sound. I opened the
door, passed out, shut it softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard.
The great gates were closed and locked; but a wicket in one of them
was only latched. Through that I departed: it, too, I shut; and now
I was out of Thornfield.

A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the
contrary direction to Millcote; a road I had never travelled, but
often noticed, and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps.
No reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast
back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either
to the past or to the future. The first was a page so heavenly
sweet- so deadly sad- that to read one line of it would dissolve my
courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank:
something like the world when the deluge was gone by.

I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes till after sunrise. I
believe it was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which I had
put on when I left the house, were soon wet with dew. But I looked
neither to rising sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature. He who is
taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not
of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and
axe-edge; of the disseverment of bone and vein; of the grave gaping at
the end: and I thought of drear flight and homeless wandering- and oh!
with agony I thought of what I left. I could not help it. I thought of
him now- in his room- watching the sunrise; hoping I should soon
come to say I would stay with him and be his. I longed to be his; I
panted to return: it was not too late; I could yet spare him the
bitter pang of bereavement. As yet my flight, I was sure, was
undiscovered. I could go back and be his comforter- his pride; his
redeemer from misery, perhaps from ruin. Oh, that fear of his
self-abandonment- far worse than my abandonment- how it goaded me!
It was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when I tried to
extract it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it farther in.
Birds began singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful to their
mates; birds were emblems of love. What was I? In the midst of my pain
of heart and frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself. I had
no solace from self-approbation: none even from self-respect. I had
injured- wounded- left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes.
Still I could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must have led me on.
As to my own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one
and stifled the other. I was weeping wildly as I walked along my
solitary way: fast, fast I went like one delirious. A weakness,
beginning inwardly, extending to the limbs, seized me, and I fell: I
lay on the ground some minutes, pressing my face to the wet turf. I
had some fear- or hope- that here I should die: but I was soon up;
crawling forwards on my hands and knees, and then again raised to my
feet- as eager and as determined as ever to reach the road.

When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge;
and while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stood up
and lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going: the driver
named a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had
no connections. I asked for what sum he would take me there; he said
thirty shillings; I answered I had but twenty; well, he would try to
make it do. He further gave me leave to get into the inside, as the
vehicle was empty: I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on its way.

Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes
never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from
mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so
agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me,
dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love.

                     CHAPTER XXVIII


TWO days are passed. It is a summer evening; the coachman has set
me down at a place called Whitcross; he could take me no farther for
the sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in
the world. The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone. At this
moment I discover that I forgot to take my parcel out of the pocket of
the coach, where I had placed it for safety; there it remains, there
it must remain; and now, I am absolutely destitute.

Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar
set up where four roads meet: whitewashed, I suppose, to be more
obvious at a distance and in darkness. Four arms spring from its
summit: the nearest town to which these point is, according to the
inscription, distant ten miles; the farthest, above twenty. From the
well-known names of these towns I learn in what county I have lighted;
a north-midland shire, dusk with moorland, ridged with mountain:
this I see. There are great moors behind and on each hand of me; there
are waves of mountains far beyond that deep valley at my feet. The
population here must be thin, and I see no passengers on these
roads: they stretch out east, west, north, and south-white, broad,
lonely; they are all cut in the moor, and the heather grows deep and
wild to their very verge. Yet a chance traveller might pass by; and
I wish no eye to see me now: strangers would wonder what I am doing,
lingering here at the sign-post, evidently objectless and lost. I
might be questioned: I could give no answer but what would sound
incredible and excite suspicion. Not a tie holds me to human society
at this moment- not a charm or hope calls me where my fellow-creatures
are- none that saw me would have a kind thought or a good wish for me.
I have no relative but the universal mother, Nature: I will seek her
breast and ask repose.

I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw
deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark
growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened
granite crag in a hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of
moor were about me; the crag protected my head: the sky was over that.

Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague
dread that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or
poacher might discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked
up, fearing it was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I
imagined it a man. Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and
calmed by the deep silence that reigned as evening declined at
nightfall, I took confidence. As yet I had not thought; I had only
listened, watched, dreaded; now I regained the faculty of reflection.

What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I
could do nothing and go nowhere!- when a long way must yet be measured
by my weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human habitation-
when cold charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging:
reluctant sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before
my tale could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved!

I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of
the summer day. I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star
twinkled just above the chasm ridge. The day fell, but with propitious
softness; no breeze whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good;
I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could
anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with
filial fondness. To-night, at least, I would be her guest, as I was
her child: my mother would lodge me without money and without price. I
had one morsel of bread yet: the remnant of a roll I had bought in a
town we passed through at noon with a stray penny- my last coin. I saw
ripe bilberries gleaming here and there, like jet beads in the
heath: I gathered a handful and ate them with the bread. My hunger,
sharp before, was, if not satisfied, appeased by this hermit's meal. I
said my evening prayers at its conclusion, and then chose my couch.

Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet
were buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow
space for the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl double, and
spread it over me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow.
Thus lodged, I was not, at least at the commencement of the night,
cold.

My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it.
It plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven
chords. It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him
with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and,
impotent as a bird with both wings broken, it still quivered its
shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.

Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night
was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too
serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is
everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are
on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded
night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read
clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had
risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with
tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-way. Remembering what it was-
what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light- I
felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to
save what He had made: convinced I grew that neither earth should
perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned my prayer to
thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits.
Mr. Rochester was safe: he was God's, and by God would he be
guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long in
sleep forgot sorrow.

But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the
little birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the
sweet prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried-
when the long morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth
and sky- I got up, and I looked round me.

What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading
moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it. I
saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet
bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that
I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here. But I
was a human being, and had a human being's wants: I must not linger
where there was nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked back at the
bed I had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished but this- that my
Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I
slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death from further
conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in
peace with the soil of this wilderness. Life, however, was yet in my
possession, with all its requirements, and pains, and
responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided for;
the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled. I set out.

Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now
fervent and high. By no other circumstance had I will to decide my
choice. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done
enough, and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost
overpowered me- might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on a
stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged heart
and limb- I heard a bell chime- a church bell.

I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the
romantic hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an
hour ago, I saw a hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right
hand was full of pasture-fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a
glittering stream ran zigzag through the varied shades of green, the
mellowing grain, the sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea.
Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to the road before me, I saw a
heavily-laden waggon labouring up the hill, and not far beyond were
two cows and their drover. Human life and human labour were near. I
must struggle on: strive to live and bend to toil like the rest.

About two o'clock P.M. I entered the village. At the bottom of
its one street there was a little shop with some cakes of bread in the
window. I coveted a cake of bread. With that refreshment I could
perhaps regain a degree of energy: without it, it would be difficult
to proceed. The wish to have some strength and some vigour returned to
me as soon as I was amongst my fellow-beings. I felt it would be
degrading to faint with hunger on the causeway of a hamlet. Had I
nothing about me I could offer in exchange for one of these rolls? I
considered. I had a small silk handkerchief tied round my throat; I
had my gloves. I could hardly tell how men and women in extremities of
destitution proceeded. I did not know whether either of these articles
would be accepted: probably they would not; but I must try.

I entered the shop: a woman was there. Seeing a respectably-dressed
person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with civility. How
could she serve me? I was seized with shame: my tongue would not utter
the request I had prepared. I dared not offer her the half-worn
gloves, the creased handkerchief: besides, I felt it would be
absurd. I only begged permission to sit down a moment, as I was tired.
Disappointed in the expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to
my request. She pointed to a seat; I sank into it. I felt sorely urged
to weep; but conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation would be,
I restrained it. Soon I asked her 'if there were any dressmaker or
plain-workwoman in the village?'

'Yes; two or three. Quite as many as there was employment for.'

I reflected. I was driven to the point now. I was brought face to
face with Necessity. I stood in the position of one without a
resource, without a friend, without a coin. I must do something. What?
I must apply somewhere. Where?

'Did she know of any place in the neighbourhood where a servant was
wanted?'

'Nay; she couldn't say.'

'What was the chief trade in this place? What did most of the
people do?'

'Some were farm labourers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver's
needle-factory, and at the foundry.'

'Did Mr. Oliver employ women?'

'Nay; it was men's work.'

'And what do the women do?'

'I knawn't,' was the answer. 'Some does one thing, and some
another. Poor folk mun get on as they can.'

She seemed to be tired of my questions: and, indeed, what claim had
I to importune her? A neighbour or two came in; my chair was evidently
wanted. I took leave.

I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to
the right hand and to the left; but I could discover no pretext, nor
see an inducement to enter any. I rambled round the hamlet, going
sometimes to a little distance and returning again, for an hour or
more. Much exhausted, and suffering greatly now for want of food, I
turned aside into a lane and sat down under the hedge. Ere many
minutes had elapsed, I was again on my feet, however, and again
searching something- a resource, or at least an informant. A pretty
little house stood at the top of the lane, with a garden before it,
exquisitely neat and brilliantly blooming. I stopped at it. What
business had I to approach the white door or touch the glittering
knocker? In what way could it possibly be the interest of the
inhabitants of that dwelling to serve me? Yet I drew near and knocked.
A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young woman opened the door. In such a
voice as might be expected from a hopeless heart and fainting frame- a
voice wretchedly low and faltering- I asked if a servant was wanted
here?

'No,' said she; 'we do not keep a servant.'

'Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind?' I
continued. 'I am a stranger, without acquaintance in this place. I
want some work: no matter what.'

But it was not her business to think for me, or to seek a place for
me: besides, in her eyes, how doubtful must have appeared my
character, position, tale. She shook her head, she 'was sorry she
could give me no information,' and the white door closed, quite gently
and civilly: but it shut me out. If she had held it open a little
longer, I believe I should have begged a piece of bread; for I was now
brought low.

I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides,
no prospect of aid was visible. I should have longed rather to deviate
to a wood I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick shade to
offer inviting shelter; but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with
nature's cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where there
was a chance of food. Solitude would be no solitude- rest no rest-
while the vulture, hunger, thus sank beak and talons in my side.

I drew near houses; I left them, and came back again, and again I
wandered away: always repelled by the consciousness of having no claim
to ask- no right to expect interest in my isolated lot. Meantime,
the afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a lost and
starving dog. In crossing a field, I saw the church spire before me: I
hastened towards it. Near the churchyard, and in the middle of a
garden, stood a well-built though small house, which I had no doubt
was the parsonage. I remembered that strangers who arrive at a place
where they have no friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply
to the clergyman for introduction and aid. It is the clergyman's
function to help- at least with advice- those who wished to help
themselves. I seemed to have something like a right to seek counsel
here. Renewing then my courage, and gathering my feeble remains of
strength, I pushed on. I reached the house, and knocked at the
kitchen-door. An old woman opened: I asked was this the parsonage?

'Yes.'

'Was the clergyman in?'

'No.'

'Would he be in soon?'

'No, he was gone from home.'

'To a distance?'

'Not so far- happen three mile. He had been called away by the
sudden death of his father: he was at Marsh End now, and would very
likely stay there a fortnight longer.'

'Was there any lady of the house?'

'Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper'; and of
her, reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I
was sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away.

Once more I took off my handkerchief- once more I thought of the
cakes of bread in the little shop. Oh, for but a crust! for but one
mouthful to allay the pang of famine! Instinctively I turned my face
again to the village; I found the shop again, and I went in; and
though others were there besides the woman I ventured the request-
'Would she give me a roll for this handkerchief?'

She looked at me with evident suspicion: 'Nay, she never sold stuff
i' that way.'

Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused.
'How could she tell where I had got the handkerchief?' she said.

'Would she take my gloves?'

'No! what could she do with them?'

Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say
there is enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but
at this day I can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude:
the moral degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too
distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed
none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be
expected, and what could not be helped: an ordinary beggar is
frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably
so. To be sure, what I begged was employment; but whose business was
it to provide me with employment? Not, certainly, that of persons
who saw me then for the first time, and who knew nothing about my
character. And as to the woman who would not take my handkerchief in
exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the offer appeared to
her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let me condense now. I am
sick of the subject.

A little before dark I passed a farmhouse, at the open door of
which the farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese. I
stopped and said-

'Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry.' He
cast on me a glance of surprise; but without answering, he cut a thick
slice from his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think I
was a beggar, but only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a
fancy to his brown loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his house, I
sat down and ate it.

I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in
the wood I have before alluded to. But my night was wretched, my
rest broken: the ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders
passed near me more than once, and I had again and again to change
my quarters: no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me. Towards
morning it rained; the whole of the following day was wet. Do not
ask me, reader, to give a minute account of that day; as before, I
sought work; as before, I was repulsed; as before, I starved; but once
did food pass my lips. At the door of a cottage I saw a little girl
about to throw a mess of cold porridge into a pig trough. 'Will you
give me that?' I asked.

She stared at me. 'Mother!' she exclaimed, 'there is a woman
wants me to give her these porridge.'

'Well, lass,' replied a voice within, 'give it her if she's a
beggar. T' pig doesn't want it.'

The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hands and I devoured
it ravenously.

As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary
bridle-path, which I had been pursuing an hour or more.

'My strength is quite failing me,' I said in a soliloquy. 'I feel I
cannot go much farther. Shall I be an outcast again this night?
While the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched
ground? I fear I cannot do otherwise: for who will receive me? But
it will be very dreadful, with this feeling of hunger, faintness,
chill, and this sense of desolation- this total prostration of hope.
In all likelihood, though, I should die before morning. And why cannot
I reconcile myself to the prospect of death? Why do I struggle to
retain a valueless life? Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester
is living: and then, to die of want and cold is a fate to which nature
cannot submit passively. Oh, Providence! sustain me a little longer!
Aid!- direct me!'

My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape. I saw I
had strayed far from the village: it was quite out of sight. The
very cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I had, by
cross-ways and by-paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland;
and now, only a few fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the
heath from which they were scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and
the dusky hill.

'Well, I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a
frequented road,' I reflected. 'And far better that crows and
ravens- if any ravens there be in these regions- should pick my
flesh from my bones, than that they should be prisoned in a
workhouse coffin and moulder in a pauper's grave.'

To the hill, then, I turned. I reached it. It remained now only
to find a hollow where I could lie down, and feel at least hidden,
if not secure. But all the surface of the waste looked level. It
showed no variation but of tint: green, where rush and moss overgrew
the marshes; black, where the dry soil bore only heath. Dark as it was
getting, I could still see these changes, though but as mere
alternations of light and shade; for colour had faded with the
daylight.

My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the moor-edge,
vanishing amidst the wildest scenery, when at one dim point, far in
among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up. 'That is an ignis
fatuus,' was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish. It
burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor advancing. 'Is
it, then, a bonfire just kindled?' I questioned. I watched to see
whether it would spread: but no; as it did not diminish, so it did not
enlarge. 'It may be a candle in a house,' I then conjectured; 'but
if so, I can never reach it. It is much too far away: and were it
within a yard of me, what would it avail? I should but knock at the
door to have it shut in my face.'

And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the
ground. I lay still a while: the night-wind swept over the hill and
over me, and died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting
me afresh to the skin. Could I but have stiffened to the still
frost- the friendly numbness of death- it might have pelted on; I
should not have felt it; but my yet living flesh shuddered at its
chilling influence. I rose ere long.

The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain.
I tried to walk again: I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards it.
It led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would have
been impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even now, in
the height of summer. Here I fell twice; but as often I rose and
rallied my faculties. This light was my forlorn hope: I must gain it.

Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor. I
approached it; it was a road or a track: it led straight up to the
light, which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a clump of trees-
firs, apparently, from what I could distinguish of the character of
their forms and foliage through the gloom. My star vanished as I
drew near: some obstacle had intervened between me and it. I put out
my hand to feel the dark mass before me: I discriminated the rough
stones of a low wall- above it, something like palisades, and
within, a high and prickly hedge. I groped on. Again a whitish
object gleamed before me: it was a gate- a wicket; it moved on its
hinges as I touched it. On each side stood a sable bush- holly or yew.

Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house
rose to view, black, low, and rather long; but the guiding light shone
nowhere. All was obscurity. Were the inmates retired to rest? I feared
it must be so. In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot
out the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very
small latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller
by the growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves
clustered thick over the portion of the house wall in which it was
set. The aperture was so screened and narrow, that curtain or
shutter had been deemed unnecessary; and when I stooped down and put
aside the spray of foliage shooting over it, I could see all within. I
could see clearly a room with a sanded floor, clean scoured; a dresser
of walnut, with pewter plates ranged in rows, reflecting the redness
and radiance of a glowing peat-fire. I could see a clock, a white deal
table, some chairs. The candle, whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on
the table; and by its light an elderly woman, somewhat
rough-looking, but scrupulously clean, like all about her, was
knitting a stocking.

I noticed these objects cursorily only- in them there was nothing
extraordinary. A group of more interest appeared near the hearth,
sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it. Two
young, graceful women- ladies in every point- sat, one in a low
rocking-chair, the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning
of crape and bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair
necks and faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on
the knee of one girl- in the lap of the other was cushioned a black
cat.

A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who
were they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at
the table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy
and cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet,
as I gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot
call them handsome- they were too pale and grave for the word: as they
each bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A
stand between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to
which they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the
smaller books they held in their hands, like people consulting a
dictionary to aid them in the task of translation. This scene was as
silent as if all the figures had been shadows and the firelit
apartment a picture: so hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall
from the grate, the clock tick in its obscure corner; and I even
fancied I could distinguish the click-click of the woman's
knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice broke the strange stillness
at last, it was audible enough to me.

'Listen, Diana,' said one of the absorbed students; 'Franz and
old Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a
dream from which he has awakened in terror- listen!' And in a low
voice she read something, of which not one word was intelligible to
me; for it was in an unknown tongue- neither French nor Latin. Whether
it were Greek or German I could not tell.

'That is strong,' she said, when she had finished: 'I relish it.'
The other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister,
repeated, while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read.
At a later day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will
here quote the line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a
stroke on sounding brass to me- conveying no meaning:-

'"Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht." Good!
good!' she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. 'There you
have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line is
worth a hundred pages of fustian. "Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale
meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms." I like
it!'

Both were again silent.

'Is there ony country where they talk i' that way?' asked the old
woman, looking up from her knitting.

'Yes, Hannah- a far larger country than England, where they talk in
no other way.'

'Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t'one
t'other: and if either o' ye went there, ye could tell what they said,
I guess?'

'We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all-
for we are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don't speak
German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us.'

'And what good does it do you?'

'We mean to teach it some time- or at least the elements, as they
say; and then we shall get more money than we do now.'

'Varry like: but give ower studying; ye've done enough for
to-night.'

'I think we have: at least I'm tired. Mary, are you?'

'Mortally: after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language
with no master but a lexicon.'

'It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious
Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home.'

'Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a
little gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah:
will you have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?'

The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a
passage: soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she
presently came back.

'Ah, childer!' said she, 'it fair troubles me to go into yond' room
now: it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a
corner.'

She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before,
looked sad now.

'But he is in a better place,' continued Hannah: 'we shouldn't wish
him here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he
had.'

'You say he never mentioned us?' inquired one of the ladies.

'He hadn't time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father.
He had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify;
and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o' ye to be sent
for, he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a
heaviness in his head the next day- that is, a fortnight sin'- and
he went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a'most stark when your
brother went into t' chamber and fand him. Ah, childer! that's t' last
o' t' old stock- for ye and Mr. St. John is like of different soart to
them 'at's gone; for all your mother wor mich i' your way, and
a'most as book-learned. She wor the pictur' o' ye, Mary: Diana is more
like your father.'

I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant
(for such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were
fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of
distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker
than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing
it; Mary's pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana's
duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls. The clock struck
ten.

'Ye'll want your supper, I am sure,' observed Hannah; 'and so
will Mr. St. John when he comes in.'

And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed
about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so
intent on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited
in me so keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched
position: now it recurred to me. More desolate, more desperate than
ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible did it appear to
touch the inmates of this house with concern on my behalf; to make
them believe in the truth of my wants and woes- to induce them to
vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As I groped out the door, and
knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last idea to be a mere
chimera. Hannah opened.

'What do you want?' she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she
surveyed me by the light of the candle she held.

'May I speak to your mistresses?' I said.

'You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do
you come from?'

'I am a stranger.'

'What is your business here at this hour?'

'I want a night's shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel
of bread to eat.'

Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face.
'I'll give you a piece of bread,' she said, after a pause; 'but we
can't take in a vagrant to lodge. It isn't likely.'

'Do let me speak to your mistresses.'

'No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving
about now; it looks very ill.'

'But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?'

'Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you
don't do wrong, that's all. Here is a penny; now go-'

'A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther.
Don't shut the door:- oh, don't, for God's sake!'

'I must; the rain is driving in-'

'Tell the young ladies. Let me see them-'

'Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you
wouldn't make such a noise. Move off.'

'But I must die if I am turned away.'

'Not you. I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring
you about folk's houses at this time o' night. If you've any
followers- housebreakers or such like- anywhere near, you may tell
them we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and
dogs, and guns.' Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the
door to and bolted it within.

This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering- a throe of true
despair- rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not
another step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned- I
wrung my hands- I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death!
Oh, this last hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this
isolation- this banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of
hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone- at least for a moment;
but the last I soon endeavoured to regain.

'I can but die,' I said, 'and I believe in God. Let me try to
wait His will in silence.'

These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all
my misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain
there- dumb and still.

'All men must die,' said a voice quite close at hand; 'but all
are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as
yours would be if you perished here of want.'

'Who or what speaks?' I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound,
and incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A
form was near- what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision
prevented me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock, the newcomer
appealed to the door.

'Is it you, Mr. St. John?' cried Hannah.

'Yes- yes; open quickly.'

'Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is!
Come in- your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe
there are bad folks about. There has been a beggar-woman- I declare
she is not gone yet!- laid down there. Get up! for shame! Move off,
I say!'

'Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done
your duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was
near, and listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar
case- I must at least examine into it. Young woman, rise, and pass
before me into the house.'

With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that
clean, bright kitchen- on the very hearth- trembling, sickening;
conscious of an aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and
weather-beaten. The two ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old
servant, were all gazing at me.

'St. John, who is it?' I heard one ask.

'I cannot tell: I found her at the door,' was the reply.

'She does look white,' said Hannah.

'As white as clay or death,' was responded. 'She will fall: let her
sit.'

And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I
still possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak.

'Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some.
But she is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless!'

'A mere spectre!'

'Is she ill, or only famished?'

'Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece
of bread.'

Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me
and the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk,
and put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in
it, and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In her simple words,
too, the same balm-like emotion spoke: 'Try to eat.'

'Yes- try,' repeated Mary gently; and Mary's hand removed my sodden
bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me: feebly at
first, eagerly soon.

'Not too much at first- restrain her,' said the brother; 'she has
had enough.' And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of bread.

'A little more, St. John- look at the avidity in her eyes.'

'No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now- ask her
her name.'

I felt I could speak, and I answered- 'My name is Jane Elliott.'
Anxious as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume an
alias.

'And where do you live? Where are your friends?'

I was silent.

'Can we send for any one you know?'

I shook my head.

'What account can you give of yourself?'

Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house,
and once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer
outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put off
the mendicant- to resume my natural manner and character. I began once
more to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an account-
which at present I was far too weak to render- I said after a brief
pause-

'Sir, I can give you no details to-night.'

'But what, then,' said he, 'do you expect me to do for you?'

'Nothing,' I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers.
Diana took the word-

'Do you mean,' she asked, 'that we have now given you what aid
you require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy
night?'

I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance,
instinct both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage.
Answering her compassionate gaze with a smile, I said- 'I will trust
you. If I were a masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not
turn me from your hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no fear. Do
with me and for me as you like; but excuse me from much discourse-
my breath is short- I feel a spasm when I speak.' All three surveyed
me, and all three were silent.

'Hannah,' said Mr. St. John, at last, 'let her sit there at
present, and ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the
remainder of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into the
parlour and talk the matter over.'

They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned- I could not
tell which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by
the genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah.
Ere long, with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my
dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me. I
thanked God- experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of
grateful joy- and slept.

                      CHAPTER XXIX


THE recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this
is very dim in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in that
interval; but few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew
I was in a small room and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to
have grown; I lay on it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me
from it would have been almost to kill me. I took no note of the lapse
of time- of the change from morning to noon, from noon to evening. I
observed when any one entered or left the apartment: I could even tell
who they were; I could understand what was said when the speaker stood
near to me; but I could not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs
was equally impossible. Hannah, the servant, was my most frequent
visitor. Her coming disturbed me. I had a feeling that she wished me
away: that she did not understand me or my circumstances; that she was
prejudiced against me. Diana and Mary appeared in the chamber once
or twice a day. They would whisper sentences of this sort at my
bedside-

'It is very well we took her in.'

'Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the
morning had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has gone
through?'

'Strange hardships, I imagine- poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer?'

'She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner
of speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took
off, though splashed and wet, were little worn and fine.'

'She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I
rather like it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy
her physiognomy would be agreeable.'

Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at
the hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or
aversion to, myself. I was comforted.

Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of
lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted
fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he
was sure, would manage best, left to herself. He said every nerve
had been overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep
torpid a while. There was no disease. He imagined my recovery would be
rapid enough when once commenced. These opinions he delivered in a few
words, in a quiet, low voice; and added, after a pause, in the tone of
a man little accustomed to expansive comment, 'Rather an unusual
physiognomy; certainly, not indicative of vulgarity or degradation.'

'Far otherwise,' responded Diana. 'To speak truth, St. John, my
heart rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able to
benefit her permanently.'

'That is hardly likely,' was the reply. 'You will find she is
some young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and
has probably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in
restoring her to them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines of
force in her face which make me sceptical of her tractability.' He
stood considering me some minutes; then added, 'She looks sensible,
but not at all handsome.'

'She is so ill, St. John.'

'Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of
beauty are quite wanting in those features.'

On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak,
move, rise in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and
dry toast, about, as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with
relish: the food was good- void of the feverish flavour which had
hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed. When she left me, I felt
comparatively strong and revived: ere long satiety of repose and
desire for action stirred me. I wished to rise; but what could I put
on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept on the
ground and fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed to appear before my
benefactors so clad. I was spared the humiliation.

On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My
black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were
removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was
quite decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered
presentable. There were the means of washing in the room, and a comb
and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and resting
every five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My clothes hung
loose on me; for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with
a shawl, and once more, clean and respectable looking- no speck of the
dirt, no trace of the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to
degrade me, left- I crept down a stone staircase with the aid of the
banisters, to a narrow low passage, and found my way presently to
the kitchen.

It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a
generous fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known, are
most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been
loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds
among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first:
latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in
tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled.

'What, you have got up!' she said. 'You are better, then. You may
sit you down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will.'

She pointed to the rocking-chair: I took it. She bustled about,
examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye. Turning to
me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly-

'Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?'

I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of
the question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I
answered quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness-

'You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar. I am no beggar; any
more than yourself or your young ladies.'

After a pause she said, 'I dunnut understand that: you've like no
house, nor no brass, I guess?'

'The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money)
does not make a beggar in your sense of the word.'

'Are you book-learned?' she inquired presently.

'Yes, very.'

'But you've never been to a boarding-school?'

'I was at a boarding-school eight years.'

She opened her eyes wide. 'Whatever cannot ye keep yourself for,
then?'

'I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again. What
are you going to do with these gooseberries?' I inquired as she
brought out a basket of the fruit.

'Mak' 'em into pies.'

'Give them to me and I'll pick them.'

'Nay; I dunnut want ye to do nought.'

'But I must do something. Let me have them.'

She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over
my dress, 'lest,' as she said, 'I should mucky it.'

'Ye've not been used to sarvant's wark, I see by your hands,' she
remarked. 'Happen ye've been a dressmaker?'

'No, you are wrong. And now, never mind what I have been: don't
trouble your head further about me; but tell me the name of the
house where we are.'

'Some calls it Marsh End, and some calls it Moor House.'

'And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John?'

'Nay; he doesn't live here: he is only staying a while. When he
is at home, he is in his own parish at Morton.'

'That village a few miles off?'

'Aye.'

'And what is he?'

'He is a parson.'

I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage,
when I had asked to see the clergyman. 'This, then, was his father's
residence?'

'Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather,
and gurt (great) grandfather afore him.'

'The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?'

'Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name.'

'And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?'

'Yes.'

'Their father is dead?'

'Dead three weeks sin' of a stroke.'

'They have no mother?'

'The mistress has been dead this mony a year.'

'Have you lived with the family long?'

'I've lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three'

'That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I
will say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call
me a beggar.'

She again regarded me with a surprised stare. 'I believe,' she
said, 'I was quite mista'en in my thoughts of you: but there is so
mony cheats goes about, you mun forgie me.'

'And though,' I continued, rather severely, 'you wished to turn
me from the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog.'

'Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o' th'
childer nor of mysel: poor things! They've like nobody to tak' care on
'em but me. I'm like to look sharpish.'

I maintained a grave silence for some minutes.

'You munnut think too hardly of me,' she again remarked.

'But I do think hardly of you,' I said; 'and I'll tell you why- not
so much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an
impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I
had no "brass" and no house. Some of the best people that ever lived
have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you
ought not to consider poverty a crime.'

'No more I ought,' said she: 'Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I
see I wor wrang- but I've clear a different notion on you now to
what I had. You look a raight down dacent little crater.'

'That will do- I forgive you now. Shake hands.'

She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier
smile illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were friends.

Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit, and
she made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry
details about her deceased master and mistress, and 'the childer,'
as she called the young people.

Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a
gentleman, and of as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh End had
belonged to the Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she
affirmed, 'aboon two hundred year old- for all it looked but a
small, humble place, naught to compare wi' Mr. Oliver's grand hall
down i' Morton Vale. But she could remember Bill Oliver's father a
journeyman needle-maker; 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' th' common way: stark mad o'
shooting, and farming, and sich like.' The mistress was different. She
was a great reader, and studied a deal; and the 'bairns' had taken
after her. There was nothing like them in these parts, nor ever had
been; they had liked learning, all three, almost from the time they
could speak; and they had always been 'of a mak' of their own.' Mr.
St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a parson; and
the girls, as soon as they left school, would seek places as
governesses: for they had told her their father had some years ago
lost a great deal of money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt;
and as he was now not rich enough to give them fortunes, they must
provide for themselves. They had lived very little at home for a
long while, and were only come now to stay a few weeks on account of
their father's death; but they did so like Marsh End and Morton, and
all these moors and hills about. They had been in London, and many
other grand towns; but they always said there was no place like
home; and then they were so agreeable with each other- never fell
out nor 'threaped.' She did not know where there was such a family for
being united.

Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the
two ladies and their brother were now.

'Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half
an hour to tea.'

They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they
entered by the kitchen door. Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely
bowed and passed through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few
words, kindly and calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing
me well enough to be able to come down; Diana took my hand: she
shook her head at me.

'You should have waited for my leave to descend,' she said. 'You
still look very pale- and so thin! Poor child!- poor girl!'

Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove.
She possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face
seemed to me full of charm. Mary's countenance was equally
intelligent- her features equally pretty; but her expression was
more reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant. Diana
looked and spoke with a certain authority: she had a will,
evidently. It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an
authority supported like hers, and to bend, where my conscience and
self-respect permitted, to an active will.

'And what business have you here?' she continued. 'It is not your
place. Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we
like to be free, even to license- but you are a visitor, and must go
into the parlour.'

'I am very well here.'

'Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with
flour.'

'Besides, the fire is too hot for you,' interposed Mary.

'To be sure,' added her sister. 'Come, you must be obedient.' And
still holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner
room.

'Sit there,' she said, placing me on the sofa, 'while we take our
things off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we
exercise in our little moorland home- to prepare our own meals when we
are so inclined, or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or
ironing.'

She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat
opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I examined first, the
parlour, and then its occupant.

The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet
comfortable, because clean and neat. The old-fashioned chairs were
very bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass. A few
strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days
decorated the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained
some books and an ancient set of china. There was no superfluous
ornament in the room- not one modern piece of furniture, save a
brace of workboxes and a lady's desk in rosewood, which stood on a
side-table: everything- including the carpet and curtains- looked at
once well worn and well saved.

Mr. St. John- sitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on
the walls, keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his lips
mutely sealed- was easy enough to examine. Had he been a statue
instead of a man, he could not have been easier. He was young- perhaps
from twenty-eight to thirty- tall, slender; his face riveted the
eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight,
classic nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin. It is seldom,
indeed, an English face comes so near the antique models as did his.
He might well be a little shocked at the irregularity of my
lineaments, his own being so harmonious. His eyes were large and blue,
with brown lashes; his high forehead, colourless as ivory, was
partially streaked over by careless locks of fair hair.

This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it
describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a
yielding, an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as
he now sat, there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his
brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either
restless, or hard, or eager. He did not speak to me one word, nor even
direct to me one glance, till his sisters returned. Diana, as she
passed in and out, in the course of preparing tea, brought me a little
cake, baked on the top of the oven.

'Eat that now,' she said: 'you must be hungry. Hannah says you have
had nothing but some gruel since breakfast.'

I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr.
Rivers now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took a
seat, fixed his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me. There was an
unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his
gaze now, which told that intention and not diffidence, had hitherto
kept it averted from the stranger.

'You are very hungry,' he said.

'I am, sir.' It is my way- it always was my way, by instinct-
ever to meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness.

'It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain
for the last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to
the cravings of your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though
still not immoderately.'

'I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir,' was my very
clumsily-contrived, unpolished answer.

'No,' he said coolly: 'when you have indicated to us the
residence of your friends, we can write to them, and you may be
restored to home.'

'That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being
absolutely without home and friends.'

The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was
no suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity. I speak
particularly of the young ladies. St. John's eyes, though clear enough
in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He
seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people's
thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of
keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass
than to encourage.

'Do you mean to say,' he asked, 'that you are completely isolated
from every connection?'

'I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I
possess to admittance under any roof in England.'

'A most singular position at your age!'

Here I saw his glance directed to my hands, which were folded on
the table before me. I wondered what he sought there: his words soon
explained the quest.

'You have never been married? You are a spinster?'

Diana laughed. 'Why, she can't be above seventeen or eighteen years
old, St. John,' said she.

'I am near nineteen: but I am not married. No.'

I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating
recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage. They all
saw the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me by
turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but the
colder and sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble he
had excited forced out tears as well as colour.

'Where did you last reside?' he now asked.

'You are too inquisitive, St. John,' murmured Mary in a low
voice; but he leaned over the table and required an answer by a second
firm and piercing look.

'The name of the place where, and of the person with whom I
lived, is my secret,' I replied concisely.

'Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both
from St. John and every other questioner,' remarked Diana.

'Yet if I know nothing about you or your history, I cannot help
you,' he said. 'And you need help, do you not?'

'I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true
philanthropist will put me in the way of getting work which I can
do, and the remuneration for which will keep me, if but in the
barest necessaries of life.'

'I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to
aid you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest. First, then,
tell me what you have been accustomed to do, and what you can do.'

I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the
beverage; as much so as a giant with wine: it gave new tone to my
unstrung nerves, and enabled me to address this penetrating young
judge steadily.

'Mr. Rivers,' I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he
looked at me, openly and without diffidence, 'you and your sisters
have done me a great service- the greatest man can do his
fellow-being; you have rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from
death. This benefit conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my
gratitude, and a claim, to a certain extent, on my confidence. I
will tell you as much of the history of the wanderer you have
harboured, as I can tell without compromising my own peace of mind- my
own security, moral and physical, and that of others.

'I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman. My parents died
before I could know them. I was brought up a dependant; educated in
a charitable institution. I will even tell you the name of the
establishment, where I passed six years as a pupil, and two as a
Mr. Rivers?- the Rev. Robert Brocklehurst is the treasurer.'

'I have heard of Mr. Brocklehurst, and I have seen the school.'

'I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess. I
obtained a good situation, and was happy. This place I was obliged
to leave four days before I came here. The reason of my departure I
cannot and ought not to explain: it would be useless, dangerous, and
would sound incredible. No blame attached to me: I am as free from
culpability as any one of you three. Miserable I am, and must be for a
time; for the catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a
paradise was of a strange and direful nature. I observed but two
points in planning my departure- speed, secrecy: to secure these, I
had to leave behind me everything I possessed except a small parcel;
which, in my hurry and trouble of mind, I forgot to take out of the
coach that brought me to Whitcross. To this neighbourhood, then, I
came, quite destitute. I slept two nights in the open air, and
wandered about two days without crossing a threshold: but twice in
that space of time did I taste food; and it was when brought by
hunger, exhaustion, and despair almost to the last gasp, that you, Mr.
Rivers, forbade me to perish of want at your door, and took me under
the shelter of your roof. I know all your sisters have done for me
since- for I have not been insensible during my seeming torpor- and
I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt
as to your evangelical charity.'

'Don't make her talk any more now, St. John,' said Diana, as I
paused; 'she is evidently not yet fit for excitement. Come to the sofa
and sit down now, Miss Elliott.'

I gave an involuntary half start at hearing the alias: I had
forgotten my new name. Mr. Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape,
noticed it at once.

'You said your name was Jane Elliott?' he observed.

'I did say so; and it is the name by which I think it expedient
to be called at present, but it is not my real name, and when I hear
it, it sounds strange to me.'

'Your real name you will not give?'

'No: I fear discovery above all things; and whatever disclosure
would lead to it, I avoid.'

'You are quite right, I am sure,' said Diana. 'Now do, brother, let
her be at peace a while.'

But when St. John had mused a few moments he recommenced as
imperturbably and with as much acumen as ever.

'You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality- you
would wish, I see, to dispense as soon as may be with my sisters'
compassion, and, above all, with my charity (I am quite sensible of
the distinction drawn, nor do I resent it- it is just): you desire
to be independent of us?'

'I do: I have already said so. Show me how to work, or how to
seek work: that is all I now ask; then let me go, if it be but to
the meanest cottage; but till then, allow me to stay here: I dread
another essay of the horrors of homeless destitution.'

'Indeed you shall stay here,' said Diana, putting her white hand on
my head. 'You shall,' repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative
sincerity which seemed natural to her.

'My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you,' said Mr. St.
John, 'as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a
half-frozen bird, some wintry wind might have driven through their
casement. I feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping
yourself, and shall endeavour to do so; but observe, my sphere is
narrow. I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must
be of the humblest sort. And if you are inclined to despise the day of
small things, seek some more efficient succour than such as I can
offer.'

'She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she
can do,' answered Diana for me; 'and you know, St. John, she has no
choice of helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people
as you.'

'I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a
servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better,' I answered.

'Right,' said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. 'If such is your
spirit, I promise to aid you, in my own time and way.'

He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea.
I soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my
present strength would permit.