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- CHAPTER XXX
-
-
- THE more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked
- them. In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could
- sit up all day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana and
- Mary in all their occupations; converse with them as much as they
- wished, and aid them when and where they would allow me. There was a
- reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me
- for the first time- the pleasure arising from perfect congeniality
- of tastes, sentiments, and principles.
-
- I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed,
- delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced. They loved their
- sequestered home. I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure,
- with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its
- avenue of aged firs- all grown aslant under the stress of mountain
- winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly- and where no flowers but
- of the hardiest species would bloom- found a charm both potent and
- permanent. They clung to the purple moors behind and around their
- dwelling- to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading
- from their gate descended, and which wound between fern-banks first,
- and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture-fields that
- ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock
- of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy-faced lambs:- they
- clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment. I
- could comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth. I
- saw the fascination of the locality. I felt the consecration of its
- loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweep- on the
- wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by
- heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow
- granite crag. These details were just to me what they were to them- so
- many pure and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast and the soft
- breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and
- sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in
- these regions, the same attraction as for them- wound round my
- faculties the same spell that entranced theirs.
-
- Indoors we agreed equally well. They were both more accomplished
- and better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the
- path of knowledge they had trodden before me. I devoured the books
- they lent me: then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in
- the evening what I had perused during the day. Thought fitted thought;
- opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly.
-
- If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana.
- Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous.
- In her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty
- of flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension.
- I could talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush of
- vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana's
- feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and
- Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but
- touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I liked to learn of her:
- I saw the part of instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar
- pleased and suited me no less. Our natures dovetailed: mutual
- affection- of the strongest kind- was the result. They discovered I
- could draw: their pencils and colour-boxes were immediately at my
- service. My skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised
- and charmed them. Mary would sit and watch me by the hour together:
- then she would take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous
- pupil she made. Thus occupied, and mutually entertained, days passed
- like hours, and weeks like days.
-
- As to Mr. St. John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally
- and rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him. One
- reason of the distance yet observed between us was, that he was
- comparatively seldom at home: a large proportion of his time
- appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the scattered
- population of his parish.
-
- No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions:
- rain or fair, he would, when his hours of morning study were over,
- take his hat, and, followed by his father's old pointer, Carlo, go out
- on his mission of love or duty- I scarcely know in which light he
- regarded it. Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable, his
- sisters would expostulate. He would then say, with a peculiar smile,
- more solemn than cheerful-
-
- 'And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me
- aside from these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be
- for the future I propose to myself?'
-
- Diana and Mary's general answer to this question was a sigh, and
- some minutes of apparently mournful meditation.
-
- But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to
- friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and
- even of a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours,
- blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy
- that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the
- reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist. Often,
- of an evening, when he sat at the window, his desk and papers before
- him, he would cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and
- deliver himself up to I know not what course of thought; but that it
- was perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent flash and
- changeful dilation of his eye.
-
- I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of
- delight it was to his sisters. He expressed once, and but once in my
- hearing, a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an
- inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home;
- but there was more of gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in
- which the sentiment was manifested; and never did he seem to roam
- the moors for the sake of their soothing silence- never seek out or
- dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights they could yield.
-
- Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an
- opportunity of gauging his mind. I first got an idea of its calibre
- when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton. I wish I could
- describe that sermon: but it is past my power. I cannot even render
- faithfully the effect it produced on me.
-
- It began calm- and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice
- went, it was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly
- restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted
- the nervous language. This grew to force- compressed, condensed,
- controlled. The heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the
- power of the preacher: neither were softened. Throughout there was a
- strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern
- allusions to Calvinistic doctrines- election, predestination,
- reprobation- were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded
- like a sentence pronounced for doom. When he had done, instead of
- feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse, I
- experienced an expressible sadness; for it seemed to me- I know not
- whether equally so to others- that the eloquence to which I had been
- listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of
- disappointment- where moved troubling impulses of insatiate
- yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John Rivers-
- pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was- had not yet found that
- peace of God which passeth all understanding; he had no more found it,
- I thought, than had I with my concealed and racking regrets for my
- broken idol and lost elysium- regrets to which I have latterly avoided
- referring, but which possessed me and tyrannised over me ruthlessly.
-
- Meantime a month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor
- House, and return to the far different life and scene which awaited
- them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England city,
- where each held a situation in families by whose wealthy and haughty
- members they were regarded only as humble dependants, and who
- neither knew nor sought out their innate excellences, and
- appreciated only their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated
- the skill of their cook or the taste of their waiting-woman. Mr. St.
- John had said nothing to me yet about the employment he had promised
- to obtain for me; yet it became urgent that I should have a vocation
- of some kind. One morning, being left alone with him a few minutes
- in the parlour, I ventured to approach the window-recess- which his
- table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of study- and I was going
- to speak, though not very well knowing in what words to frame my
- inquiry- for it is at all times difficult to break the ice of
- reserve glassing over such natures as his- when he saved me the
- trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue.
-
- Looking up as I drew near- 'You have a question to ask of me?' he
- said.
-
- 'Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can
- offer myself to undertake?'
-
- 'I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you
- seemed both useful and happy here- as my sisters had evidently
- become attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure- I
- deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their
- approaching departure from Marsh End should render yours necessary.'
-
- 'And they will go in three days now?' I said.
-
- 'Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at
- Morton: Hannah will accompany me; and this old house will be shut up.'
-
- I waited a few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject
- first broached: but he seemed to have entered another train of
- reflection: his look denoted abstraction from me and my business. I
- was obliged to recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of
- close and anxious interest to me.
-
- 'What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers? I hope this
- delay will not have increased the difficulty of securing it.'
-
- 'Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to
- give, and you to accept.'
-
- He again paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue. I grew
- impatient: a restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting
- glance fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as
- effectually as words could have done, and with less trouble.
-
- 'You need be in no hurry to hear,' he said: 'let me frankly tell
- you, I have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest. Before I
- explain, recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I
- helped you, it must be as the blind man would help the lame. I am
- poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father's debts, all the
- patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of
- scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil, with the yew-trees
- and holly-bushes in front. I am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of
- the three sole descendants of the race, two earn the dependant's crust
- among strangers, and the third considers himself an alien from his
- native country- not only for life, but in death. Yes, and deems, and
- is bound to deem, himself honoured by the lot, and aspires but after
- the day when the cross of separation from fleshly ties shall be laid
- on his shoulders, and when the Head of that church-militant of whose
- humblest members he is one, shall give the word, "Rise, follow Me!"'
-
- St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a
- quiet, deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating radiance
- of glance. He resumed-
-
- 'And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a
- service of poverty and obscurity. You may even think it degrading- for
- I see now your habits have been what the world calls refined: your
- tastes lean to the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst
- the educated; but I consider that no service degrades which can better
- our race. I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the
- Christian labourer's task of tillage is appointed him- the scantier
- the meed his toil brings- the higher the honour. His, under such
- circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers
- of the Gospel were the Apostles- their captain was Jesus, the
- Redeemer, Himself.'
-
- 'Well?' I said, as he again paused- 'proceed.'
-
- He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to
- read my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a
- page. The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially
- expressed in his succeeding observations.
-
- 'I believe you will accept the post I offer you,' said he, 'and
- hold it for a while: not permanently, though: any more than I could
- permanently keep the narrow and narrowing- the tranquil, hidden office
- of English country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as
- detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a different kind.'
-
- 'Do explain,' I urged, when he halted once more.
-
- 'I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,- how trivial-
- how cramping. I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is
- dead, and that I am my own master. I shall leave the place probably in
- the course of a twelvemonth; but while I do stay, I will exert
- myself to the utmost for its improvement. Morton, when I came to it
- two years ago, had no school: the children of the poor were excluded
- from every hope of progress. I established one for boys: I mean now to
- open a second school for girls. I have hired a building for the
- purpose, with a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress's
- house. Her salary will be thirty pounds a year: her house is already
- furnished, very simply, but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady,
- Miss Oliver; the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parish-
- Mr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needle-factory and iron-foundry in the
- valley. The same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan
- from the workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in
- such menial offices connected with her own house and the school as her
- occupation of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in
- person. Will you be this mistress?'
-
- He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an
- indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer: not
- knowing all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could
- not tell in what light the lot would appear to me. In truth it was
- humble- but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it
- was plodding- but then, compared with that of a governess in a rich
- house, it was independent; and the fear of servitude with strangers
- entered my soul like iron: it was not ignoble- not unworthy- not
- mentally degrading. I made my decision.
-
- 'I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers, and I accept it with all
- my heart.'
-
- 'But you comprehend me?' he said. 'It is a village school: your
- scholars will be only poor girls- cottagers' children- at the best,
- farmers' daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering,
- will be all you will have to teach. What will you do with your
- accomplishments? What, with the largest portion of your mind-
- sentiments- tastes?'
-
- 'Save them till they are wanted. They will keep.'
-
- 'You know what you undertake, then?'
-
- 'I do.'
-
- He now smiled: and not a bitter or a sad smile, but one well
- pleased and deeply gratified.
-
- 'And when will you commence the exercise of your function?'
-
- 'I will go to my house to-morrow, and open the school, if you like,
- next week.'
-
- 'Very well: so be it.'
-
- He rose and walked through the room. Standing still, he again
- looked at me. He shook his head.
-
- 'What do you disapprove of, Mr. Rivers?' I asked.
-
- 'You will not stay at Morton long: no, no!'
-
- 'Why? What is your reason for saying so?'
-
- 'I read it in your eye; it is not of that description which
- promises the maintenance of an even tenor in life.'
-
- 'I am not ambitious.'
-
- He started at the word 'ambitious.' He repeated, 'No. What made you
- think of ambition? Who is ambitious? I know I am: but how did you find
- it out?'
-
- 'I was speaking of myself.'
-
- 'Well, if you are not ambitious, you are-' He paused.
-
- 'What?'
-
- 'I was going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have
- misunderstood the word, and been displeased. I mean, that human
- affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I am
- sure you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude,
- and to devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of
- stimulus: any more than I can be content,' he added, with emphasis,
- 'to live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains- my nature,
- that God gave me, contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed,
- paralysed- made useless. You hear now how I contradict myself. I,
- who preached contentment with a humble lot, and justified the vocation
- even of hewers of wood and drawers of water in God's service- I, His
- ordained minister, almost rave in my restlessness. Well,
- propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means.'
-
- He left the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him
- than in the whole previous month: yet still he puzzled me.
-
- Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day
- approached for leaving their brother and their home. They both tried
- to appear as usual; but the sorrow they had to struggle against was
- one that could not be entirely conquered or concealed. Diana intimated
- that this would be a different parting from any they had ever yet
- known. It would probably, as far as St. John was concerned, be a
- parting for years: it might be a parting for life.
-
- 'He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves,' she said:
- 'natural affection and feelings more potent still. St. John looks
- quiet, Jane; but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would think him
- gentle, yet in some things he is inexorable as death; and the worst of
- it is, my conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his
- severe decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment blame him for it. It
- is right, noble, Christian: yet it breaks my heart!' And the tears
- gushed to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head low over her work.
-
- 'We are now without father: we shall soon be without home and
- brother,' she murmured.
-
- At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed
- by fate purposely to prove the truth of the adage, that 'misfortunes
- never come singly,' and to add to their distresses the vexing one of
- the slip between the cup and the lip. St. John passed the window
- reading a letter. He entered.
-
- 'Our uncle John is dead,' said he.
-
- Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the
- tidings appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting.
-
- 'Dead?' repeated Diana.
-
- 'Yes.'
-
- She riveted a searching gaze on her brother's face. 'And what
- then?' she demanded, in a low voice.
-
- 'What then, Die?' he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of
- feature. 'What then? Why- nothing. Read.'
-
- He threw the letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed
- it to Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her
- brother. All three looked at each other, and all three smiled- a
- dreary, pensive smile enough.
-
- 'Amen! We can yet live,' said Diana at last.
-
- 'At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before,'
- remarked Mary.
-
- 'Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what
- might have been; said Mr. Rivers, 'and contrasts it somewhat too
- vividly with what is.'
-
- He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and again went out.
-
- For some minutes no one spoke. Diana then turned to me.
-
- 'Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries,' she said, 'and
- think us hard-hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so
- near a relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known
- him. He was my mother's brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago.
- It was by his advice that my father risked most of his property in the
- speculation that ruined him. Mutual recrimination passed between them:
- they parted in anger, and were never reconciled. My uncle engaged
- afterwards in more prosperous undertakings: it appears he realised a
- fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He was never married, and had no
- near kindred but ourselves and one other person, not more closely
- related than we. My father always cherished the idea that he would
- atone for his error by leaving his possessions to us; that letter
- informs us that he has bequeathed every penny to the other relation,
- with the exception of thirty guineas, to be divided between St.
- John, Diana, and Mary Rivers, for the purchase of three mourning
- rings. He had a right, of course, to do as he pleased: and yet a
- momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the receipt of such news.
- Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with a thousand pounds
- each; and to St. John such a sum would have been valuable, for the
- good it would have enabled him to do.'
-
- This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further
- reference made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The next day
- I left Marsh End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted
- the parsonage: and so the old grange was abandoned.
-
- CHAPTER XXXI
-
-
- MY home, then,- when I at last find a home,- is a cottage; a little
- room with whitewashed walls and a sanded floor, containing four
- painted chairs and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three
- plates and dishes, and a set of tea-things in delf. Above, a chamber
- of the same dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead and
- chest of drawers; small, yet too large to be filled with my scanty
- wardrobe: though the kindness of my gentle and generous friends has
- increased that, by a modest stock of such things as are necessary.
-
- It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the
- little orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the
- hearth. This morning, the village school opened. I had twenty
- scholars. But three of the number can read: none write or cipher.
- Several knit, and a few sew a little. They speak with the broadest
- accent of the district. At present, they and I have a difficulty in
- understanding each other's language. Some of them are unmannered,
- rough, intractable, as well as ignorant; but others are docile, have a
- wish to learn, and evince a disposition that pleases me. I must not
- forget that these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood
- as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of
- native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as
- likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best-born. My
- duty will be to develop these germs: surely I shall find some
- happiness in discharging that office. Much enjoyment I do not expect
- in the life opening before me: yet it will, doubtless, if I regulate
- my mind, and exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live on
- from day to day.
-
- Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed
- in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to
- deceive myself, I must reply- No: I felt desolate to a degree. I felt-
- yes, idiot that I am- I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step
- which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I
- was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of
- all I heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself
- too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong- that is a
- great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I
- trust, I shall get the better of them partially; and in a few weeks,
- perhaps, they will be quite subdued. In a few months, it is
- possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the
- better in my scholars may substitute gratification for disgust.
-
- Meantime, let me ask myself one question- Which is better?- To have
- surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful
- effort- no struggle;- but to have sunk down in the silken snare;
- fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime,
- amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in
- France, Mr. Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my
- time- for he would- oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a
- while. He did love me- no one will ever love me so again. I shall
- never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace-
- for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was
- fond and proud of me- it is what no man besides will ever be.- But
- where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling?
- Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at
- Marseilles- fevered with delusive bliss one hour- suffocating with the
- bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next- or to be a
- village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook
- in the healthy heart of England?
-
- Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and
- law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied
- moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence
- for the guidance!
-
- Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to
- my door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet
- fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a
- mile from the village. The birds were singing their last strains-
-
-
- 'The air was mild, the dew was balm.'
-
- While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find
- myself ere long weeping- and why? For the doom which had reft me
- from adhesion to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the
- desperate grief and fatal fury- consequences of my departure- which
- might now, perhaps, be dragging him from the path of right, too far to
- leave hope of ultimate restoration thither. At this thought, I
- turned my face aside from the lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of
- Morton- I say lonely, for in that bend of it visible to me there was
- no building apparent save the church and the parsonage, half-hid in
- trees, and, quite at the extremity, the roof of Vale Hall, where the
- rich Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived. I hid my eyes, and leant my
- head against the stone frame of my door; but soon a slight noise
- near the wicket which shut in my tiny garden from the meadow beyond it
- made me look up. A dog- old Carlo, Mr. Rivers' pointer, as I saw in
- a moment- was pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John himself
- leant upon it with folded arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave
- almost to displeasure, fixed on me. I asked him to come in.
-
- 'No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel My
- sisters left for you. I think it contains a colour-box, pencils, and
- paper.'
-
- I approached to take it: a welcome gift it was. He examined my
- face, I thought, with austerity, as I came near: the traces of tears
- were doubtless very visible upon it.
-
- 'Have you found your first day's work harder than you expected?' he
- asked.
-
- 'Oh, no! On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my
- scholars very well.'
-
- 'But perhaps your accommodations- your cottage- your furniture-
- have disappointed your expectations? They are, in truth, scanty
- enough; but-' I interrupted-
-
- 'My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and
- commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not
- absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a
- carpet, a sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had
- nothing- I was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have
- acquaintance, a home, a business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the
- generosity of my friends; the bounty of my lot. I do not repine.'
-
- 'But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind
- you is dark and empty.'
-
- 'I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity,
- much less to grow impatient under one of loneliness.'
-
- 'Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate,
- your good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to
- the vacillating fears of Lot's wife. What you had left before I saw
- you, of course I do not know; but I counsel you to resist firmly every
- temptation which would incline you to look back: pursue your present
- career steadily, for some months at least.'
-
- 'It is what I mean to do,' I answered. St. John continued-
-
- 'It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn
- the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience.
- God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and
- when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get- when
- our will strains after a path we may not follow- we need neither
- starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek
- another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it
- longed to taste- and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous
- foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up
- against us, if rougher than it.
-
- 'A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I
- had made a mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties
- wearied me to death. I burnt for the more active life of the world-
- for the more exciting toils of a literary career- for the destiny of
- an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes,
- the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover
- of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice. I
- considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must
- die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief
- fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without
- bounds- my powers heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their
- full strength, spread their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an
- errand for me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and
- strength, courage and eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier,
- statesman, and orator, were all needed: for these all centre in the
- good missionary.
-
- 'A missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind
- changed; the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving
- nothing of bondage but its galling soreness- which time only can heal.
- My father, indeed, opposed the determination, but since his death, I
- have not a legitimate obstacle to contend with; some affairs
- settled, a successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of
- the feelings broken through or cut asunder- a last conflict with human
- weakness, in which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed
- that I will overcome- and I leave Europe for the East.'
-
- He said this, in his peculiar, subdued, yet emphatic voice;
- looking, when he had ceased speaking, not at me, but at the setting
- sun, at which I looked too. Both he and I had our backs towards the
- path leading up the field to the wicket. We had heard no step on the
- grass-grown track; the water running in the vale was the one lulling
- sound of the hour and scene; we might well then start when a gay
- voice, sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed-
-
- 'Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is
- quicker to recognise his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his
- ears and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and
- you have your back towards me now.'
-
- It was true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those
- musical accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his
- head, he stood yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude
- in which the speaker had surprised him- his arm resting on the gate,
- his face directed towards the west. He turned at last, with measured
- deliberation. A vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side.
- There appeared, within three feet of him, a form clad in pure
- white-a youthful, graceful form: full, yet fine in contour; and
- when, after bending to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and
- threw back a long veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of
- perfect beauty. Perfect beauty is a strong expression; but I do not
- retrace or qualify it: as sweet features as ever the temperate clime
- of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as ever her humid
- gales and vapoury skies generated and screened, justified, in this
- instance, the term. No charm was wanting, no defect was perceptible;
- the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and
- coloured as we see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark, and full;
- the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so soft a
- fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the
- white smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties
- of tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh
- too, ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth
- without flaw; the small dimpled chin; the ornament of rich,
- plenteous tresses- all advantages, in short, which, combined,
- realise the ideal of beauty, were fully hers. I wondered, as I
- looked at this fair creature: I admired her with my whole heart.
- Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood; and, forgetting her
- usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her
- darling, with a grand-dame's bounty.
-
- What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally
- asked myself that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her;
- and, as naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in his
- countenance. He had already withdrawn his eye from the Peri, and was
- looking at a humble tuft of daisies which grew by the wicket.
-
- 'A lovely evening, but late for you to be out alone,' he said, as
- he crushed the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot.
- town some twenty miles distant) 'this afternoon. Papa told me you
- had opened your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I
- put on my bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her: this
- is she?' pointing to me.
-
- 'It is,' said St. John.
-
- 'Do you think you shall like Morton?' she asked of me, with a
- direct and naive simplicity of tone and manner, pleasing, if
- child-like.
-
- 'I hope I shall. I have many inducements to do so.'
-
- 'Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected?'
-
- 'Quite.'
-
- 'Do you like your house?'
-
- 'Very much.'
-
- 'Have I furnished it nicely?'
-
- 'Very nicely, indeed.'
-
- 'And made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood?'
-
- 'You have indeed. She is teachable and handy.' (This then, I
- thought, is Miss Oliver, the heiress; favoured, it seems, in the gifts
- of fortune, as well as in those of nature! What happy combination of
- the planets presided over her birth, I wonder?)
-
- 'I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes,' she added. 'It
- will be a change for me to visit you now and then; and I like a
- night, or rather this morning, I was dancing till two o'clock. The
- are the most agreeable men in the world: they put all our young
- knife-grinders and scissor merchants to shame.'
-
- It seemed to me that Mr. St. John's under lip protruded, and his
- upper lip curled a moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal
- compressed, and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square,
- as the laughing girl gave him this information. He lifted his gaze,
- too, from the daisies, and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a
- searching, a meaning gaze it was. She answered it with a second laugh,
- and laughter well became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright
- eyes.
-
- As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo.
- 'Poor Carlo loves me,' said she. 'He is not stern and distant to his
- friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent.'
-
- As she patted the dog's head, bending with native grace before
- his young and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master's face.
- I saw his solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with
- resistless emotion. Flushed and kindled thus, he looked nearly as
- beautiful for a man as she for a woman. His chest heaved once, as if
- his large heart, weary of despotic constriction, had expanded, despite
- the will, and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty. But
- he curbed it, I think, as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed.
- He responded neither by word nor movement to the gentle advances
- made him.
-
- 'Papa says you never come to see us now,' continued Mis Oliver,
- looking up. 'You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall. He is alone this
- evening, and not very well: will you return with me and visit him?'
-
- 'It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver,' answered
- St. John.
-
- 'Not a seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour
- when papa most wants company: when the works are closed and he has
- no business to occupy him. Now, Mr. Rivers, do come. Why are you so
- very shy, and so very sombre?' She filled up the hiatus his silence
- left by a reply of her own.
-
- 'I forgot!' she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if
- shocked at herself. 'I am so giddy and thoughtless! Do excuse me. It
- had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed
- for joining in my chatter. Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor
- House is shut up, and you are so lonely. I am sure I pity you. Do come
- and see papa.'
-
- 'Not to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night.'
-
- Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew
- the effort it cost him thus to refuse.
-
- 'Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not
- stay any longer: the dew begins to fall. Good evening!'
-
- She held out her hand. He just touched it. 'Good evening!' he
- repeated, in a voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned, but in a
- moment returned.
-
- 'Are you well?' she asked. Well might she put the question: his
- face was blanched as her gown.
-
- 'Quite well,' he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She
- went one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she
- tripped fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across,
- never turned at all.
-
- This spectacle of another's suffering and sacrifice rapt my
- thoughts from exclusive meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had
- designated her brother 'inexorable as death.' She had not exaggerated.
-
- CHAPTER XXXII
-
-
- I CONTINUED the labours of the village-school as actively and
- faithfully as I could. It was truly hard work at first. Some time
- elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars
- and their nature. Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they
- seemed to me hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike: but
- I soon found I was mistaken. There was a difference amongst them as
- amongst the educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this
- difference rapidly developed itself. Their amazement at me, my
- language, my rules, and ways, once subsided, I found some of these
- heavy-looking, gaping rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls
- enough. Many showed themselves obliging, and amiable too; and I
- discovered amongst them not a few examples of natural politeness,
- and innate self-respect, as well as of excellent capacity, that won
- both my good-will and my admiration. These soon took a pleasure in
- doing their work well, in keeping their persons neat, in learning
- their tasks regularly, in acquiring quiet and orderly manners. The
- rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even surprising;
- and an honest and happy pride I took in it: besides, I began
- personally to like some of the best girls; and they liked me. I had
- amongst my scholars several farmers' daughters: young women grown,
- almost. These could already read, write, and sew; and to them I taught
- the elements of grammar, geography, history, and the finer kinds of
- needlework. I found estimable characters amongst them- characters
- desirous of information and disposed for improvement- with whom I
- passed many a pleasant evening hour in their own homes. Their
- parents then (the farmer and his wife) loaded me with attentions.
- There was an enjoyment in accepting their simple kindness, and in
- repaying it by a consideration- a scrupulous regard to their feelings-
- to which they were not, perhaps, at all times accustomed, and which
- both charmed and benefited them; because, while it elevated them in
- their own eyes, it made them emulous to merit the deferential
- treatment they received.
-
- I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went
- out, I heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with
- friendly smiles. To live amidst general regard, though it be but the
- regard of working people, is like 'sitting in sunshine, calm and
- sweet'; serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At this
- period of my life, my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than
- sank with dejection: and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of
- this calm, this useful existence- after a day passed in honourable
- exertion amongst my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading
- contentedly alone- I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams
- many-coloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the
- stormy- dreams where, amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure,
- with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again and again met
- Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of
- being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his
- hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him- the hope of passing
- a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and
- fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how situated.
- Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and
- then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and
- heard the burst of passion. By nine o'clock the next morning I was
- punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the
- steady duties of the day.
-
- Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call at
- the school was generally made in the course of her morning ride. She
- would canter up to the door on her pony, followed by a mounted
- livery servant. Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her
- purple habit, with her Amazon's cap of black velvet placed
- gracefully above the long curls that kissed her cheek and floated to
- her shoulders, can scarcely be imagined: and it was thus she would
- enter the rustic building, and glide through the dazzled ranks of
- the village children. She generally came at the hour when Mr. Rivers
- was engaged in giving his daily catechising lesson. Keenly, I fear,
- did the eye of the visitress pierce the young pastor's heart. A sort
- of instinct seemed to warn him of her entrance, even when he did not
- see it; and when he was looking quite away from the door, if she
- appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marble-seeming features,
- though they refused to relax, changed indescribably, and in their very
- quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervour, stronger than
- working muscle or darting glance could indicate.
-
- Of course, she knew her power: indeed, he did not, because he could
- not, conceal it from her. In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she
- went up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even
- fondly in his face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn. He seemed
- to say, with his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it with
- his lips, 'I love you, and I know you prefer me. It is not despair
- of success that keeps me dumb. If I offered my heart, I believe you
- would accept it. But that heart is already laid on a sacred altar: the
- fire is arranged round it. It will soon be no more than a sacrifice
- consumed.'
-
- And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive
- cloud would soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand
- hastily from his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect,
- at once so heroic and so martyr-like. St. John, no doubt, would have
- given the world to follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him;
- but he would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the
- elysium of her love, one hope of the true, eternal Paradise.
- Besides, he could not bind all that he had in his nature- the rover,
- the aspirant, the poet, the priest- in the limits of a single passion.
- He could not- he would not- renounce his wild field of mission warfare
- for the parlours and the peace of Vale Hall. I learnt so much from
- himself in an inroad I once, despite his reserve, had the daring to
- make on his confidence.
-
- Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage.
- I had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or
- disguise: she was coquettish, but not heartless; exacting, but not
- worthlessly selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was not
- absolutely spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured; vain (she could
- not help it, when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of
- loveliness), but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of the pride
- of wealth; ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively, and
- unthinking: she was very charming, in short, even to a cool observer
- of her own sex like me; but she was not profoundly interesting or
- thoroughly impressive. A very different sort of mind was hers from
- that, for instance, of the sisters of St. John. Still, I liked her
- almost as I liked my pupil Adele; except that, for a child whom we
- have watched over and taught, a closer affection is engendered than we
- can give an equally attractive adult acquaintance.
-
- She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr.
- Rivers, only, certainly, she allowed, 'not one-tenth so handsome,
- though I was a nice neat little soul enough, but he was an angel.' I
- was, however, good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was a
- lusus naturae, she affirmed, as a village schoolmistress: she was sure
- my previous history, if known, would make a delightful romance.
-
- One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and
- thoughtless yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the
- cupboard and the table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered
- first two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and
- dictionary, and then my drawing-materials and some sketches, including
- a pencil-head of a pretty little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars,
- and sundry views from nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the
- surrounding moors. She was first transfixed with surprise, and then
- electrified with delight.
-
- 'Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a
- love- what a miracle I was! I drew better than her master in the first
-
- 'With pleasure,' I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight
- at the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had
- then on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her
- only ornament was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders
- with all the wild grace of natural curls. I took a sheet of fine
- card-board, and drew a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure
- of colouring it; and, as it was getting late then, I told her she must
- come and sit another day.
-
- She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself
- accompanied her next evening- a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged,
- and grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a
- bright flower near a hoary turret. He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps
- a proud personage; but he was very kind to me. The sketch of
- Rosamond's portrait pleased him highly: he said I must make a finished
- picture of it. He insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend
- the evening at Vale Hall.
-
- I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant
- evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee and
- pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable; and when he
- entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong
- terms his approbation of what I had done in Morton school, and said he
- only feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place,
- and would soon quit it for one more suitable.
-
- 'Indeed,' cried Rosamond, 'she is clever enough to be a governess
- in a high family, papa.'
-
- I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high
- family in the land. Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers- of the Rivers
- family- with great respect. He said it was a very old name in that
- neighbourhood; that the ancestors of the house were wealthy; that
- all Morton had once belonged to them; that even now he considered
- the representative of that house might, if he liked, make an
- alliance with the best. He accounted it a pity that so fine and
- talented a young man should have formed the design of going out as a
- missionary; it was quite throwing a valuable life away. It appeared,
- then, that her father would throw no obstacle in the way of Rosamond's
- union with St. John. Mr. Oliver evidently regarded the young
- clergyman's good birth, old name, and sacred profession as
- sufficient compensation for the want of fortune.
-
- It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after
- helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of
- a penny for her aid. All about me was spotless and bright- scoured
- floor, polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs. I had also made
- myself neat, and had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would.
-
- The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I
- got my palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because
- easier occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver's miniature. The head
- was finished already: there was but the background to tint and the
- drapery to shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe
- lips- a soft curl here and there to the tresses- a deeper tinge to the
- shadow of the lash under the azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the
- execution of these nice details, when, after one rapid tap, my door
- unclosed, admitting St. John Rivers.
-
- 'I am come to see how you are spending your holiday,' he said.
- 'Not, I hope, in thought? No, that is well: while you draw you will
- not feel lonely. You see, I mistrust you still, though you have
- borne up wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening
- solace,' and he laid on the table a new publication- a poem: one of
- those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate
- public of those days- the golden age of modern literature. Alas! the
- readers of our era are less favoured. But courage! I will not pause
- either to accuse or repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius
- lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay: they
- will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and
- strength again one day. Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile
- when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their
- destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do
- not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but
- reign and redeem: and without their divine influence spread
- everywhere, you would be in hell- the hell of your own meanness.
-
- While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of Marmion (for
- Marmion it was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall
- figure sprang erect again with a start: he said nothing. I looked up
- at him: he shunned my eye. I knew his thoughts well, and could read
- his heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler than he: I
- had then temporarily the advantage of him, and I conceived an
- inclination to do him some good, if I could.
-
- 'With all his firmness and self-control,' thought I, 'he tasks
- himself too far: locks every feeling and pang within- expresses,
- confesses, imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk a
- little about this sweet Rosamond, whom he thinks he ought not to
- marry: I will make him talk.'
-
- I said first, 'Take a chair, Mr. Rivers.' But he answered, as he
- always did, that he could not stay. 'Very well,' I responded,
- mentally, 'stand if you like; but you shall not go just yet, I am
- determined: solitude is at least as bad for you as it is for me.
- I'll try if I cannot discover the secret spring of your confidence,
- and find an aperture in that marble breast through which I can shed
- one drop of the balm of sympathy.'
-
- 'Is this portrait like?' I asked bluntly.
-
- 'Like! Like whom? I did not observe it closely.'
-
- 'You did, Mr. Rivers.'
-
- He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness: he looked at
- me astonished. 'Oh, that is nothing yet,' I muttered within. 'I
- don't mean to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I'm
- prepared to go to considerable lengths.' I continued, 'You observed it
- closely and distinctly; but I have no objection to your looking at
- it again,' and I rose and placed it in his hand.
-
- 'A well-executed picture,' he said; 'very soft, clear colouring;
- very graceful and correct drawing.'
-
- 'Yes, yes; I know all that. But what of the resemblance? Who is
- it like?'
-
- Mastering some hesitation, he answered, 'Miss Oliver, I presume.'
-
- 'Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I
- will promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this
- very picture, provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable
- to you. I don't wish to throw away my time and trouble on an
- offering you would deem worthless.'
-
- He continued to gaze at the picture: the longer he looked, the
- firmer he held it, the more he seemed to covet it. 'It is like!' he
- murmured; 'the eye is well managed: the colour, light, expression, are
- perfect. It smiles!'
-
- 'Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar
- painting? Tell me that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or
- in India, would it be a consolation to have that memento in your
- possession? or would the sight of it bring recollections calculated to
- enervate and distress?'
-
- He now furtively raised his eyes: he glanced at me, irresolute,
- disturbed: he again surveyed the picture.
-
- 'That I should like to have it is certain: whether it would be
- judicious or wise is another question.'
-
- Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and
- that her father was not likely to oppose the match, I- less exalted in
- my views than St. John- had been strongly disposed in my own heart
- to advocate their union. It seemed to me that, should he become the
- possessor of Mr. Oliver's large fortune, he might do as much good with
- it as if he went and laid his genius out to wither, and his strength
- to waste, under a tropical sun. With this persuasion I now answered-
-
- 'As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you
- were to take to yourself the original at once.'
-
- By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the
- table before him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung
- fondly over it. I discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my
- audacity. I saw even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he
- had deemed unapproachable- to hear it thus freely handled- was
- beginning to be felt by him as a new pleasure- an unhoped-for
- relief. Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of
- their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The
- sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and to 'burst' with
- boldness and good-will into 'the silent sea' of their souls is often
- to confer on them the first of obligations.
-
- 'She likes you, I am sure,' said I, as I stood behind his chair,
- 'and her father respects you. Moreover, she is a sweet girl- rather
- thoughtless; but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself
- and her. You ought to marry her.'
-
- 'Does she like me?' he asked.
-
- 'Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you
- continually: there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so
- often.'
-
- 'It is very pleasant to hear this,' he said- 'very: go on for
- another quarter of an hour.' And he actually took out his watch and
- laid it upon the table to measure the time.
-
- 'But where is the use of going on,' I asked, 'when you are probably
- preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to
- fetter your heart?'
-
- 'Don't imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting,
- as I am doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in
- my mind and overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have
- so carefully and with such labour prepared- so assiduously sown with
- the seeds of good intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is
- deluged with a nectarous flood- the young germs swamped- delicious
- poison cankering them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the
- drawing-room at Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver's feet: she is
- talking to me with her sweet voice- gazing down on me with those
- eyes your skilful hand has copied so well- smiling at me with these
- coral lips. She is mine- I am hers- this present life and passing
- world suffice to me. Hush! say nothing- my heart is full of delight-
- my senses are entranced- let the time I marked pass in peace.'
-
- I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I
- stood silent. Amidst this hush the quarter sped; he replaced the
- watch, laid the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth.
-
- 'Now,' said he, 'that little space was given to delirium and
- delusion. I rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put
- my neck voluntarily under her yoke of flowers; I tasted her cup. The
- pillow was burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a
- bitter taste: her promises are hollow- her offers false: I see and
- know all this.'
-
- I gazed at him in wonder.
-
- 'It is strange,' pursued he, 'that while I love Rosamond Oliver
- so wildly- with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the
- object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, and fascinating- I
- experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she
- would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to
- me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage; and that
- to twelve months' rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I
- know.'
-
- 'Strange indeed!' I could not help ejaculating.
-
- 'While something in me,' he went on, 'is acutely sensible to her
- charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they
- are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to- co-operate
- in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female
- apostle? Rosamond a missionary's wife? No!'
-
- 'But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that
- scheme.'
-
- 'Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid
- on earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the
- band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering
- their race- of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance- of
- substituting peace for war- freedom for bondage- religion for
- superstition- the hope of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I
- relinquish that? It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I
- have to look forward to, and to live for.'
-
- After a considerable pause, I said- 'And Miss Oliver? Are her
- disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?'
-
- 'Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in
- less than a month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will
- forget me; and will marry, probably, some one who will make her far
- happier than I should do.'
-
- 'You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are
- wasting away.'
-
- 'No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects,
- yet unsettled- my departure, continually procrastinated. Only this
- morning, I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I
- have been so long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three
- months to come yet; and perhaps the three months may extend to six.'
-
- 'You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the
- schoolroom.'
-
- Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not
- imagined that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I
- felt at home in this sort of discourse. I could never rest in
- communication with strong, discreet, and refined minds, whether male
- or female, till I had passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and
- crossed the threshold of confidence, and won a place by their
- heart's very hearthstone.
-
- 'You are original,' said he, 'and not timid. There is something
- brave in your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me
- to assure you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think
- them more profound and potent than they are. You give me a larger
- allowance of sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I colour,
- and when I shake before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the
- weakness. I know it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I
- declare, the convulsion of the soul. That is just as fixed as a
- rock, firm set in the depths of a restless sea. Know me to be what I
- am- a cold, hard man.'
-
- I smiled incredulously.
-
- 'You have taken my confidence by storm,' he continued, 'and now
- it is much at your service. I am simply, in my original state-
- stripped of that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers
- human deformity- a cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection
- only, of all the sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason,
- and not feeling, is my guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to
- rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable. I honour endurance,
- perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which
- men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence. I watch your
- career with interest, because I consider you a specimen of a diligent,
- orderly, energetic woman: not because I deeply compassionate what
- you have gone through, or what you still suffer.'
-
- 'You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher,' I said.
-
- 'No. There is this difference between me and deistic
- philosophers: I believe; and I believe the Gospel. You missed your
- epithet. I am not a pagan, but a Christian philosopher- a follower
- of the sect of Jesus. As His disciple I adopt His pure, His
- merciful, His benignant doctrines. I advocate them: I am sworn to
- spread them. Won in youth to religion, she has cultivated my
- original qualities thus:- From the minute germ, natural affection, she
- has developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy. From the wild
- stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared a due sense of the
- Divine justice. Of the ambition to win power and renown for my
- wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread my Master's
- kingdom; to achieve victories for the standard of the cross. So much
- has religion done for me; turning the original materials to the best
- account; pruning and training nature. But she could not eradicate
- nature: nor will it be eradicated "till this mortal shall put on
- immortality."'
-
- Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my
- palette. Once more he looked at the portrait.
-
- 'She is lovely,' he murmured. 'She is well named the Rose of the
- World, indeed!'
-
- 'And may I not paint one like it for you?'
-
- 'Cui bono? No.'
-
- He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was
- accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the card-board from
- being sullied. What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was
- impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye. He took
- it up with a snatch; he looked at the edge; then shot a glance at
- me, inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible: a glance
- that seemed to take and make note of every point in my shape, face,
- and dress; for it traversed all, quick, keen as lightning. His lips
- parted, as if to speak: but he checked the coming sentence, whatever
- it was.
-
- 'What is the matter?' I asked.
-
- 'Nothing in the world,' was the reply; and, replacing the paper,
- I saw him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It
- disappeared in his glove; and, with one hasty nod and
- 'good-afternoon,' he vanished.
-
- 'Well!' I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, 'that
- caps the globe, however!'
-
- I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save
- a few dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I
- pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and
- being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and soon
- forgot it.
-
- CHAPTER XXXIII
-
-
- WHEN Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling
- storm continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh
- and blinding falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost
- impassable. I had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent
- the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after
- sitting nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled fury
- of the tempest, I lit a candle, took down Marmion, and beginning-
-
-
- 'Day set on Norham's castled steep,
-
- And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
-
- And Cheviot's mountains lone;
-
- The massive towers, the donjon keep,
-
- The flanking walls that round them sweep,
-
- In yellow lustre shone'-
-
- I soon forgot storm in music.
-
- I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was
- St. John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen
- hurricane- the howling darkness- and stood before me: the cloak that
- covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in
- consternation, so little had I expected any guest from the
- blocked-up vale that night.
-
- 'Any ill news?' I demanded. 'Has anything happened?'
-
- 'No. How very easily alarmed you are!' he answered, removing his
- cloak and hanging it up against the door, towards which he again
- coolly pushed the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped
- the snow from his boots.
-
- 'I shall sully the purity of your floor,' said he, 'but you must
- excuse me for once.' Then he approached the fire. 'I have had hard
- work to get here, I assure you,' he observed, as he warmed his hands
- over the flame. 'One drift took me up to the waist; happily the snow
- is quite soft yet.'
-
- 'But why are you come?' I could not forbear saying.
-
- 'Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you
- ask it, I answer simply to have a little talk with you; I got tired of
- my mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday I have
- experienced the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been
- half-told, and who is impatient to hear the sequel.'
-
- He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and
- really I began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane,
- however, his was a very cool and collected insanity: I had never
- seen that handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled
- marble than it did just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from
- his forehead and let the firelight shine free on his pale brow and
- cheek as pale, where it grieved me to discover the hollow trace of
- care or sorrow now so plainly graved. I waited, expecting he would say
- something I could at least comprehend; but his hand was now at his
- chin, his finger on his lip: he was thinking. It struck me that his
- hand looked wasted like his face. A perhaps uncalled-for gush of
- pity came over my heart: I was moved to say-
-
- 'I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you: it is too bad
- that you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about your
- own health.'
-
- 'Not at all,' said he: 'I care for myself when necessary. I am well
- now. What do you see amiss in me?'
-
- This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which
- showed that my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly
- superfluous. I was silenced.
-
- He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still
- his eye dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate; thinking it urgent to say
- something, I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from
- the door, which was behind him.
-
- 'No, no!' he responded shortly and somewhat testily.
-
- 'Well,' I reflected, 'if you won't talk, you may be still; I'll let
- you alone now, and return to my book.'
-
- So I snuffed the candle and resumed the perusal of Marmion. He soon
- stirred; my eye was instantly drawn to his movements; he only took out
- a morocco pocket-book, thence produced a letter, which he read in
- silence, folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation. It was vain
- to try to read with such an inscrutable fixture before me; nor could
- I, in my impatience, consent to be dumb; he might rebuff me if he
- liked, but talk I would.
-
- 'Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?'
-
- 'Not since the letter I showed you a week ago.'
-
- 'There has not been any change made about your own arrangements?
- You will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected?'
-
- 'I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me.' Baffled
- so far, I changed my ground. I bethought myself to talk about the
- school and my scholars.
-
- 'Mary Garrett's mother is better, and Mary came back to the
- school this morning, and I shall have four new girls next week from
- the Foundry Close- they would have come to-day but for the snow.'
-
- 'Indeed!'
-
- 'Mr. Oliver pays for two.'
-
- 'Does he?'
-
- 'He means to give the whole school a treat at Christmas.'
-
- 'I know.'
-
- 'Was it your suggestion?'
-
- 'No.'
-
- 'Whose, then?'
-
- 'His daughter's, I think.'
-
- 'It is like her: she is so good-natured.'
-
- 'Yes.'
-
- Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes. It
- aroused him; he uncrossed his legs, sat erect, turned to me.
-
- 'Leave your book a moment, and come a little nearer the fire,' he
- said.
-
- Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end, I complied.
-
- 'Half an hour ago,' he pursued, 'I spoke of my impatience to hear
- the sequel of a tale: on reflection, I find the matter will be
- better managed by my assuming the narrator's part, and converting
- you into a listener. Before commencing, it is but fair to warn you
- that the story will sound somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but stale
- details often regain a degree of freshness when they pass through
- new lips. For the rest, whether trite or novel, it is short.
-
- 'Twenty years ago, a poor curate- never mind his name at this
- moment- fell in love with a rich man's daughter; she fell in love with
- him, and married him, against the advice of all her friends, who
- consequently disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before two
- years passed, the rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by
- side under one slab. (I have seen their grave; it formed part of the
- pavement of a huge churchyard surrounding the grim, soot-black old
- daughter, which, at its very birth, Charity received in her lap-
- cold as that of the snow-drift I almost stuck fast in to-night.
- Charity carried the friendless thing to the house of its rich maternal
- relations; it was reared by an aunt-in-law, called (I come to names
- now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead. You start- did you hear a noise? I
- daresay it is only a rat scrambling along the rafters of the adjoining
- schoolroom: it was a barn before I had it repaired and altered, and
- barns are generally haunted by rats.- To proceed. Mrs. Reed kept the
- orphan ten years: whether it was happy or not with her, I cannot
- say, never having been told; but at the end of that time she
- transferred it to a place you know- being no other than Lowood School,
- where you so long resided yourself. It seems her career there was very
- honourable: from a pupil, she became a teacher, like yourself-
- really it strikes me there are parallel points in her history and
- yours- she left it to be a governess: there, again, your fates were
- analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr.
- Rochester.'
-
- 'Mr. Rivers!' I interrupted.
-
- 'I can guess your feelings,' he said, 'but restrain them for a
- while: I have nearly finished; hear me to the end. Of Mr.
- Rochester's character I know nothing, but the one fact that he
- professed to offer honourable marriage to this young girl, and that at
- the very altar she discovered he had a wife yet alive, though a
- lunatic. What his subsequent conduct and proposals were is a matter of
- pure conjecture; but when an event transpired which rendered inquiry
- after the governess necessary, it was discovered she was gone- no
- one could tell when, where, or how. She had left Thornfield Hall in
- the night; every research after her course had been vain: the
- country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of information could
- be gathered respecting her. Yet that she should be found is become a
- matter of serious urgency: advertisements have been put in all the
- papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr. Briggs, a
- solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted. Is it not
- an odd tale?'
-
- 'Just tell me this,' said I, 'and since you know so much, you
- surely can tell it me- what of Mr. Rochester? How and where is he?
- What is he doing? Is he well?'
-
- 'I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester: the letter never
- mentions him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I
- have adverted to. You should rather ask the name of the governess- the
- nature of the event which requires her appearance.'
-
- 'Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then? Did no one see Mr.
- Rochester?'
-
- 'I suppose not.'
-
- 'But they wrote to him?'
-
- 'Of course.'
-
- 'And what did he say? Who has his letters?'
-
- 'Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not
- from Mr. Rochester, but from a lady: it is signed "Alice Fairfax."'
-
- I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true:
- he had in all probability left England and rushed in reckless
- desperation to some former haunt on the Continent. And what opiate for
- his severe sufferings- what object for his strong passions- had he
- sought there? I dared not answer the question. Oh, my poor master-
- once almost my husband- whom I had often called 'my dear Edward!'
-
- 'He must have been a bad man,' observed Mr. Rivers.
-
- 'You don't know him- don't pronounce an opinion upon him,' I
- said, with warmth.
-
- 'Very well,' he answered quietly: 'and indeed my head is
- otherwise occupied than with him: I have my tale to finish. Since
- you won't ask the governess's name, I must tell it of my own accord.
- Stay! I have it here- it is always more satisfactory to see
- important points written down, fairly committed to black and white.'
-
- And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought
- through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of
- paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of
- ultra-marine, and lake, and vermilion, the ravished margin of the
- portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read,
- traced in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words 'JANE EYRE'-
- the work doubtless of some moment of abstraction.
-
- 'Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:' he said, 'the advertisements
- demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott.- I confess I had my
- suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once
- resolved into certainty. You own the name and renounce the alias?'
-
- 'Yes- yes; but where is Mr. Briggs? He perhaps knows more of Mr.
- Rochester than you do.'
-
- 'Briggs is in London. I should doubt his knowing anything at all
- about Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested.
- Meantime, you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do
- not inquire why Mr. Briggs sought after you- what he wanted with you.'
-
- 'Well, what did he want?'
-
- 'Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is
- dead; that he has left you all his property, and that you are now
- rich- merely that- nothing more.'
-
- 'I!- rich?'
-
- 'Yes, you, rich- quite an heiress.'
-
- Silence succeeded.
-
- 'You must prove your identity of course,' resumed St. John
- presently: 'a step which will offer no difficulties; you can then
- enter on immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English
- funds; Briggs has the will and the necessary documents.'
-
- Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be
- lifted in a moment from indigence to wealth- a very fine thing; but
- not a matter one can comprehend or consequently enjoy, all at once.
- And then there are other chances in life far more thrilling and
- rapture-giving: this is solid, an affair of the actual world,
- nothing ideal about it: all its associations are solid and sober,
- and its manifestations are the same. One does not jump, and spring,
- and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune; one begins to
- consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady
- satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and
- brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.
-
- Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words,
- Death, Funeral. My uncle I had heard was dead- my only relative;
- ever since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope
- of one day seeing him: now, I never should. And then this money came
- only to me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self.
- It was a grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious-
- yes, I felt that- that thought swelled my heart.
-
- 'You unbend your forehead at last,' said Mr. Rivers. 'I thought
- Medusa had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone.
- Perhaps now you will ask how much you are worth?'
-
- 'How much am I worth?'
-
- 'Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak of- twenty thousand
- pounds, I think they say- but what is that?'
-
- 'Twenty thousand pounds?'
-
- Here was a new stunner- I had been calculating on four or five
- thousand. This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr. St.
- John, whom I had never heard laugh before, laughed now.
-
- 'Well,' said he, 'if you had committed a murder, and I had told you
- your crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast.'
-
- 'It is a large sum- don't you think there is a mistake?'
-
- 'No mistake at all.'
-
- 'Perhaps you have read the figures wrong- it may be two thousand!'
-
- 'It is written in letters, not figures,- twenty thousand.'
-
- I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical
- powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions
- for a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose now and put his cloak on.
-
- 'If it were not such a very wild night,' he said, 'I would send
- Hannah down to keep you company: you look too desperately miserable to
- be left alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts
- so well as I: her legs are not quite so long: so I must e'en leave you
- to your sorrows. Good-night.'
-
- He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me.
-
- 'Stop one minute!' I cried.
-
- 'Well?'
-
- 'It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how
- he knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way
- place, had the power to aid in my discovery.'
-
- 'Oh! I am a clergyman,' he said; 'and the clergy are often appealed
- to about odd matters.' Again the latch rattled.
-
- 'No; that does not satisfy me!' I exclaimed: and indeed there was
- something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which, instead of
- allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever.
-
- 'It is a very strange piece of business,' I added; 'I must know
- more about it.'
-
- 'Another time.'
-
- 'No; to-night!- to-night!' and as he turned from the door, I placed
- myself between it and him. He looked rather embarrassed.
-
- 'You certainly shall not go till you have told me all,' I said.
-
- 'I would rather not just now.'
-
- 'You shall!- you must!'
-
- 'I would rather Diana or Mary informed you.'
-
- Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax:
- gratified it must be, and that without delay; and I told him so.
-
- 'But I apprised you that I was a hard man,' said he, 'difficult
- to persuade.'
-
- 'And I am a hard woman,- impossible to put off.'
-
- 'And then,' he pursued, 'I am cold: no fervour infects me.'
-
- 'Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has
- thawed all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has
- streamed on to my floor, and made it like a trampled street. As you
- hope ever to be forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and
- misdemeanour of spoiling a sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to
- know.'
-
- 'Well, then,' he said, 'I yield; if not to your earnestness, to
- your perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides,
- you must know some day,- as well now as later. Your name is Jane
- Eyre?'
-
- 'Of course: that was all settled before.'
-
- 'You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake?- that I was
- christened St. John Eyre Rivers?'
-
- 'No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in
- your initials written in books you have at different times lent me;
- but I never asked for what name it stood. But what then? Surely-'
-
- I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to
- express, the thought that rushed upon me- that embodied itself,- that,
- in a second, stood out a strong, solid probability. Circumstances knit
- themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order: the chain that had
- been lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out
- straight,- every ring was perfect, the connection complete. I knew, by
- instinct, how the matter stood, before St. John had said another word;
- but I cannot expect the reader to have the same intuitive
- perception, so I must repeat his explanation.
-
- 'My mother's name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a
- clergyman, who married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John
- Eyre, Esq., merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira. Mr. Briggs, being
- Mr. Eyre's solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our
- uncle's death, and to say that he had left his property to his brother
- the clergyman's orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a
- quarrel, never forgiven, between him and my father. He wrote again a
- few weeks since, to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking
- if we knew anything of her. A name casually written on a slip of paper
- has enabled me to find her out. You know the rest.' Again he was
- going, but I set my back against the door.
-
- 'Do let me speak,' I said; 'let me have one moment to draw breath
- and reflect.' I paused- he stood before me, hat in hand, looking
- composed enough. I resumed-
-
- 'Your mother was my father's sister?'
-
- 'Yes.'
-
- 'My aunt, consequently?'
-
- He bowed.
-
- 'My uncle John was your uncle John? You, Diana, and Mary are his
- sister's children, as I am his brother's child?'
-
- 'Undeniably.'
-
- 'You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows
- from the same source?'
-
- 'We are cousins; yes.'
-
- I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be
- proud of,- one I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities were
- such, that, when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had
- inspired me with genuine affection and admiration. The two girls, on
- whom, kneeling down on the wet ground, and looking through the low,
- latticed window of Moor House kitchen, I had gazed with so bitter a
- mixture of interest and despair, were my near kinswomen; and the young
- and stately gentleman who had found me almost dying at his threshold
- was my blood relation. Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch! This was
- wealth indeed!- wealth to the heart!- a mine of pure, genial
- affections. This was a blessing, bright, vivid, and exhilarating;- not
- like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and welcome enough in its way,
- but sobering from its weight. I now clapped my hands in sudden joy- my
- pulse bounded, my veins thrilled.
-
- 'Oh, I am glad!- I am glad!' I exclaimed.
-
- St. John smiled. 'Did I not say you neglected essential points to
- pursue trifles?' he asked. 'You were serious when I told you you had
- got a fortune; and now, for a matter of no moment, you are excited.'
-
- 'What can you mean? It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters
- and don't care for a cousin; but I had nobody; and now three
- relations,- or two, if you don't choose to be counted,- are born
- into my world full-grown. I say again, I am glad!'
-
- I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the
- thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle
- them:- thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that
- ere long. I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with
- ascending stars,- every one lit me to a purpose or delight. Those
- who had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I
- could now benefit. They were under a yoke,- I could free them: they
- were scattered,- I could reunite them: the independence, the affluence
- which was mine, might be theirs too. Were we not four? Twenty thousand
- pounds shared equally, would be five thousand each,- enough and to
- spare: justice would be done,- mutual happiness secured. Now the
- wealth did not weigh on me: now it was not a mere bequest of coin,- it
- was a legacy of life, hope, enjoyment.
-
- How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I
- cannot tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair
- behind me, and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it. He
- also advised me to be composed; I scorned the insinuation of
- helplessness and distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk
- about again.
-
- 'Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow,' I said, 'and tell them to come
- home directly. Diana said they would both consider themselves rich
- with a thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well.'
-
- 'Tell me where I can get you a glass of water,' said St. John; 'you
- must really make an effort to tranquillise your feelings.'
-
- 'Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you?
- Will it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and
- settle down like an ordinary mortal?'
-
- 'You wander: your head becomes confused. I have been too abrupt
- in communicating the news; it has excited you beyond your strength.'
-
- 'Mr. Rivers! you quite put me out of patience: I am rational
- enough; it is you who misunderstand, or rather who affect to
- misunderstand.'
-
- 'Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should
- comprehend better.'
-
- 'Explain! What is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that
- twenty thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between
- the nephew and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to
- each? What I want is, that you should write to your sisters and tell
- them of the fortune that has accrued to them.'
-
- 'To you, you mean.'
-
- 'I have intimated my view of the case: I am incapable of taking any
- other. I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly
- ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and connections.
- I like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and
- Mary, and I will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary. It would
- please and benefit me to have five thousand pounds; it would torment
- and oppress me to have twenty thousand; which, moreover, could never
- be mine in justice, though it might in law. I abandon to you, then,
- what is absolutely superfluous to me. Let there be no opposition,
- and no discussion about it; let us agree amongst each other, and
- decide the point at once.'
-
- 'This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider
- such a matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid.'
-
- 'Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy: you see the
- justice of the case?'
-
- 'I do see a certain justice; but it is contrary to all custom.
- Besides, the entire fortune is your right: my uncle gained it by his
- own efforts; he was free to leave it to whom he would: he left it to
- you. After all, justice permits you to keep it: you may, with a
- clear conscience, consider it absolutely your own.'
-
- 'With me,' said I, 'it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of
- conscience: I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had an
- opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy me for a
- year, I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught
- a glimpse- that of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation, and winning
- to myself life-long friends.'
-
- 'You think so now,' rejoined St. John, 'because you do not know
- what it is to possess, nor consequently to enjoy wealth: you cannot
- form a notion of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you;
- of the place it would enable you to take in society; of the
- prospects it would open to you: you cannot-'
-
- 'And you,' I interrupted, 'cannot at all imagine the craving I have
- for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had
- brothers or sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not
- reluctant to admit me and own me, are you?'
-
- 'Jane, I will be your brother- my sisters will be your sisters-
- without stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights.'
-
- 'Brother? Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters? Yes;
- slaving amongst strangers! I, wealthy- gorged with gold I never earned
- and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and
- fraternisation! Close union! Intimate attachment!'
-
- 'But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic
- happiness may be realised otherwise than by the means you contemplate:
- you may marry.'
-
- 'Nonsense, again! Marry! I don't want to marry, and never shall
- marry.'
-
- 'That is saying too much: such hazardous affirmations are a proof
- of the excitement under which you labour.'
-
- 'It is not saying too much: I know what I feel, and how averse
- are my inclinations to the bare thought of marriage. No one would take
- me for love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money
- speculation. And I do not want a stranger- unsympathising, alien,
- different from me; I want my kindred: those with whom I have full
- fellow-feeling. Say again you will be my brother: when you uttered the
- words I was satisfied, happy; repeat them, if you can, repeat them
- sincerely.'
-
- 'I think I can. I know I have always loved my own sisters; and I
- know on what my affection for them is grounded,- respect for their
- worth and admiration of their talents. You too have principle and
- mind: your tastes and habits resemble Diana's and Mary's; your
- presence is always agreeable to me; in your conversation I have
- already for some time found a salutary solace. I feel I can easily and
- naturally make room in my heart for you, as my third and youngest
- sister.'
-
- 'Thank you: that contents me for to-night. Now you had better go;
- for if you stay longer, you will perhaps irritate me afresh by some
- mistrustful scruple.'
-
- 'And the school, Miss Eyre? It must now be shut up, I suppose?'
-
- 'No. I will retain my post of mistress till you get a substitute.'
-
- He smiled approbation: we shook hands, and he took leave.
-
- I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and
- arguments I used, to get matters regarding the legacy settled as I
- wished. My task was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely
- resolved- as my cousins saw at length that my mind was really and
- immutably fixed on making a just division of the property- as they
- must in their own hearts have felt the equity of the intention; and
- must, besides, have been innately conscious that in my place they
- would have done precisely what I wished to do- they yielded at
- length so far as to consent to put the affair to arbitration. The
- judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able lawyer: both coincided in my
- opinion: I carried my point. The instruments of transfer were drawn
- out: St. John, Diana, Mary, and I, each became possessed of a
- competency.
-
- CHAPTER XXXIV
-
-
- IT was near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of
- general holiday approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care
- that the parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune opens
- the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when
- we have largely received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual
- ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt with pleasure that
- many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we parted, that
- consciousness was confirmed: they manifested their affection plainly
- and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find I had really a place
- in their unsophisticated hearts: I promised them that never a week
- should pass in future that I did not visit them, and give them an
- hour's teaching in their school.
-
- Mr. Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty
- girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the key
- in my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some
- half-dozen of my best scholars: as decent, respectable, modest, and
- well-informed young women as could be found in the ranks of the
- British peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for after all, the
- British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most
- self-respecting of any in Europe: since those days I have seen
- paysannes and Bauerinnen; and the best of them seemed to me
- ignorant, coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton girls.
-
- 'Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of
- exertion?' asked Mr. Rivers, when they were gone. 'Does not the
- consciousness of having done some real good in your day and generation
- give pleasure?'
-
- 'Doubtless.'
-
- 'And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to
- the task of regenerating your race be well spent?'
-
- 'Yes,' I said; 'but I could not go on for ever so: I want to
- enjoy my own faculties as well as to cultivate those of other
- people. I must enjoy them now; don't recall either my mind or body
- to the school; I am out of it and disposed for full holiday.'
-
- He looked grave. 'What now? What sudden eagerness is this you
- evince? What are you going to do?'
-
- 'To be active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you to
- set Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you.'
-
- 'Do you want her?'
-
- 'Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home
- in a week, and I want to have everything in order against their
- arrival.'
-
- 'I understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion.
- It is better so: Hannah shall go with you.'
-
- 'Tell her to be ready by to-morrow then; and here is the schoolroom
- key: I will give you the key of my cottage in the morning.'
-
- He took it. 'You give it up very gleefully,' said he; 'I don't
- quite understand your light-heartedness, because I cannot tell what
- employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you are
- relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in life have
- you now?'
-
- 'My first aim will be to clean down (do you comprehend the full
- force of the expression?)- to clean down Moor House from chamber to
- cellar; my next to rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite
- number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every
- chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I
- shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in
- every room; and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your
- sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a
- beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding
- of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and
- solemnising of other culinary rites, as words can convey but an
- inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you. My purpose, in
- short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of
- readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my ambition
- is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they come.'
-
- St. John smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied.
-
- 'It is all very well for the present,' said he; 'but seriously, I
- trust that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look a
- little higher than domestic endearments and household joys.'
-
- 'I mean, on the contrary, to be busy.'
-
- 'Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months' grace I allow
- you for the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing
- yourself with this late-found charm of relationship; but then, I
- hope you will begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly
- society, and the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilised
- affluence. I hope your energies will then once more trouble you with
- their strength.'
-
- I looked at him with surprise. 'St. John,' I said, 'I think you are
- almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as a queen,
- and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?'
-
- 'To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has
- committed to your keeping; and of which He will surely one day
- demand a strict account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and
- anxiously- I warn you of that. And try to restrain the
- disproportionate fervour with which you throw yourself into
- commonplace home pleasures. Don't cling so tenaciously to ties of
- the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate cause;
- forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. Do you hear, Jane?'
-
- 'Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate
- cause to be happy, and I will be happy. Good-bye!'
-
- Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah:
- she was charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a
- house turned topsy-turvy- how I could brush, and dust, and clean,
- and cook. And really, after a day or two of confusion worse
- confounded, it was delightful by degrees to invoke order from the
- to purchase some new furniture: my cousins having given me carte
- blanche to effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum having been
- set aside for that purpose. The ordinary sitting-room and bedrooms I
- left much as they were: for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more
- pleasure from seeing again the old homely tables, and chairs, and
- beds, than from the spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still
- some novelty was necessary, to give to their return the piquancy
- with which I wished it to be invested. Dark handsome new carpets and
- curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected antique
- ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and
- dressing-cases, for the toilet-tables, answered the end: they looked
- fresh without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom I refurnished
- entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on
- the passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I
- thought Moor House as complete a model of bright modest snugness
- within, as it was, at this season, a specimen of wintry waste and
- desert dreariness without.
-
- The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about
- dark, and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs and below; the kitchen
- was in perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in
- readiness.
-
- St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear
- of the house till everything was arranged: and, indeed, the bare
- idea of the commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within its
- walls sufficed to scare him to estrangement. He found me in the
- kitchen, watching the progress of certain cakes for tea, then
- baking. Approaching the hearth, he asked, 'If I was at last
- satisfied with housemaid's work?' I answered by inviting him to
- accompany me on a general inspection of the result of my labours. With
- some difficulty, I got him to make the tour of the house. He just
- looked in at the doors I opened; and when he had wandered upstairs and
- downstairs, he said I must have gone through a great deal of fatigue
- and trouble to have effected such considerable changes in so short a
- time: but not a syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in the
- improved aspect of his abode.
-
- This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had
- disturbed some old associations he valued. I inquired whether this was
- the case: no doubt in a somewhat crestfallen tone.
-
- 'Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had
- scrupulously respected every association: he feared, indeed, I must
- have bestowed more thought on the matter than it was worth. How many
- minutes, for instance, had I devoted to studying the arrangement of
- this very room?- By the bye, could I tell him where such a book was?'
-
- I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and
- withdrawing to his accustomed window recess, he began to read it.
-
- Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I
- began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was
- hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no
- attraction for him- its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he
- lived only to aspire- after what was good and great, certainly; but
- still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As
- I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone- at
- his fine lineaments fixed in study- I comprehended all at once that he
- would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to
- be his wife. I understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love
- for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it was but a love of the
- senses. I comprehended how he should despise himself for the
- feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle
- and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever conducing
- permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he was of the material
- from which nature hews her heroes- Christian and Pagan- her lawgivers,
- her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great interests
- to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous
- column, gloomy and out of place.
-
- 'This parlour is not his sphere,' I reflected: 'the Himalayan ridge
- or Caffre bush, even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp would suit
- him better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not
- his element: there his faculties stagnate- they cannot develop or
- appear to advantage. It is in scenes of strife and danger- where
- courage is proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude tasked- that he
- will speak and move, the leader and superior. A merry child would have
- the advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to choose a
- missionary's career- I see it now.'
-
- 'They are coming! they are coming!' cried Hannah, throwing open the
- parlour door. At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran.
- It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had
- a lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver
- opened the door: first one well-known form, then another, stepped out.
- In a minute I had my face under their bonnets, in contact first with
- Mary's soft cheek, then with Diana's flowing curls. They laughed-
- kissed me- then Hannah: patted Carlo, who was half wild with
- delight; asked eagerly if all was well; and being assured in the
- affirmative, hastened into the house.
-
- They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross,
- and chilled with the frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances
- expanded to the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah
- brought in the boxes, they demanded St. John. At this moment he
- advanced from the parlour. They both threw their arms round his neck
- at once. He gave each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words
- of welcome, stood a while to be talked to, and then, intimating that
- he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the parlour, withdrew
- there as to a place of refuge.
-
- I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give
- hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed
- me. They were delighted with the renovation and decorations of their
- rooms; with the new drapery, and fresh carpets, and rich tinted
- china vases: they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly. I had
- the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met their wishes exactly,
- and that what I had done added a vivid charm to their joyous return
- home.
-
- Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so
- eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St.
- John's taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in
- their glow of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise. The
- event of the day- that is, the return of Diana and Mary- pleased
- him; but the accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult, the
- garrulous glee of reception irked him: I saw he wished the calmer
- morrow was come. In the very meridian of the night's enjoyment,
- about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered
- with the intimation that 'a poor lad was come, at that unlikely
- time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see his mother, who was drawing away.'
-
- 'Where does she live, Hannah?'
-
- 'Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and
- moss all the way.'
-
- 'Tell him I will go.'
-
- 'I'm sure, sir, you had better not. It's the worst road to travel
- after dark that can be: there's no track at all over the bog. And then
- it is such a bitter night- the keenest wind you ever felt. You had
- better send word, sir, that you will be there in the morning.'
-
- But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and
- without one objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine
- o'clock: he did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough
- he was: but he looked happier than when he set out. He had performed
- an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and
- deny, and was on better terms with himself.
-
- I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It
- was Christmas week: we took to no settled employment, but spent it
- in a sort of merry domestic dissipation. The air of the moors, the
- freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary's
- spirits like some life-giving elixir: they were gay from morning
- till noon, and from noon till night. They could always talk; and their
- discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms for me, that I
- preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing anything else. St.
- John did not rebuke our vivacity; but he escaped from it: he was
- seldom in the house; his parish was large, the population scattered,
- and he found daily business in visiting the sick and poor in its
- different districts.
-
- One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for
- some minutes, asked him, 'If his plans were yet unchanged.'
-
- 'Unchanged and unchangeable,' was the reply. And he proceeded to
- inform us that his departure from England was now definitely fixed for
- the ensuing year.
-
- 'And Rosamond Oliver?' suggested Mary, the words seeming to
- escape her lips involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them,
- than she made a gesture as if wishing to recall them. St. John had a
- book in his hand- it was his unsocial custom to read at meals- he
- closed it, and looked up.
-
- 'Rosamond Oliver,' said he, 'is about to be married to Mr.
- Granby, one of the best connected and most estimable residents in
- from her father yesterday.'
-
- His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked
- at him: he was serene as glass.
-
- 'The match must have been got up hastily,' said Diana: 'they cannot
- have known each other long.'
- But where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case,
- where the connection is in every point desirable, delays are
- Frederic gives up to them, can be refitted for their reception.'
-
- The first time I found St. John alone after this communication, I
- felt tempted to inquire if the event distressed him: but he seemed
- so little to need sympathy, that, so far from venturing to offer him
- more, I experienced some shame at the recollection of what I had
- already hazarded. Besides, I was out of practice in talking to him:
- his reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness was congealed
- beneath it. He had not kept his promise of treating me like his
- sisters; he continually made little, chilling differences between
- us, which did not at all tend to the development of cordiality: in
- short, now that I was acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived under
- the same roof with him, I felt the distance between us to be far
- greater than when he had known me only as the village
- schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had once been admitted
- to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity.
-
- Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised
- his head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said-
-
- 'You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won.'
-
- Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply:
- after a moment's hesitation I answered-
-
- 'But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors
- whose triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not such another ruin
- you?'
-
- 'I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall
- never be called upon to contend for such another. The event of the
- conflict is decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!' So
- saying, he returned to his papers and his silence.
-
- As our mutual happiness (i.e., Diana's, Mary's, and mine) settled
- into a quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and
- regular studies, St. John stayed more at home: he sat with us in the
- same room, sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana
- pursued a course of encyclopaedic reading she had (to my awe and
- amazement) undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a
- mystic lore of his own: that of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition
- of which he thought necessary to his plans.
-
- Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and
- absorbed enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the
- outlandish-looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes fixing
- upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious intensity of observation:
- if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon, it
- returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what it meant: I
- wondered, too, at the punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit
- on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment, namely, my weekly
- visit to Morton school; and still more was I puzzled when, if the
- day was unfavourable, if there was snow, or rain, or high wind, and
- his sisters urged me not to go, he would invariably make light of
- their solicitude, and encourage me to accomplish the task without
- regard to the elements.
-
- 'Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her,' he would
- say: 'she can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of
- snow, as well as any of us. Her constitution is both sound and
- elastic;- better calculated to endure variations of climate than
- many more robust.'
-
- And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a
- little weather-beaten, I never dared complain, because I saw that to
- murmur would be to vex him: on all occasions fortitude pleased him;
- the reverse was a special annoyance.
-
- One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I
- really had a cold. His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I
- sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. As
- I exchanged a translation for an exercise, I happened to look his way:
- there I found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue
- eye. How long it had been searching me through and through, and over
- and over, I cannot tell: so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for
- the moment superstitious- as if I were sitting in the room with
- something uncanny.
-
- 'Jane, what are you doing?'
-
- 'Learning German.'
-
- 'I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee.'
-
- 'You are not in earnest?'
-
- 'In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why.'
-
- He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was
- himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt to
- forget the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have a
- pupil with whom he might again and again go over the elements, and
- so fix them thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered for
- some time between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on me
- because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I
- do him this favour? I should not, perhaps, have to make the
- sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his departure.
-
- St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every
- impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved
- and permanent. I consented. When Diana and Mary returned, the former
- found her scholar transferred from her to her brother: she laughed,
- and both she and Mary agreed that St. John should never have persuaded
- them to such a step. He answered quietly-
-
- 'I know it.'
-
- I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting
- master: he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his
- expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation.
- By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away
- my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than
- his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was
- by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that
- vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so fully aware
- that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his
- presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I
- fell under a freezing spell. When he said 'go,' I went; 'come,' I
- came; 'do this,' I did it. But I did not love my servitude: I
- wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.
-
- One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him,
- bidding him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom;
- and, as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who
- chanced to be in a frolicsome humour (she was not painfully controlled
- by his will; for hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed-
-
- 'St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don't
- treat her as such: you should kiss her too.'
-
- She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt
- uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St.
- John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine,
- his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly- he kissed me. There are no
- such things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my
- ecclesiastical cousin's salute belonged to one of these classes; but
- there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When
- given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am
- sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I
- felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never
- omitted the ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with
- which I underwent it, seemed to invest it for him with a certain
- charm.
-
- As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I
- felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle
- half my faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force
- myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural
- vocation. He wanted to train me to an elevation I could never reach;
- it racked me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing
- was as impossible as to mould my irregular features to his correct and
- classic pattern, to give to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint
- and solemn lustre of his own.
-
- Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of
- late it had been easy enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil
- sat in my heart and drained my happiness at its source- the evil of
- suspense.
-
- Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst
- these changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was
- still with me, because it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse,
- nor a sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name
- graven on a tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it
- inscribed. The craving to know what had become of him followed me
- everywhere; when I was at Morton, I re-entered my cottage every
- evening to think of that; and now at Moor House, I sought my bedroom
- each night to brood over it.
-
- In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs
- about the will, I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr.
- Rochester's present residence and state of health; but, as St. John
- had conjectured, he was quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then
- wrote to Mrs. Fairfax, entreating information on the subject. I had
- calculated with certainty on this step answering my end: I felt sure
- it would elicit an early answer. I was astonished when a fortnight
- passed without reply; but when two months wore away, and day after day
- the post arrived and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the
- keenest anxiety.
-
- I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed.
- Renewed hope followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for
- some weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word
- reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died
- out, and then I felt dark indeed.
-
- A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer
- approached; Diana tried to cheer me: she said I looked ill, and wished
- to accompany me to the sea-side. This St. John opposed; he said I
- did not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too
- purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying
- deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee,
- and grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment: and I, like
- a fool, never thought of resisting him- I could not resist him.
-
- One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the
- ebb was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had
- told me in the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down
- to take it, almost certain that the long-looked-for tidings were
- vouchsafed me at last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr.
- Briggs on business. The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and
- now, as I sat poring over the crabbed characters and flourishing
- tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again.
-
- St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my
- voice failed me: words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only
- occupants of the parlour: Diana was practising her music in the
- drawing-room, Mary was gardening- it was a very fine May day, clear,
- sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion,
- nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said-
-
- 'We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed.' And
- while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and
- patient, leaning on his desk, and looking like a physician watching
- with the eye of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a
- patient's malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and
- muttered something about not being very well that morning, I resumed
- my task, and succeeded in completing it. St. John put away my books
- and his, locked his desk, and said-
-
- 'Now, Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me.'
-
- 'I will call Diana and Mary.'
-
- 'No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be
- you. Put on your things; go out by the kitchen-door: take the road
- towards the head of Marsh Glen: I will join you in a moment.'
-
- I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my
- dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own,
- between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always
- faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting,
- sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither
- present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to
- mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John's directions; and
- in ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by side
- with him.
-
- The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with
- scents of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream
- descending the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured along
- plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams from the sun, and sapphire
- tints from the firmament. As we advanced and left the track, we trod a
- soft turf, mossy fine and emerald green, minutely enamelled with a
- tiny white flower, and spangled with a star-like yellow blossom: the
- hills, meantime, shut us quite in; for the glen, towards its head,
- wound to their very core.
-
- 'Let us rest here,' said St. John, as we reached the first
- stragglers of a battalion of rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond
- which the beck rushed down a waterfall; and where, still a little
- farther, the mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath for
- raiment and crag for gem- where it exaggerated the wild to the savage,
- and exchanged the fresh for the frowning- where it guarded the forlorn
- hope of solitude, and a last refuge for silence.
-
- I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and
- down the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and
- returned to traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he
- removed his hat, let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He
- seemed in communion with the genius of the haunt: with his eye he bade
- farewell to something.
-
- 'And I shall see it again,' he said aloud, 'in dreams when I
- sleep by the Ganges: and again in a more remote hour- when another
- slumber overcomes me- on the shore of a darker stream!'
-
- Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot's passion for
- his fatherland! He sat down; for half an hour we never spoke;
- neither he to me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced-
-
- 'Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman
- which sails on the 20th of June.'
-
- 'God will protect you; for you have undertaken His work,' I
- answered.
-
- 'Yes,' said he, 'there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of
- an infallible Master. I am not going out under human guidance, subject
- to the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms: my
- king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems strange to
- me that all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner,-
- to join in the same enterprise.'
-
- 'All have not Your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble
- to wish to march with the strong.'
-
- 'I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only
- such as are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it.'
-
- 'Those are few in number, and difficult to discover.'
-
- 'You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up- to
- urge and exhort them to the effort- to show them what their gifts are,
- and why they were given- to speak Heaven's message in their ear,- to
- offer them, direct from God, a place in the ranks of His chosen.'
-
- 'If they are really qualified for the task, will not their own
- hearts be the first to inform them of it?'
-
- I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over
- me: I trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once
- declare and rivet the spell.
-
- 'And what does your heart say?' demanded St. John.
-
- 'My heart is mute- my heart is mute,' I answered, struck and
- thrilled.
-
- 'Then I must speak for it,' continued the deep, relentless voice.
- 'Jane, come with me to India: come as my helpmeet and
- fellow-labourer.'
-
- The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved! It was as if I had
- heard a summons from Heaven- as if a visionary messenger, like him
- of Macedonia, had enounced, 'Come over and help us!' But I was no
- apostle,- I could not behold the herald,- I could not receive his
- call.
-
- 'Oh, St. John!' I cried, 'have some mercy!'
-
- I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his
- duty, knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued-
-
- 'God and nature intended you for a missionary's wife. It is not
- personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed
- for labour, not for love. A missionary's wife you must- shall be.
- You shall be mine: I claim you- not for my pleasure, but for my
- Sovereign's service.'
-
- 'I am not fit for it: I have no vocation,' I said.
-
- He had calculated on these first objections: he was not irritated
- by them. Indeed, as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded
- his arms on his chest, and fixed his countenance, I saw he was
- prepared for a long and trying opposition, and had taken in a stock of
- patience to last him to its close- resolved, however, that that
- close should be conquest for him.
-
- 'Humility, Jane,' said he, 'is the groundwork of Christian virtues:
- you say right that you are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it? Or
- who, that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the
- summons? I, for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I
- acknowledge myself the chiefest of sinners; but I do not suffer this
- sense of my personal vileness to daunt me. I know my Leader: that He
- is just as well as mighty; and while He has chosen a feeble instrument
- to perform a great task, He will, from the boundless stores of His
- providence, supply the inadequacy of the means to the end. Think
- like me, Jane- trust like me. It is the Rock of Ages I ask you to lean
- on: do not doubt but it will bear the weight of your human weakness.'
-
- 'I do not understand a missionary life: I have never studied
- missionary labours.'
-
- 'There I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want: I can
- set you your task from hour to hour; stand by you always; help you
- from moment to moment. This I could do in the beginning: soon (for I
- know your powers) you would be as strong and apt as myself, and
- would not require my help.'
-
- 'But my powers- where are they for this undertaking? I do not
- feel them. Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible
- of no light kindling- no life quickening- no voice counselling or
- cheering. Oh, I wish I could make you see how much my mind is at
- this moment like a rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered
- in its depths- the fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I
- cannot accomplish!'
-
- 'I have an answer for you- hear it. I have watched you ever since
- we first met: I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved
- you in that time by sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited?
- In the village school I found you could perform well, punctually,
- uprightly, labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw
- you could perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you
- controlled. In the calm with which you learnt you had become
- suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas:- lucre had no
- undue power over you. In the resolute readiness with which you cut
- your wealth into four shares, keeping but one to yourself, and
- relinquishing the three others to the claim of abstract justice, I
- recognised a soul that revelled in the flame and excitement of
- sacrifice. In the tractability with which, at my wish, you forsook a
- study in which you were interested, and adopted another because it
- interested me; in the untiring assiduity with which you have since
- persevered in it- in the unflagging energy and unshaken temper with
- which you have met its difficulties- I acknowledge the complement of
- the qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested,
- faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic:
- cease to mistrust yourself- I can trust you unreservedly. As a
- conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your
- assistance will be to me invaluable.'
-
- My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with
- slow, sure step. Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his
- succeeded in making the way, which had seemed blocked up,
- comparatively clear. My work, which had appeared so vague, so
- hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded, and assumed a
- definite form under his shaping hand. He waited for an answer. I
- demanded a quarter of an hour to think, before I again hazarded a
- reply.
-
- 'Very willingly,' he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little
- distance up the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath, and
- there lay still.
-
- 'I can do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and
- acknowledge that,' I meditated,- 'that is, if life be spared me. But I
- feel mine is not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian
- sun. What then? He does not care for that: when my time came to die,
- he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who
- gave me. The case is very plain before me. In leaving England, I
- should leave a loved but empty land- Mr. Rochester is not there; and
- if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My business is to
- live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from
- day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in
- circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John
- once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one
- lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious
- man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime
- results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by uptorn
- affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, Yes- and yet
- I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon half myself: if I go to
- India, I go to premature death. And how will the interval between
- leaving England for India, and India for the grave, be filled? Oh, I
- know well! That, too, is very clear to my vision. By straining to
- satisfy St. John till my sinews ache, I shall satisfy him- to the
- finest central point and farthest outward circle of his
- expectations. If I do go with him- if I do make the sacrifice he
- urges, I will make it absolutely: I will throw all on the altar-
- heart, vitals, the entire victim. He will never love me; but he
- shall approve me; I will show him energies he has not yet seen,
- resources he has never suspected. Yes, I can work as hard as he can,
- and with as little grudging.
-
- 'Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item- one
- dreadful item. It is- that he asks me to be his wife, and has no
- more of a husband's heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock,
- down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a
- soldier would a good weapon, and that is all. Unmarried to him, this
- would never grieve me; but can I let him complete his calculations-
- coolly put into practice his plans- go through the wedding ceremony?
- Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love
- (which I doubt not he would scrupulously observe) and know that the
- spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every
- endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No: such a
- martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it. As his
- sister, I might accompany him- not as his wife: I will tell him so.'
-
- I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate
- column; his face turned to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen. He
- started to his feet and approached me.
-
- 'I am ready to go to India, if I may go free.'
-
- 'Your answer requires a commentary,' he said; 'it is not clear.'
-
- 'You have hitherto been my adopted brother- I, your adopted sister:
- let us continue as such: you and I had better not marry.'
-
- He shook his head. 'Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If
- you were my real sister it would be different: I should take you,
- and seek no wife. But as it is, either our union must be consecrated
- and sealed by marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles oppose
- themselves to any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a
- moment- your strong sense will guide you.'
-
- I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me
- only to the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife
- should: and therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so.
- 'St. John,' I returned, 'I regard you as a brother- you, me as a
- sister: so let us continue.'
-
- 'We cannot- we cannot,' he answered, with short, sharp
- determination: 'it would not do. You have said you will go with me
- to India: remember- you have said that.'
-
- 'Conditionally.'
-
- 'Well- well. To the main point- the departure with me from England,
- the co-operation with me in my future labours- you do not object.
- You have already as good as put your hand to the plough: you are too
- consistent to withdraw it. You have but one end to keep in view- how
- the work you have undertaken can best be done. Simplify your
- complicated interests, feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all
- considerations in one purpose: that of fulfilling with effect- with
- power- the mission of your great Master. To do so, you must have a
- coadjutor: not a brother- that is a loose tie- but a husband. I,
- too, do not want a sister: a sister might any day be taken from me.
- I want a wife: the sole helpmeet I can influence efficiently in
- life, and retain absolutely till death.'
-
- I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow- his
- hold on my limbs.
-
- 'Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you.'
-
- 'One fitted to my purpose, you mean- fitted to my vocation. Again I
- tell you it is not the insignificant private individual- the mere man,
- with the man's selfish senses- I wish to mate: it is the missionary.'
-
- 'And I will give the missionary my energies- it is all he wants-
- but not myself: that would be only adding the husk and shell to the
- kernel. For them he has no use: I retain them.'
-
- 'You cannot- you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with
- half an oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the
- cause of God I advocate: it is under His standard I enlist you. I
- cannot accept on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire.'
-
- 'Oh! I will give my heart to God,' I said. 'You do not want it.'
-
- I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed
- sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in
- the feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till
- now, because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe,
- because he had held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much
- mortal, I could not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made
- in this conference: the analysis of his nature was proceeding before
- my eyes. I saw his fallibilities: I comprehended them. I understood
- that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that
- handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I.
- The veil fell from his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him
- the presence of these qualities, I felt his imperfection and took
- courage. I was with an equal- one with whom I might argue- one whom,
- if I saw good, I might resist.
-
- He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I
- presently risked an upward glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on
- me, expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. 'Is she
- sarcastic, and sarcastic to me!' it seemed to say. 'What does this
- signify?'
-
- 'Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter,' he said ere
- long; 'one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin.
- I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will give your
- heart to God: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man, and
- fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker's spiritual
- kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be
- ready to do at once whatever furthers that end. You will see what
- impetus would be given to your efforts and mine by our physical and
- mental union in marriage: the only union that gives a character of
- permanent conformity to the destinies and designs of human beings;
- and, passing over all minor caprices- all trivial difficulties and
- delicacies of feeling- all scruple about the degree, kind, strength or
- tenderness of mere personal inclination- you will hasten to enter into
- that union at once.'
-
- 'Shall I?' I said briefly; and I looked at his features,
- beautiful in their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still
- severity; at his brow, commanding but not open; at his eyes, bright
- and deep and searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure;
- and fancied myself in idea his wife. Oh! it would never do! As his
- curate, his comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with him
- in that capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him
- in that office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and
- vigour; accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at
- his ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man:
- profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should
- suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body
- would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be
- free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural
- unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of
- loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind which would be only
- mine, to which he never came, and sentiments growing there fresh and
- sheltered which his austerity could never blight, nor his measured
- warrior-march trample down: but as his wife- at his side always, and
- always restrained, and always checked- forced to keep the fire of my
- nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never
- utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital-
- this would be unendurable.
-
- 'St. John!' I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation.
-
- 'Well?' he answered icily.
-
- 'I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your
- fellow-missionary, but not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become
- part of you.'
-
- 'A part of me you must become,' he answered steadily: 'otherwise
- the whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out
- with me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me?
- How can we be for ever together- sometimes in solitudes, sometimes
- amidst savage tribes- and unwed?'
-
- 'Very well,' I said shortly; 'under the circumstances, quite as
- well as if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman
- like yourself.'
-
- 'It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you
- as such: to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us
- both. And for the rest, though you have a man's vigorous brain, you
- have a woman's heart and- it would not do.'
-
- 'It would do,' I affirmed with some disdain, 'perfectly well. I
- have a woman's heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I
- have only a comrade's constancy; a fellow-soldier's frankness,
- fidelity, fraternity, if you like; a neophyte's respect and submission
- to his hierophant: nothing more- don't fear.'
-
- 'It is what I want,' he said, speaking to himself; 'it is just what
- I want. And there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down.
- Jane, you would not repent marrying me- be certain of that; we must be
- married. I repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of
- love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your
- eyes.'
-
- 'I scorn your idea of love,' I could not help saying, as I rose
- up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. 'I scorn
- the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you
- when you offer it.'
-
- He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did
- so. Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy
- to tell: he could command his countenance thoroughly.
-
- 'I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you,' he said: 'I
- think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn.'
-
- I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm
- mien.
-
- 'Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I
- have been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a
- topic on which our natures are at variance- a topic we should never
- discuss: the very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If
- the reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My
- dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage- forget it.'
-
- 'No,' said he; 'it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one
- which can secure my great end: but I shall urge you no further at
- present. To-morrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many friends
- there to whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a
- fortnight- take that space of time to consider my offer: and do not
- forget that if you reject it, it is not me you deny, but God.
- Through my means, He opens to you a noble career; as my wife only
- can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my wife, and you limit yourself
- for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity. Tremble lest
- in that case you should be numbered with those who have denied the
- faith, and are worse than infidels!'
-
- He had done. Turning from me, he once more
-
-
- 'Looked to river, looked to hill.'
-
- But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not
- worthy to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I
- read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me: the
- disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met
- resistance where it expected submission- the disapprobation of a cool,
- inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings and
- views in which it has no power to sympathise: in short, as a man, he
- would have wished to coerce me into obedience: it was only as a
- sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed
- so long a space for reflection and repentance.
-
- That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to
- forget even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I-
- who, though I had no love, had much friendship for him- was hurt by
- the marked omission: so much hurt that tears started to my eyes.
-
- 'I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane,' said Diana,
- 'during your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering
- in the passage expecting you- he will make it up.'
-
- I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always
- rather be happy than dignified; and I ran after him- he stood at the
- foot of the stairs.
-
- 'Good-night, St. John,' said I.
-
- 'Good-night, Jane,' he replied calmly.
-
- 'Then shake hands,' I added.
-
- What a cold, loose touch he impressed on my fingers! He was
- deeply displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would
- not warm, nor tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had
- with him- no cheering smile or generous word: but still the
- Christian was patient and placid; and when I asked him if he forgave
- me, he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing the
- remembrance of vexation; that he had nothing to forgive, not having
- been offended.
-
- And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked
- me down.
-
- CHAPTER XXXV
-
-
- HE did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he
- would. He deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he
- made me feel what severe punishment a good yet stern, a
- conscientious yet implacable man can inflict on one who has offended
- him. Without one overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word he
- contrived to impress me momently with the conviction that I was put
- beyond the pale of his favour.
-
- Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness-
- not that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully
- in his power to do so. Both by nature and principle, he was superior
- to the mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for
- saying I scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words;
- and as long as he and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his
- look, when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air
- between me and him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to
- his ear, and their echo toned every answer he gave me.
-
- He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as
- usual each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man
- within him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure
- Christian, in evincing with what skill he could, while acting and
- speaking apparently just as usual, extract from every deed and every
- phrase the spirit of interest and approval which had formerly
- communicated a certain austere charm to his language and manner. To
- me, he was in reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye
- was a cold, bright, blue gem; his tongue a speaking instrument-
- nothing more.
-
- All this was torture to me- refined, lingering torture. It kept
- up a slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief,
- which harassed and crushed me altogether. I felt how- if I were his
- wife, this good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon
- kill me, without drawing from my veins a single drop of blood, or
- receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime.
- Especially I felt this when I made any attempt to propitiate him. No
- ruth met my ruth. He experienced no suffering from estrangement- no
- yearning after reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast
- falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent, they
- produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a
- matter of stone or metal. To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat
- kinder than usual: as if afraid that mere coldness would not
- sufficiently convince me how completely I was banished and banned,
- he added the force of contrast; and this I am sure he did not by
- malice, but on principle.
-
- The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in
- the garden about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that
- this man, alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we
- were near relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain
- his friendship. I went out and approached him as he stood leaning over
- the little gate; I spoke to the point at once.
-
- 'St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us
- be friends.'
-
- 'I hope we are friends,' was the unmoved reply; while he still
- watched the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I
- approached.
-
- 'No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that.'
-
- 'Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and
- all good.'
-
- 'I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of
- wishing any one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire
- somewhat more of affection than that sort of general philanthropy
- you extend to mere strangers.'
-
- 'Of course,' he said. 'Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from
- regarding you as a stranger.'
-
- This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and
- baffling enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I
- should immediately have left him; but something worked within me
- more strongly than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my
- cousin's talent and principle. His friendship was of value to me: to
- lose it tried me severely. I would not so soon relinquish the
- attempt to reconquer it.
-
- 'Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will
- you leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?'
-
- He now turned quite from the moon and faced me.
-
- 'When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to
- India?'
-
- 'You said I could not unless I married you.'
-
- 'And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution?'
-
- Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put
- into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche
- is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their
- displeasure?
-
- 'No, St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution.'
-
- The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did
- not yet crash down.
-
- 'Once more, why this refusal?' he asked.
-
- 'Formerly,' I answered, 'because you did not love me; now, I reply,
- because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me.
- You are killing me now.'
-
- His lips and cheeks turned white- quite white.
-
- 'I should kill you- I am killing you? Your words are such as
- ought not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray
- an unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would
- seem inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow
- even until seventy-and-seven times.'
-
- I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase
- from his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that
- tenacious surface another and far deeper impression: I had burnt it
- in.
-
- 'Now you will indeed hate me,' I said. 'It is useless to attempt to
- conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you.'
-
- A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they
- touched on the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary
- spasm. I knew the steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.
-
- 'You utterly misinterpret my words,' I said, at once seizing his
- hand: 'I have no intention to grieve or pain you- indeed, I have not.'
-
- Most bitterly he smiled- most decidedly he withdrew his hand from
- mine. 'And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at
- all, I presume?' said he, after a considerable pause.
-
- 'Yes, I will, as your assistant,' I answered.
-
- A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him
- between Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only
- singular gleams scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed
- over his face. He spoke at last.
-
- 'I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age
- proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you
- in such terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your
- ever again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret-
- for your sake.'
-
- I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me
- courage at once. 'Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on
- nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not
- really shocked: for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either
- so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I
- will be your curate, if you like, but never your wife.'
-
- Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his
- passion perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly-
-
- 'A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me,
- then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I
- will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a
- coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society's
- aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your
- promise and deserting the band you engaged to join.'
-
- Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal
- promise or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much
- too hard and much too despotic for the occasion. I replied-
-
- 'There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the
- case. I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India,
- especially with strangers. With you I would have ventured much,
- because I admire, confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am
- convinced that, go when and with whom I would, I should not live
- long in that climate.'
-
- 'Ah! you are afraid of yourself,' he said, curling his lip.
-
- 'I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as
- you wish me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to
- committing suicide. Moreover, before I definitely resolve on
- quitting England, I will know for certain whether I cannot be of
- greater use by remaining in it than by leaving it.'
-
- 'What do you mean?'
-
- 'It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a
- point on which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere
- till by some means that doubt is removed.'
-
- 'I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The
- interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you
- ought to have crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You
- think of Mr. Rochester?'
-
- It was true. I confessed it by silence.
-
- 'Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?'
-
- 'I must find out what is become of him.'
-
- 'It remains for me, then,' he said, 'to remember you in my prayers,
- and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not
- indeed become a castaway. I had thought I recognised in you one of the
- chosen. But God sees not as man sees: His will be done.'
-
- He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the
- glen. He was soon out of sight.
-
- On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window,
- looking very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I:. she
- put her hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face.
-
- 'Jane,' she said, 'you are always agitated and pale now. I am
- sure there is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and
- you have on hands. I have watched you this half hour from the
- window; you must forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I
- have fancied I hardly know what. St. John is a strange being-'
-
- She paused- I did not speak: soon she resumed-
-
- 'That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort
- respecting you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notice
- and interest he never showed to any one else- to what end? I wish he
- loved you- does he, Jane?'
-
- I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; 'No, Die, not one whit.'
-
- 'Then why does he follow you so with his eyes, and get you so
- frequently alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side?
- Mary and I had both concluded he wished you to marry him.'
-
- 'He does- he has asked me to be his wife.'
-
- Diana clapped her hands. 'That is just what we hoped and thought!
- And you will marry him, Jane, won't you? And then he will stay in
- England.'
-
- 'Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to
- procure a fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils.'
-
- 'What! He wishes you to go to India?'
-
- 'Yes.'
-
- 'Madness!' she exclaimed. 'You would not live three months there, I
- am certain. You never shall go: you have not consented, have you,
- Jane?'
-
- 'I have refused to marry him-'
-
- 'And have consequently displeased him?' she suggested.
-
- 'Deeply: he will never forgive me, I fear: yet I offered to
- accompany him as his sister.'
-
- 'It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you
- undertook- one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the
- strong, and you are weak. St. John- you know him- would urge you to
- impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest
- during the hot hours; and unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he
- exacts, you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found
- courage to refuse his hand. You do not love him then, Jane?'
-
- 'Not as a husband.'
-
- 'Yet he is a handsome fellow.'
-
- 'And I am so plain, you see, Die. We should never suit.'
-
- 'Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too
- good, to be grilled alive in Calcutta.' And again she earnestly
- conjured me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.
-
- 'I must indeed,' I said; 'for when just now I repeated the offer of
- serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of
- decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in
- proposing to accompany him unmarried: as if I had not from the first
- hoped to find in him a brother, and habitually regarded him as such.'
-
- 'What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?'
-
- 'You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again
- explained that it is not himself, but his office he wishes to mate. He
- has told me I am formed for labour- not for love: which is true, no
- doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows
- that I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange, Die, to be
- chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?'
-
- 'Insupportable- unnatural- out of the question!'
-
- 'And then,' I continued, 'though I have only sisterly affection for
- him now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the
- possibility of conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of
- love for him, because he is so talented; and there is often a
- certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and conversation. In that
- case, my lot would become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me
- to love him; and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible
- that it was a superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know
- he would.'
-
- 'And yet St. John is a good man,' said Diana.
-
- 'He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the
- feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views.
- It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way,
- lest, in his progress, he should trample them down. Here he comes! I
- will leave you, Diana.' And I hastened upstairs as I saw him
- entering the garden.
-
- But I was forced to meet him again at supper. During that meal he
- appeared just as composed as usual. I had thought he would hardly
- speak to me, and I was certain he had given up the pursuit of his
- matrimonial scheme: the sequel showed I was mistaken on both points.
- He addressed me precisely in his ordinary manner, or what had, of
- late, been his ordinary manner- one scrupulously polite. No doubt he
- had invoked the help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had
- roused in him, and now believed he had forgiven me once more.
-
- For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the
- twenty-first chapter of Revelation. It was at all times pleasant to
- listen while from his lips fell the words of the Bible: never did
- his fine voice sound at once so sweet and full- never did his manner
- become so impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the
- oracles of God: and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone-
- that manner a more thrilling meaning- as he sat in the midst of his
- household circle (the May moon shining in through the uncurtained
- window, and rendering almost unnecessary the light of the candle on
- the table): as he sat there, bending over the great old Bible, and
- described from its page the vision of the new heaven and the new
- earth- told how God would come to dwell with men, how He would wipe
- away all tears from their eyes, and promised that there should be no
- more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more pain, because
- the former things were passed away.
-
- The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them:
- especially as I felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in
- sound, that in uttering them, his eye had turned on me.
-
- 'He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his
- God, and he shall be my son. But,' was slowly, distinctly read, 'the
- fearful, the unbelieving, etc., shall have their part in the lake
- which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.'
-
- Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared for me.
-
- A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked
- his enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter. The
- reader believed his name was already written in the Lamb's book of
- life, and he yearned after the hour which should admit him to the city
- to which the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour; which
- has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory of God
- lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
-
- In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered- all
- his stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and
- resolved on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the
- weak-hearted; guidance for wanderers from the fold: a return, even
- at the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world
- and the flesh were luring from the narrow path. He asked, he urged, he
- claimed the boon of a brand snatched from the burning. Earnestness
- is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered
- at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and
- at last awed. He felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so
- sincerely: others who heard him plead for it, could not but feel it
- too.
-
- The prayer over, we took leave of him: he was to go at a very early
- hour in the morning. Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the
- room- in compliance, I think, with a whispered hint from him: I
- tendered my hand, and wished him a pleasant journey.
-
- 'Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a
- fortnight: that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. If I
- listened to human pride, I should say no more to you of marriage
- with me; but I listen to my duty, and keep steadily in view my first
- aim- to do all things to the glory of God. My Master was
- long-suffering: so will I be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a
- vessel of wrath: repent- resolve, while there is yet time. Remember,
- we are bid to work while it is day- warned that "the night cometh when
- no man shall work." Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good
- things in this life. God give you strength to choose that better
- part which shall not be taken from you!'
-
- He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had
- spoken earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover
- beholding his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his
- wandering sheep- or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul
- for which he is responsible. All men of talent, whether they be men of
- feeling or not; whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots-
- provided only they be sincere- have their sublime moments, when they
- subdue and rule. I felt veneration for St. John- veneration so
- strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point I had so long
- shunned. I was tempted to cease struggling with him- to rush down
- the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose
- my own. I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been once
- before, in a different way, by another. I was a fool both times. To
- have yielded then would have been an error of principle; to have
- yielded now would have been an error of judgment. So I think at this
- hour, when I look back to the crisis through the quiet medium of time:
- I was unconscious of folly at the instant.
-
- I stood motionless under my hierophant's touch. My refusals were
- forgotten- my fears overcome- my wrestlings paralysed. The Impossible-
- i.e., my marriage with St. John- was fast becoming the Possible. All
- was changing utterly with a sudden sweep. Religion called- Angels
- beckoned- God commanded- life rolled together like a scroll- death's
- gates opening, showed eternity beyond: it seemed, that for safety
- and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a second. The dim
- room was full of visions.
-
- 'Could you decide now?' asked the missionary. The inquiry was put
- in gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness! how
- far more potent is it than force! I could resist St. John's wrath: I
- grew pliant as a reed under his kindness. Yet I knew all the time,
- if I yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day,
- of my former rebellion. His nature was not changed by one hour of
- solemn prayer: it was only elevated.
-
- 'I could decide if I were but certain,' I answered: 'were I but
- convinced that it is God's will I should marry you, I could vow to
- marry you here and now- come afterwards what would!'
-
- 'My prayers are heard!' ejaculated St. John. He pressed his hand
- firmer on my head, as if he claimed me: he surrounded me with his arm,
- almost as if he loved me (I say almost- I knew the difference- for I
- had felt what it was to be loved; but, like him, I had now put love
- out of the question, and thought only of duty). I contended with my
- inward dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely,
- deeply, fervently longed to do what was right; and only that. 'Show
- me, show me the path!' I entreated of Heaven. I was excited more
- than I had ever been; and whether what followed was the effect of
- excitement the reader shall judge.
-
- All the house was still; for I believe all, except St. John and
- myself, were now retired to rest. The one candle was dying out: the
- room was full of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick: I heard
- its throb. Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that
- thrilled it through, and passed at once to my head and extremities.
- The feeling was not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp,
- as strange, as startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost
- activity hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now
- summoned and forced to wake. They rose expectant: eye and ear waited
- while the flesh quivered on my bones.
-
- 'What have you heard? What do you see?' asked St. John. I saw
- nothing, but I heard a voice somewhere cry-
-
- 'Jane! Jane! Jane!'- nothing more.
-
- 'O God! what is it?' I gasped.
-
- I might have said, 'Where is it?' for it did not seem in the
- room- nor in the house- nor in the garden; it did not come out of
- the air- nor from under the earth- nor from overhead. I had heard
- it- where, or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it was the
- voice of a human being- a known, loved, well-remembered voice- that of
- Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly,
- eerily, urgently.
-
- 'I am coming!' I cried. 'Wait for me! Oh, I will come!' I flew to
- the door and looked into the passage: it was dark. I ran out into
- the garden: it was void.
-
- 'Where are you?' I exclaimed.
-
- The hills beyond Marsh Glen sent the answer faintly back- 'Where
- are you?' I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs: all was
- moorland loneliness and midnight hush.
-
- 'Down superstition!' I commented, as that spectre rose up black
- by the black yew at the gate. 'This is not thy deception, nor thy
- witchcraft: it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did- no
- miracle- but her best.'
-
- I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained
- me. It was my time to assume ascendency. My powers were in play and in
- force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to
- leave me: I must and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is
- energy to command well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to
- my chamber; locked myself in; fell on my knees; and prayed in my
- way- a different way to St. John's, but effective in its own
- fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit; and my
- soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet. I rose from the
- thanksgiving- took a resolve- and lay down, unscared, enlightened-
- eager but for the daylight.
-
- CHAPTER XXXVI
-
-
- THE daylight came. I rose at dawn. I busied myself for an hour or
- two with arranging my things in my chamber, drawers, and wardrobe,
- in the order wherein I should wish to leave them during a brief
- absence. Meantime, I heard St. John quit his room. He stopped at my
- door: I feared he would knock- no, but a slip of paper was passed
- under the door. I took it up. It bore these words-
-
- 'You left me too suddenly last night. Had you stayed but a little
- longer, you would have laid your hand on the Christian's cross and the
- angel's crown. I shall expect your clear decision when I return this
- day fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into
- temptation: the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see,
- is weak. I shall pray for you hourly.- Yours, ST. JOHN.'
-
- 'My spirit,' I answered mentally, 'is willing to do what is
- right; and my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to accomplish the will
- of Heaven, when once that will is distinctly known to me. At any rate,
- it shall be strong enough to search- inquire- to grope an outlet
- from this cloud of doubt, and find the open day of certainty.'
-
- It was the first of June; yet the morning was overcast and
- chilly: rain beat fast on my casement. I heard the front-door open,
- and St. John pass out. Looking through the window, I saw him
- traverse the garden. He took the way over the misty moors in the
- direction of Whitcross- there he would meet the coach.
-
- 'In a few more hours I shall succeed you in that track, cousin,'
- thought I: 'I too have a coach to meet at Whitcross. I too have some
- to see and ask after in England, before I depart for ever.'
-
- It wanted yet two hours of breakfast-time. I filled the interval in
- walking softly about my room, and pondering the visitation which had
- given my plans their present bent. I recalled that inward sensation
- I had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable
- strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned
- whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in me- not in the
- external world. I asked was it a mere nervous impression- a
- delusion? I could not conceive or believe: it was more like an
- inspiration. The wondrous shock of feeling had come like the
- earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas's prison;
- it had opened the doors of the soul's cell and loosed its bands- it
- had wakened it out of its sleep, whence it sprang trembling,
- listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a cry on my startled ear,
- and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, which neither feared
- nor shook but exulted as if in joy over the success of one effort it
- had been privileged to make, independent of the cumbrous body.
-
- 'Ere many days,' I said, as I terminated my musings, 'I will know
- something of him whose voice seemed last night to summon me. Letters
- have proved of no avail- personal inquiry shall replace them.'
-
- At breakfast I announced to Diana and Mary that I was going a
- journey, and should be absent at least four days.
-
- 'Alone, Jane?' they asked.
-
- 'Yes; it was to see or hear news of a friend about whom I had for
- some time been uneasy.'
-
- They might have said, as I have no doubt they thought, that they
- had believed me to be without any friends save them: for, indeed, I
- had often said so; but, with their true natural delicacy, they
- abstained from comment, except that Diana asked me if I was sure I was
- well enough to travel. I looked very pale, she observed. I replied,
- that nothing ailed me save anxiety of mind, which I hoped soon to
- alleviate.
-
- It was easy to make my further arrangements; for I was troubled
- with no inquiries- no surmises. Having once explained to them that I
- could not now be explicit about my plans, they kindly and wisely
- acquiesced in the silence with which I pursued them, according to me
- the privilege of free action I should under similar circumstances have
- accorded them.
-
- I left Moor House at three o'clock P.M., and soon after four I
- stood at the foot of the sign-post of Whitcross, waiting the arrival
- of the coach which was to take me to distant Thornfield. Amidst the
- silence of those solitary roads and desert hills, I heard it
- approach from a great distance. It was the same vehicle whence, a year
- ago, I had alighted one summer evening on this very spot- how
- desolate, and hopeless, and objectless! It stopped as I beckoned. I
- entered- not now obliged to part with my whole fortune as the price of
- its accommodation. Once more on the road to Thornfield, I felt like
- the messenger-pigeon flying home.
-
- It was a journey of six-and-thirty hours. I had set out from
- Whitcross on a Tuesday afternoon, and early on the succeeding Thursday
- morning the coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn,
- situated in the midst of scenery whose green hedges and large fields
- and low pastoral hills (how mild of feature and verdant of hue
- compared with the stern North-Midland moors of Morton!) met my eye
- like the lineaments of a once familiar face. Yes, I knew the character
- of this landscape: I was sure we were near my bourne.
-
- 'How far is Thornfield Hall from here?' I asked of the ostler.
-
- 'Just two miles, ma'am, across the fields.'
-
- 'My journey is closed,' I thought to myself. I got out of the
- coach, gave a box I had into the ostler's charge, to be kept till I
- called for it; paid my fare; satisfied the coachman, and was going:
- the brightening day gleamed on the sign of the inn, and I read in gilt
- letters, 'The Rochester Arms.' My heart leapt up: I was already on
- my master's very lands. It fell again: the thought struck it:-
-
- 'Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught
- you know: and then, if he is at Thornfield Hall, towards which you
- hasten, who besides him is there? His lunatic wife: and you have
- nothing to do with him: you dare not speak to him or seek his
- presence. You have lost your labour- you had better go no farther,'
- urged the monitor. 'Ask information of the people at the inn; they can
- give you all you seek: they can solve your doubts at once. Go up to
- that man, and inquire if Mr. Rochester be at home.'
-
- The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force self to
- act on it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair. To
- prolong doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more see the
- Hall under the ray of her star. There was the stile before me- the
- very fields through which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted
- with a revengeful fury tracking and scourging me, on the morning I
- fled from Thornfield: ere I well knew what course I had resolved to
- take, I was in the midst of them. How fast I walked! How I ran
- sometimes? How I looked forward to catch the first view of the
- well-known woods! With what feelings I welcomed single trees I knew,
- and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between them!
-
- At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing
- broke the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me: on I
- hastened. Another field crossed- a lane threaded- and there were the
- courtyard walls- the back offices: the house itself, the rookery still
- hid. 'My first view of it shall be in front,' I determined, 'where its
- bold battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can
- single out my master's very window: perhaps he will be standing at it-
- he rises early: perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the
- pavement in front. Could I but see him!- but a moment? Surely, in that
- case, I should not be so mad as to run to him? I cannot tell- I am not
- certain. And if I did- what then? God bless him! What then? Who
- would be hurt by my once more tasting the life his glance can give me?
- I rave: perhaps at this moment he is watching the sun rise over the
- Pyrenees, or on the tideless sea of the south.'
-
- I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard- turned its
- angle: there was a gate just there, opening into the meadow, between
- two stone pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I
- could peep round quietly at the full front of the mansion. I
- advanced my head with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom
- window-blinds were yet drawn up: battlements, windows, long front- all
- from this sheltered station were at my command.
-
- The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this
- survey. I wonder what they thought. They must have considered I was
- very careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very bold
- and reckless. A peep, and then a long stare; and then a departure from
- my niche and a straying out into the meadow; and a sudden stop full in
- front of the great mansion, and a protracted, hardy gaze towards it.
- 'What affectation of diffidence was this at first?' they might have
- demanded; 'what stupid regardlessness now?'
-
- Hear an illustration, reader.
-
- A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to
- catch a glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals
- softly over the grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses- fancying
- she has stirred: he withdraws; not for worlds would he be seen. All is
- still: he again advances: he bends above her; a light veil rests on
- her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the
- vision of beauty- warm, and blooming, and lovely, in rest. How hurried
- was their first glance! But how they fix! How he starts! How he
- suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms the form he dared not, a
- moment since, touch with his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and
- drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly! He thus grasps and cries,
- and gazes, because he no longer fears to waken by any sound he can
- utter- by any movement he can make. He thought his love slept sweetly:
- he finds she is stone dead.
-
- I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a
- blackened ruin.
-
- No need to cower behind a gate-post, indeed!- to peep up at chamber
- lattices, fearing life was astir behind them! No need to listen for
- doors opening- to fancy steps on the pavement or the gravel-walk!
- The lawn, the grounds were trodden and waste: the portal yawned
- void. The front was, as I had once seen it in a dream, but a
- shell-like wall, very high and very fragile-looking, perforated with
- paneless windows: no roof, no battlements, no chimneys- all had
- crashed in.
-
- And there was the silence of death about it: the solitude of a
- lonesome wild. No wonder that letters addressed to people here had
- never received an answer: as well despatch epistles to a vault in a
- church aisle. The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the
- Hall had fallen- by conflagration: but how kindled? What story
- belonged to this disaster? What loss, besides mortar and marble and
- woodwork had followed upon it? Had life been wrecked as well as
- property? If so, whose? Dreadful question: there was no one here to
- answer it- not even dumb sign, mute token.
-
- In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated
- interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late
- occurrence. Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void
- arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements; for, amidst
- the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation:
- grass and weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen
- rafters. And oh! where meantime was the hapless owner of this wreck?
- In what land? Under what auspices? My eye involuntarily wandered to
- the grey church tower near the gates, and I asked, 'Is he with Damer
- de Rochester, sharing the shelter of his narrow marble house?'
-
- Some answer must be had to these questions. I could find it nowhere
- but at the inn, and thither, ere long, I returned. The host himself
- brought my breakfast into the parlour. I requested him to shut the
- door and sit down: I had some questions to ask him. But when he
- complied, I scarcely knew how to begin; such horror had I of the
- possible answers. And yet the spectacle of desolation I had just
- left prepared me in a measure for a tale of misery. The host was a
- respectable-looking, middle-aged man.
-
- 'You know Thornfield Hall, of course?' I managed to say at last.
-
- 'Yes, ma'am; I lived there once.'
-
- 'Did you?' Not in my time, I thought: you are a stranger to me.
-
- 'I was the late Mr. Rochester's butler,' he added.
-
- The late! I seem to have received, with full force, the blow I
- had been trying to evade.
-
- 'The late!' I gasped. 'Is he dead?'
-
- 'I mean the present gentleman, Mr. Edward's father,' he
- explained. I breathed again: my blood resumed its flow. Fully
- assured by these words that Mr. Edward- my Mr. Rochester (God bless
- him, wherever he was!)- was at least alive: was, in short, 'the
- present gentleman.' Gladdening words! It seemed I could hear all
- that was to come- whatever the disclosures might be- with
- comparative tranquillity. Since he was not in the grave, I could bear,
- I thought, to learn that he was at the Antipodes.
-
- 'Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now?' I asked, knowing,
- of course, what the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the
- direct question as to where he really was.
-
- 'No, ma'am- oh, no! No one is living there. I suppose you are a
- stranger in these parts, or you would have heard what happened last
- autumn,- Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin: it was burnt down just about
- harvest-time. A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of
- valuable property destroyed: hardly any of the furniture could be
- saved. The fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines
- arrived from Millcote, the building was one mass of flame. It was a
- terrible spectacle: I witnessed it myself.'
-
- 'At dead of night!' I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of
- fatality at Thornfield. 'Was it known how it originated?' I demanded.
-
- 'They guessed, ma'am: they guessed. Indeed, I should say it was
- ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not perhaps aware,' he
- continued, edging his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking
- low, 'that there was a lady- a- a lunatic, kept in the house?'
-
- 'I have heard something of it.'
-
- 'She was kept in very close confinement, ma'am; people even for
- some years was not absolutely certain of her existence. No one saw
- her: they only knew by rumour that such a person was at the Hall;
- and who or what she was it was difficult to conjecture. They said
- Mr. Edward had brought her from abroad, and some believed she had been
- his mistress. But a queer thing happened a year since- a very queer
- thing.'
-
- I feared now to hear my own story. I endeavoured to recall him to
- the main fact.
-
- 'And this lady?'
-
- 'This lady, ma'am,' he answered, 'turned out to be Mr.
- Rochester's wife! The discovery was brought about in the strangest
- way. There was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr.
- Rochester fell in-'
-
- 'But the fire,' I suggested.
-
- 'I'm coming to that, ma'am- that Mr. Edward fell in love with.
- The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was:
- he was after her continually. They used to watch him- servants will,
- you know, ma'am- and he set store on her past everything: for all,
- nobody but him thought her so very handsome. She was a little small
- thing, they say, almost like a child. I never saw her myself; but I've
- heard Leah, the housemaid, tell of her. Leah liked her well enough.
- Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this governess not twenty; and
- you see, when gentlemen of his age fall in love with girls, they are
- often like as if they were bewitched. Well, he would marry her.'
-
- 'You shall tell me this part of the story another time,' I said;
- 'but now I have a particular reason for wishing to hear all about
- the fire. Was it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had
- any hand in it?'
-
- 'You've hit it, ma'am: it's quite certain that it was her, and
- nobody but her, that set it going. She had a woman to take care of her
- called Mrs. Poole- an able woman in her line, and very trustworthy,
- but for one fault- a fault common to a deal of them nurses and
- matrons- she kept a private bottle of gin by her, and now and then
- took a drop over-much. It is excusable, for she had a hard life of it:
- but still it was dangerous; for when Mrs. Poole was fast asleep
- after the gin and water, the mad lady, who was as cunning as a
- witch, would take the keys out of her pocket, let herself out of her
- chamber, and go roaming about the house, doing any wild mischief
- that came into her head. They say she had nearly burnt her husband
- in his bed once: but I don't know about that. However, on this
- night, she set fire first to the hangings of the room next her own,
- and then she got down to a lower Storey, and made her way to the
- chamber that had been the governess's- (she was like as if she knew
- somehow how matters had gone on, and had a spite at her)- and she
- kindled the bed there; but there was nobody sleeping in it,
- fortunately. The governess had run away two months before; and for all
- Mr. Rochester sought her as if she had been the most precious thing he
- had in the world, he never could hear a word of her; and he grew
- savage- quite savage on his disappointment: he never was a wild man,
- but he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too. He
- sent Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper, away to her friends at a distance;
- but he did it handsomely, for he settled an annuity on her for life:
- and she deserved it- she was a very good woman. Miss Adele, a ward
- he had, was put to school. He broke off acquaintance with all the
- gentry, and shut himself up like a hermit at the Hall.'
-
- 'What! did he not leave England?'
-
- 'Leave England? Bless you, no! He would not cross the door-stones
- of the house, except at night, when he walked just like a ghost
- about the grounds and in the orchard as if he had lost his senses-
- which it is my opinion he had; for a more spirited, bolder, keener
- gentleman than he was before that midge of a governess crossed him,
- you never saw, ma'am. He was not a man given to wine, or cards, or
- racing, as some are, and he was not so very handsome; but he had a
- courage and a will of his own, if ever man had. I knew him from a boy,
- you see: and for my part, I have often wished that Miss Eyre had
- been sunk in the sea before she came to Thornfield Hall.'
-
- 'Then Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire broke out?'
-
- 'Yes, indeed was he; and he went up to the attics when all was
- burning above and below, and got the servants out of their beds and
- helped them down himself, and went back to get his mad wife out of her
- cell. And then they called out to him that she was on the roof,
- where she was standing, waving her arms, above the battlements, and
- shouting out till they could hear her a mile off: I saw her and
- heard her with my own eyes. She was a big woman, and had long black
- hair: we could see it streaming against the flames as she stood. I
- witnessed, and several more witnessed, Mr. Rochester ascend through
- the skylight on to the roof; we heard him call "Bertha!" We saw him
- approach her; and then, ma'am, she yelled and gave a spring, and the
- next minute she lay smashed on the pavement.'
-
- 'Dead?'
-
- 'Dead! Ay, dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were
- scattered.'
-
- 'Good God!'
-
- 'You may well say so, ma'am: it was frightful!'
-
- He shuddered.
-
- 'And afterwards?' I urged.
-
- 'Well, ma'am, afterwards the house was burnt to the ground: there
- are only some bits of walls standing now.'
-
- 'Were any other lives lost?'
-
- 'No- perhaps it would have been better if there had.'
-
- 'What do you mean?'
-
- 'Poor Mr. Edward!' he ejaculated, 'I little thought ever to have
- seen it? Some say it was a just judgment on him for keeping his
- first marriage secret, and wanting to take another wife while he had
- one living: but I pity him, for my part.'
-
- 'You said he was alive?' I exclaimed.
-
- 'Yes, yes: he is alive; but many think he had better be dead.'
-
- 'Why? How?' My blood was again running cold. 'Where is he?' I
- demanded. 'Is he in England?'
-
- 'Ay- ay- he's in England; he can't get out of England, I fancy-
- he's a fixture now.'
-
- What agony was this! And the man seemed resolved to protract it.
-
- 'He is stone-blind,' he said at last. 'Yes, he is stone-blind, is
- Mr. Edward.'
-
- I had dreaded worse. I had dreaded he was mad. I summoned
- strength to ask what had caused this calamity.
-
- 'It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness, in a
- way, ma'am: he wouldn't leave the house till every one else was out
- before him. As he came down the great staircase at last, after Mrs.
- Rochester had flung herself from the battlements, there was a great
- crash- all fell. He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but
- sadly hurt: a beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him
- partly; but one eye was knocked out, and one hand so crushed that
- Mr. Carter, the surgeon, had to amputate it directly. The other eye
- inflamed: he lost the sight of that also. He is now helpless,
- indeed- blind and a cripple.'
-
- 'Where is he? Where does he now live?'
-
- 'At Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he has, about thirty miles
- off: quite a desolate spot.'
-
- 'Who is with him?'
-
- 'Old John and his wife: he would have none else. He is quite broken
- down, they say.'
-
- 'Have you any sort of conveyance?'
-
- 'We have a chaise, ma'am, a very handsome chaise.'
-
- 'Let it be got ready instantly; and if your post-boy can drive me
- to Ferndean before dark this day, I'll pay both you and him twice
- the hire you usually demand.'
-
- CHAPTER XXXVII
-
-
- THE manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable
- antiquity, moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep
- buried in a wood. I had heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often
- spoke of it, and sometimes went there. His father had purchased the
- estate for the sake of the game covers. He would have let the house,
- but could find no tenant, in consequence of its ineligible and
- insalubrious site. Ferndean then remained uninhabited and unfurnished,
- with the exception of some two or three rooms fitted up for the
- accommodation of the squire when he went there in the season to shoot.
-
- To this house I came just ere dark on an evening marked by the
- characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and continued small penetrating
- rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the chaise
- and driver with the double remuneration I had promised. Even when
- within a very short distance of the manor-house, you could see nothing
- of it, so thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy wood about
- it. Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and
- passing through them, I found myself at once in the twilight of
- close-ranked trees. There was a grass-grown track descending the
- forest aisle between hoar and knotty shafts and under branched arches.
- I followed it, expecting soon to reach the dwelling; but it
- stretched on and on, it wound far and farther: no sign of habitation
- or grounds was visible.
-
- I thought I had taken a wrong direction and lost my way. The
- darkness of natural as well as of sylvan dusk gathered over me. I
- looked round in search of another road. There was none: all was
- interwoven stem, columnar trunk, dense summer foliage- no opening
- anywhere.
-
- I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little;
- presently I beheld a railing, then the house- scarce, by this dim
- light, distinguishable from the trees, so dank and green were its
- decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood
- amidst a space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in a
- semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a broad
- gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy frame
- of the forest. The house presented two pointed gables in its front;
- the windows were latticed and narrow: the front door was narrow too,
- one step led up to it. The whole looked, as the host of the
- Rochester Arms had said, 'quite a desolate spot.' It was as still as a
- church on a week-day: the pattering rain on the forest leaves was
- the only sound audible in its vicinage.
-
- 'Can there be life here?' I asked.
-
- Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement- that
- narrow front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue
- from the grange.
-
- It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood
- on the step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to
- feel whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised him- it was
- my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.
-
- I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him- to
- examine him, myself unseen, and alas! to him invisible. It was a
- sudden meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check by
- pain. I had no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation, my
- step from hasty advance.
-
- His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his
- port was still erect, his hair was still raven black; nor were his
- features altered or sunk: not in one year's space, by any sorrow,
- could his athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime blighted.
- But in his countenance I saw a change: that looked desperate and
- brooding- that reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild beast
- or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe. The caged eagle,
- whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as
- looked that sightless Samson.
-
- And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity?- if
- you do, you little know me. A soft hope blent with my sorrow that soon
- I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lips
- so sternly sealed beneath it: but not yet. I would not accost him yet.
-
- He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly
- towards the grass-plat. Where was his daring stride now? Then he
- paused, as if he knew not which way to turn. He lifted his hand and
- opened his eyelids; gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the
- sky, and toward the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him was
- void darkness. He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the
- mutilated one, he kept hidden in his bosom); he seemed to wish by
- touch to gain an idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy
- still; for the trees were some yards off where he stood. He
- relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and stood quiet and
- mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this
- moment John approached him from some quarter.
-
- 'Will you take my arm, sir?' he said; 'there is a heavy shower
- coming on: had you not better go in?'
-
- 'Let me alone,' was the answer.
-
- John withdrew without having observed me. Mr. Rochester now tried
- to walk about: vainly,- all was too uncertain. He groped his way
- back to the house, and, re-entering it, closed the door.
-
- I now drew near and knocked: John's wife opened for me. 'Mary,' I
- said, 'how are you?'
-
- She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her
- hurried 'Is it really you, miss, come at this late hour to this lonely
- place?' I answered by taking her hand; and then I followed her into
- the kitchen, where John now sat by a good fire. I explained to them,
- in a few words, that I had heard all which had happened since I left
- Thornfield, and that I was come to see Mr. Rochester. I asked John
- to go down to the turnpike-house, where I had dismissed the chaise,
- and bring my trunk, which I had left there: and then, while I
- removed my bonnet and shawl, I questioned Mary as to whether I could
- be accommodated at the Manor House for the night; and finding that
- arrangements to that effect, though difficult, would not be
- impossible, I informed her I should stay. just at this moment the
- parlour-bell rang.
-
- 'When you go in,' said I, 'tell your master that a person wishes to
- speak to him, but do not give my name.'
-
- 'I don't think he will see you,' she answered; 'he refuses
- everybody.'
-
- When she returned, I inquired what he had said.
-
- 'You are to send in your name and your business,' she replied.
- She then proceeded to fill a glass with water, and place it on a tray,
- together with candles.
-
- 'Is that what he rang for?' I asked.
-
- 'Yes: he always has candles brought in at dark, though he is
- blind.'
-
- 'Give the tray to me; I will carry it in.'
-
- I took it from her hand: she pointed me out the parlour door. The
- tray shook as I held it; the water spilt from the glass; my heart
- struck my ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me, and shut it
- behind me.
-
- This parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low
- in the grate; and, leaning over it, with his head supported against
- the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of
- the room. His old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of the way,
- and coiled up as if afraid of being inadvertently trodden upon.
- Pilot pricked up his ears when I came in: then he jumped up with a
- yelp and a whine, and bounded towards me: he almost knocked the tray
- from my hands. I set it on the table; then patted him, and said
- softly, 'Lie down!' Mr. Rochester turned mechanically to see what
- the commotion was: but as he saw nothing, he returned and sighed.
-
- 'Give me the water, Mary,' he said.
-
- I approached him with the now only half-filled glass; Pilot
- followed me, still excited.
-
- 'What is the matter?' he inquired.
-
- 'Down, Pilot!' I again said. He checked the water on its way to his
- lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and put the glass down. 'This is
- you, Mary, is it not?'
-
- 'Mary is in the kitchen,' I answered.
-
- He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I
- stood, he did not touch me. 'Who is this? Who is this?' he demanded,
- trying, as it seemed, to see with those sightless eyes- unavailing and
- distressing attempt! 'Answer me- speak again!' he ordered, imperiously
- and aloud.
-
- 'Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was
- in the glass,' I said.
-
- 'Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?'
-
- 'Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this
- evening,' I answered.
-
- 'Great God!- what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has
- seized me?'
-
- 'No delusion- no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for
- delusion, your health too sound for frenzy.'
-
- 'And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I cannot see,
- but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever-
- whoever you are- be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!'
-
- He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both
- mine.
-
- 'Her very fingers!' he cried; 'her small, slight fingers! If so
- there must be more of her.'
-
- The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my
- shoulder- neck- waist- I was entwined and gathered to him.
-
- 'Is it Jane? What is it? This is her shape- this is her size-'
-
- 'And this her voice,' I added. 'She is all here: her heart, too.
- God bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you again.'
-
- 'Jane Eyre!- Jane Eyre,' was all he said.
-
- 'My dear master,' I answered, 'I am Jane Eyre: I have found you
- out- I am come back to you.'
-
- 'In truth?- in the flesh? My living Jane?'
-
- 'You touch me, sir,- you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold
- like a corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?'
-
- 'My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her
- features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a
- dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once
- more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus- and felt
- that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me.'
-
- 'Which I never will, sir, from this day.'
-
- 'Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an
- empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned- my life dark, lonely,
- hopeless- my soul athirst and forbidden to drink- my heart famished
- and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now,
- you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but
- kiss me before you go- embrace me, Jane.'
-
- 'There, sir- and there!'
-
- I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes- I
- swept his hair from his brow, and kissed that too. He suddenly
- seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this
- seized him.
-
- 'It is you- is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?'
-
- 'I am.'
-
- 'And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you
- are not a pining outcast amongst strangers?'
-
- 'No, sir! I am an independent woman now.'
-
- 'Independent! What do you mean, Jane?'
-
- 'My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds.'
-
- 'Ah! this is practical- this is real!' he cried: 'I should never
- dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers, so
- animating and piquant, as well as soft: it cheers my withered heart;
- it puts life into it.- What, Janet! Are you an independent woman? A
- rich woman?'
-
- 'Quite rich, sir. If you won't let me live with you, I can build
- a house of my own close up to your door, and you may come and sit in
- my parlour when you want company of an evening.'
-
- 'But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who
- will look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a
- blind lameter like me?'
-
- 'I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own
- mistress.'
-
- 'And you will stay with me?'
-
- 'Certainly- unless you object. I will be your neighbour, your
- nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your
- companion- to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to
- wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy,
- my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live.'
-
- He replied not: he seemed serious- abstracted; he sighed; he
- half-opened his lips as if to speak: he closed them again. I felt a
- little embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly overleaped
- conventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my
- inconsiderateness. I had indeed made my proposal from the idea that he
- wished and would ask me to be his wife: an expectation, not the less
- certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that he would claim
- me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect escaping him and his
- countenance becoming more overcast, I suddenly remembered that I might
- have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing the fool unwittingly; and
- I began gently to withdraw myself from his arms- but he eagerly
- snatched me closer.
-
- 'No- no- Jane; you must not go. No- I have touched you, heard
- you, felt the comfort of your presence- the sweetness of your
- consolation: I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in
- myself- I must have you. The world may laugh- may call me absurd,
- selfish- but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be
- satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.'
-
- 'Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so.'
-
- 'Yes- but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I
- understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be
- about my hand and chair- to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for you
- have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you
- to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought to suffice
- for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly
- feelings for you: do you think so? Come- tell me.'
-
- 'I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your
- nurse, if you think it better.'
-
- 'But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are young- you
- must marry one day.'
-
- 'I don't care about being married.'
-
- 'You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try
- to make you care- but- a sightless block!'
-
- He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more
- cheerful, and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an
- insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty
- with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I
- resumed a livelier vein of conversation.
-
- 'It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you,' said I,
- parting his thick and long uncut locks; 'for I see you are being
- metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a "faux
- air" of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain:
- your hair reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your nails are grown
- like birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed.'
-
- 'On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails,' he said, drawing
- the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. 'It is a
- mere stump- a ghastly sight! Don't you think so, Jane?'
-
- 'It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes- and the
- scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in
- danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of
- you.'
-
- 'I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my
- cicatrised visage.'
-
- 'Did you? Don't tell me so- lest I should say something disparaging
- to your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better
- fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a
- good fire?'
-
- 'Yes; with the right eye I see a glow- a ruddy haze.'
-
- 'And you see the candles?'
-
- 'Very dimly- each is a luminous cloud.'
-
- 'Can you see me?'
-
- 'No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you.'
-
- 'When do you take supper?'
-
- 'I never take supper.'
-
- 'But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry: so are you, I
- daresay, only you forget.'
-
- Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I
- prepared him, likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were excited,
- and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a
- long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of
- glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease,
- because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed either to
- console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought to life
- and light my whole nature: in his presence I thoroughly lived; and
- he lived in mine. Blind as he was, smiles played over his face, joy
- dawned on his forehead: his lineaments softened and warmed.
-
- After supper, he began to ask me many questions, of where I had
- been, what I had been doing, how I had found him out; but I gave him
- only very partial replies: it was too late to enter into particulars
- that night. Besides, I wished to touch no deep-thrilling chord- to
- open no fresh well of emotion in his heart: my sole present aim was to
- cheer him. Cheered, as I have said, he was: and yet but by fits. If
- a moment's silence broke the conversation, he would turn restless,
- touch me, then say, 'Jane.'
-
- 'You are altogether a human being, Janet? You are certain of that?'
-
- 'I conscientiously believe so, Mr. Rochester.'
-
- 'Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly
- rise on my lone hearth? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water
- from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question,
- expecting John's wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear.'
-
- 'Because I had come in, in Mary's stead, with the tray.'
-
- 'And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with
- you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on
- for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in
- day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out,
- of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at
- times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes: for her
- restoration I longed, far more than for that of my lost sight. How can
- it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart
- as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear I shall find her no more.'
-
- A commonplace, practical reply, out of the train of his own
- disturbed ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring for him
- in this frame of mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and
- remarked that they were scorched, and that I would apply something
- which would make them grow as broad and black as ever.
-
- 'Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit,
- when, at some fatal moment, you will again desert me- passing like a
- shadow, whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards
- undiscoverable?'
-
- 'Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir?'
-
- 'What for, Jane?'
-
- 'Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather
- alarming, when I examine you close at hand: you talk of my being a
- fairy, but I am sure, you are more like a brownie.'
-
- 'Am I hideous, Jane?'
-
- 'Very, sir: you always were, you know.'
-
- 'Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever
- you have sojourned.'
-
- 'Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a hundred
- times better people; possessed of ideas and views you never
- entertained in your life: quite more refined and exalted.'
-
- 'Who the deuce have you been with?'
-
- 'If you twist in that way you will make me pull the hair out of
- your head; and then I think you will cease to entertain doubts of my
- substantiality.'
-
- 'Who have you been with, Jane?'
-
- 'You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir; you must wait till
- to-morrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know, be a sort of
- security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it.
- By the bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth with only a glass
- of water then: I must bring an egg at the least, to say nothing of
- fried ham.'
-
- 'You mocking changeling- fairy-born and human-bred! You make me
- feel as I have not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have had
- you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without
- the aid of the harp.'
-
- 'There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I'll leave you: I
- have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am
- tired. Good night.'
-
- 'Just one word, Jane: were there only ladies in the house where you
- have been?'
-
- I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs.
- 'A good idea!' I thought with glee. 'I see I have the means of
- fretting him out of his melancholy for some time to come.'
-
- Very early the next morning I heard him up and astir, wandering
- from one room to another. As soon as Mary came down I heard the
- question: 'Is Miss Eyre here?' Then: 'Which room did you put her into?
- Was it dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants anything; and when
- she will come down.'
-
- I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast.
- Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he
- discovered my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to witness the
- subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat
- in his chair- still, but not at rest: expectant evidently; the lines
- of now habitual sadness marking his strong features. His countenance
- reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be re-lit- and alas! it
- was not himself that could now kindle the lustre of animated
- expression: he was dependent on another for that office! I had meant
- to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the strong man
- touched my heart to the quick: still I accosted him with what vivacity
- I could.
-
- 'It is a bright, sunny morning, sir,' I said. 'The rain is over and
- gone, and there is a tender shining after it: you shall have a walk
- soon.'
-
- I had wakened the glow: his features beamed.
-
- 'Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not
- gone: not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high
- over the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than the
- rising sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my
- Jane's tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a silent
- one): all the sunshine I can feel is in her presence.'
-
- The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence;
- just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced to
- entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be
- lachrymose: I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself with
- preparing breakfast.
-
- Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of the
- wet and wild wood into some cheerful fields: I described to him how
- brilliantly green they were; how the flowers and hedges looked
- refreshed; how sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought a seat for him
- in a hidden and lovely spot, a dry stump of a tree; nor did I refuse
- to let him, when seated, place me on his knee. Why should I, when both
- he and I were happier near than apart? Pilot lay beside us: all was
- quiet. He broke out suddenly while clasping me in his arms-
-
- 'Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered
- you had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you;
- and, after examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken no
- money, nor anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl
- necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little casket; your
- trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for the
- bridal tour. What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and
- penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now.'
-
- Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last
- year. I softened considerably what related to the three days of
- wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would have been
- to inflict unnecessary pain: the little I did say lacerated his
- faithful heart deeper than I wished.
-
- I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of
- making my way: I should have told him my intention. I should have
- confided in him: he would never have forced me to be his mistress.
- Violent as he had seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far
- too well and too tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he would
- have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in
- return, rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the
- wide world. I had endured, he was certain, more than I had confessed
- to him.
-
- 'Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short,' I
- answered: and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received
- at Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, etc.
- The accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in
- due order. Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in frequently in
- the progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was immediately
- taken up.
-
- 'This St. John, then, is your cousin?'
-
- 'Yes.'
-
- 'You have spoken of him often: do you like him?'
-
- 'He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him.'
-
- 'A good man. Does that mean a respectable well-conducted man of
- fifty? Or what does it mean?'
-
- 'St. John was only twenty-nine, sir.'
-
- '"Jeune encore," as the French say. Is he a person of low
- stature, phlegmatic, and plain? A person whose goodness consists
- rather in his guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue?'
-
- 'He is untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he lives
- to perform.'
-
- 'But his brain? That is probably rather soft? He means well: but
- you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?'
-
- 'He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. His
- brain is first-rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous.'
-
- 'Is he an able man, then?'
-
- 'Truly able.'
-
- 'A thoroughly educated man?'
-
- 'St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar.'
-
- 'His manners, I think, you said are not to your taste?- priggish
- and parsonic?'
-
- 'I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste,
- they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike.'
-
- 'His appearance,- I forget what description you gave of his
- appearance;- a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white
- neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?'
-
- 'St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with blue
- eyes, and a Grecian profile.'
-
- (Aside.) 'Damn him!'- (To me.) 'Did you like him, Jane?'
-
- 'Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but you asked me that before.'
-
- I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy
- had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it
- gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not,
- therefore, immediately charm the snake.
-
- 'Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss
- Eyre?' was the next somewhat unexpected observation.
-
- 'Why not, Mr. Rochester?'
-
- 'The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too
- overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a
- graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination,- tall, fair,
- blue-eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan,- a
- real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered: and blind and lame into
- the bargain.'
-
- 'I never thought of it, before; but you certainly are rather like
- Vulcan, sir.'
-
- Well, you can leave me, ma'am: but before you go' (and he
- retained me by a firmer grasp than ever), 'you will be pleased just to
- answer me a question or two.' He paused.
-
- 'What questions, Mr. Rochester?'
-
- Then followed this cross-examination.
-
- 'St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were
- his cousin?'
-
- 'Yes.'
-
- 'You would often see him? He would visit the school sometimes?'
-
- 'Daily.'
-
- 'He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they would be clever,
- for you are a talented creature!'
-
- 'He approved of them- yes.'
-
- 'He would discover many things in you he could not have expected to
- find? Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary.'
-
- 'I don't know about that.'
-
- 'You had a little cottage near the school, you say: did he ever
- come there to see you?'
-
- 'Now and then.'
-
- 'Of an evening?'
-
- 'Once or twice.'
-
- A pause.
-
- 'How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the
- cousinship was discovered?'
-
- 'Five months.'
-
- 'Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?'
-
- 'Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near the
- window, and we by the table.'
-
- 'Did he study much?'
-
- 'A good deal.'
-
- 'What?'
-
- 'Hindostanee.'
-
- 'And what did you do meantime?'
-
- 'I learnt German, at first.'
-
- 'Did he teach you?'
-
- 'He did not understand German.'
-
- 'Did he teach you nothing?'
-
- 'A little Hindostanee.'
-
- 'Rivers taught you Hindostanee?'
-
- 'Yes, sir.'
-
- 'And his sisters also?'
-
- 'No.'
-
- 'Only you?'
-
- 'Only me.'
-
- 'Did you ask to learn?'
-
- 'No.'
-
- 'He wished to teach you?'
-
- 'Yes.'
-
- A second pause.
-
- 'Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostanee be to you?'
-
- 'He intended me to go with him to India.'
-
- 'Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry
- him?'
-
- 'He asked me to marry him.'
-
- 'That is a fiction- an impudent invention to vex me.'
-
- 'I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more
- than once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could
- be.'
-
- 'Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say
- the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee,
- when I have given you notice to quit?'
-
- 'Because I am comfortable there.'
-
- 'No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not
- with me: it is with this cousin- this St. John. Oh, till this
- moment, I thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she
- loved me even when she left me: that was an atom of sweet in much
- bitter. Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our
- separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her, she was
- loving another! But it is useless grieving. Jane, leave me: go and
- marry Rivers.'
-
- 'Shake me off, then, sir,- push me away, for I'll not leave you
- of my own accord.'
-
- 'Jane, I ever like your tone of voice: it still renews hope, it
- sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I
- forget that you have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool-'
-
- 'Where must I go, sir?'
-
- 'Your own way- with the husband you have chosen.'
-
- 'Who is that?'
-
- 'You know- this St. John Rivers.'
-
- 'He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me: I
- do not love him. He loves (as he can love, and that is not as you
- love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me
- only because he thought I should make a suitable missionary's wife,
- which she would not have done. He is good and great, but severe;
- and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not
- happy at his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no indulgence
- for me- no fondness. He sees nothing attractive in me; not even youth-
- only a few useful mental points- Then I must leave you, sir, to go
- to him?'
-
- I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my
- blind but beloved master. He smiled.
-
- 'What, Jane! Is this true? Is such really the state of matters
- between you and Rivers?'
-
- 'Absolutely, sir! Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease
- you a little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better
- than grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much
- I do love you, you would be proud and content. All my heart is
- yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate
- to exile the rest of me from your presence for ever.'
-
- Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect.
-
- 'My seared vision! My crippled strength!' he murmured regretfully.
-
- I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking,
- and wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his
- face a minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid, and
- trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled.
-
- 'I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in
- Thornfield orchard,' he remarked ere long. 'And what right would
- that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with
- freshness?'
-
- 'You are no ruin, sir- no lightning-struck tree: you are green
- and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask
- them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and
- as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because
- your strength offers them so safe a prop.'
-
- Again he smiled: I gave him comfort.
-
- 'You speak of friends, Jane?' he asked.
-
- 'Yes, of friends,' I answered rather hesitatingly: for I knew I
- meant more than friends, but could not tell what other word to employ.
- He helped me.
-
- 'Ah! Jane. But I want a wife.'
-
- 'Do you, sir?'
-
- 'Yes: is it news to you?'
-
- 'Of course: you said nothing about it before.'
-
- 'Is it unwelcome news?'
-
- 'That depends on circumstances, sir- on your choice.'
-
- 'Which you shall make for me, Jane. I will abide by your decision.'
-
- 'Choose then, sir- her who loves you best.'
-
- 'I will at least choose- her I love best. Jane, will you marry me?'
-
- 'Yes, sir.'
-
- 'A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?'
-
- 'Yes, sir.'
-
- 'A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to
- wait on?'
-
- 'Yes, sir.'
-
- 'Truly, Jane?'
-
- 'Most truly, sir.'
-
- 'Oh! my darling! God bless you and reward you!'
-
- 'Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life- if ever I
- thought a good thought- if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless
- prayer- if ever I wished a righteous wish,- I am rewarded now. To be
- your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth.'
-
- 'Because you delight in sacrifice.'
-
- 'Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for
- content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value- to
- press my lips to what I love- to repose on what I trust: is that to
- make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice.'
-
- 'And to bear with my infirmities, Jane: to overlook my
- deficiencies.'
-
- 'Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can
- really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud
- independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver
- and protector.'
-
- 'Hitherto I have hated to be helped- to be led: henceforth, I
- feel I shall hate it no more. I did not like to put my hand into a
- hireling's, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane's little
- fingers. I preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of
- servants; but Jane's soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane suits
- me: do I suit her?'
-
- 'To the finest fibre of my nature, sir.'
-
- 'The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for: we
- must be married instantly.'
-
- He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising.
-
- 'We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but the
- licence to get- then we marry.'
-
- 'Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from
- its meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let me
- look at your watch.'
-
- 'Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward: I
- have no use for it.'
-
- 'It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, sir. Don't you feel
- hungry?'
-
- 'The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane. Never
- mind fine clothes and jewels, now: all that is not worth a fillip.'
-
- 'The sun has dried up all the rain-drops, sir. The breeze is still:
- it is quite hot.'
-
- 'Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl necklace at this
- moment fastened round my bronze scrag under my cravat? I have worn
- it since the day I lost my only treasure, as a memento of her.'
-
- 'We will go home through the wood: that will be the shadiest way.'
-
- He pursued his own thoughts without heeding me.
-
- 'Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart
- swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He
- sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but
- far more wisely. I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent flower-
- breathed guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent snatched it from me. I,
- in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation:
- instead of bending to the decree, I defied it. Divine justice
- pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass
- through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are
- mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for ever. You know I was
- proud of my strength: but what is it now, when I must give it over
- to foreign guidance, as a child does its weakness? Of late, Jane-
- only- only of late- I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God
- in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for
- reconcilement to my Maker. I began sometimes to pray: very brief
- prayers they were, but very sincere.
-
- 'Some days since: nay, I can number them- four; it was last
- Monday night, a singular mood came over me: one in which grief
- replaced frenzy- sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression
- that since I could nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that
- night- perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o'clock- ere I
- retired to my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that, if it seemed
- good to Him, I might soon be taken from this life, and admitted to
- that world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane.
-
- 'I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which was open:
- it soothed me to feel the balmy night-air; though I could see no
- stars, and only by a vague, luminous haze, knew the presence of a
- moon. I longed for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with soul
- and flesh! I asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if I had
- not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and might not
- soon taste bliss and peace once more. That I merited all I endured,
- I acknowledged- that I could scarcely endure more, I pleaded; and
- the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broke involuntarily from my
- lips in the words- "Jane! Jane! Jane!"'
-
- 'Did you speak these words aloud?'
-
- 'I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought
- me mad: I pronounced them with such frantic energy.'
-
- 'And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?'
-
- 'Yes; but the time is of no consequence: what followed is the
- strange point. You will think me superstitious- some superstition I
- have in my blood, and always had: nevertheless, this is true- true
- at least it is that I heard what I now relate.
-
- 'As I exclaimed "Jane! Jane! Jane!" a voice- I cannot tell whence
- the voice came, but I know whose voice it was- replied, "I am
- coming: wait for me;" and a moment after, went whispering on the
- wind the words- "Where are you?"
-
- 'I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words
- opened to my mind: yet it is difficult to express what I want to
- express. Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where
- sound falls dull, and dies unreverberating. "Where are you?" seemed
- spoken amongst mountains; for I heard a hill-sent echo repeat the
- words. Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my
- brow: I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane
- were meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt
- were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul
- wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were your accents-
- as certain as I live- they were yours!'
-
- Reader, it was on Monday night- near midnight- that I too had
- received the mysterious summons: those were the very words by which
- I replied to it. I listened to Mr. Rochester's narrative, but made
- no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and
- inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told anything, my
- tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression on
- the mind of my hearer: and that mind, yet from its sufferings too
- prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural. I
- kept these things then, and pondered them in my heart.
-
- 'You cannot now wonder,' continued my master, 'that when you rose
- upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing
- you any other than a mere voice and vision, something that would
- melt to silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain
- echo had melted before. Now, I thank God! I know it to be otherwise.
- Yes, I thank God!'
-
- He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from
- his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in
- mute devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible.
-
- 'I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has
- remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength
- to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!'
-
- Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand,
- held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder: being
- so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and
- guide. We entered the wood, and wended homeward.
-
- CHAPTER XXXVIII
-
-
- CONCLUSION
-
-
- READER, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson
- and clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I went
- into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner
- and John cleaning the knives, and I said-
-
- 'Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning.' The
- housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic
- order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a
- remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having
- one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently
- stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she
- did stare at me: the ladle with which she was basting a pair of
- chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang
- suspended in air; and for the same space of time John's knives also
- had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending again over
- the roast, said only-
-
- 'Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!'
-
- A short time after she pursued- 'I seed you go out with the master,
- but I didn't know you were gone to church to be wed;' and she basted
- away. John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear.
-
- 'I telled Mary how it would be,' he said: 'I knew what Mr.
- Edward' (John was an old servant, and had known his master when he was
- the cadet of the house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian
- name)- 'I knew what Mr. Edward would do; and I was certain he would
- not wait long neither: and he's done right, for aught I know. I wish
- you joy, Miss!' and he politely pulled his forelock.
-
- 'Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this.'
- I put into his hand a five-pound note. Without waiting to hear more, I
- left the kitchen. In passing the door of that sanctum some time after,
- I caught the words-
-
- 'She'll happen do better for him nor ony o' t' grand ladies.' And
- again, 'If she ben't one o' th' handsomest, she's noan faal and
- varry good-natured; and i' his een she's fair beautiful, onybody may
- see that.'
-
- I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say what I
- had done: fully explaining also why I had thus acted. Diana and Mary
- approved the step unreservedly. Diana announced that she would just
- give me time to get over the honeymoon, and then she would come and
- see me.
-
- 'She had better not wait till then, Jane,' said Mr. Rochester, when
- I read her letter to him; 'if she does, she will be too late, for
- our honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade
- over your grave or mine.'
-
- How St. John received the news, I don't know: he never answered the
- letter in which I communicated it: yet six months after he wrote to
- me, without, however, mentioning Mr. Rochester's name or alluding to
- my marriage. His letter was then calm, and, though very serious, kind.
- He has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence
- ever since: he hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not of those who live
- without God in the world, and only mind earthly things.
-
- You have not quite forgotten little Adele, have you, reader? I
- had not; I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr. Rochester, to go and
- see her at the school where he had placed her. Her frantic joy at
- beholding me again moved me much. She looked pale and thin: she said
- she was not happy. I found the rules of the establishment were too
- strict, its course of study too severe for a child of her age: I
- took her home with me. I meant to become her governess once more,
- but I soon found this impracticable; my time and cares were now
- required by another- my husband needed them all. So I sought out a
- school conducted on a more indulgent system, and near enough to permit
- of my visiting her often, and bringing her home sometimes. I took care
- she should never want for anything that could contribute to her
- comfort: she soon settled in her new abode, became very happy there,
- and made fair progress in her studies. As she grew up, a sound English
- education corrected in a great measure her French defects; and when
- she left school, I found in her a pleasing and obliging companion:
- docile, good-tempered, and well-principled. By her grateful
- attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any little
- kindness I ever had it in my power to offer her.
-
- My tale draws to its close: one word respecting my experience of
- married life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose
- names have most frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have
- done.
-
- I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live
- entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself
- supremely blest- blest beyond what language can express; because I
- am my husband's life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever
- nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone
- and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward's society: he
- knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the
- heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever
- together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in
- solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to
- talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All
- my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me;
- we are precisely suited in character-perfect concord is the result.
-
- Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union:
- perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near- that
- knit us so very close: for I was then his vision, as I am still his
- right hand. Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of
- his eye. He saw nature- he saw books through me; and never did I weary
- of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of
- field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam- of the landscape before
- us; of the weather round us- and impressing by sound on his ear what
- light could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading
- to him; never did I weary of conducting him where he wished to go:
- of doing for him what he wished to be done. And there was a pleasure
- in my services, most full, most exquisite, even though sad- because he
- claimed these services without painful shame or damping humiliation.
- He loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my
- attendance: he felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that
- attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.
-
- One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a
- letter to his dictation, he came and bent over me, and said-
-
- 'Jane, have you a glittering ornament round your neck?'
-
- I had a gold watch-chain: I answered 'Yes.'
-
- 'And have you a pale-blue dress on?'
-
- I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the
- obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense; and that now he
- was sure of it.
-
- He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent
- oculist; and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He
- cannot now see very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he
- can find his way without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a
- blank to him- the earth no longer a void. When his first-born was
- put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own
- eyes, as they once were- large, brilliant, and black. On that
- occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God had
- tempered judgment with mercy.
-
- My Edward and I, then, are happy: and the more so, because those we
- most love are happy likewise. Diana and Mary Rivers are both
- married: alternately, once every year, they come to see us, and we
- go to see them. Diana's husband is a captain in the navy, a gallant
- officer and a good man. Mary's is a clergyman, a college friend of her
- brother's, and, from his attainments and principles, worthy of the
- connection. Both Captain Fitzjames and Mr. Wharton love their wives,
- and are loved by them.
-
- As to St. John Rivers, he left England: he went to India. He
- entered on the path he had marked for himself; he pursues it still.
- A more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks
- and dangers. Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal,
- and truth, he labours for his race; he clears their painful way to
- improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and
- caste that encumber it. He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be
- ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who
- guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the
- exaction of the apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he says-
- 'Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his
- cross and follow me.' His is the ambition of the high master-spirit,
- which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those who are redeemed
- from the earth- who stand without fault before the throne of God,
- who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb, who are called, and
- chosen, and faithful.
-
- St. John is unmarried: he never will marry now. Himself has
- hitherto sufficed to the toil, and the toil draws near its close:
- his glorious sun hastens to its setting. The last letter I received
- from him drew from my eyes human tears, and yet filled my heart with
- divine joy: he anticipated his sure reward, his incorruptible crown. I
- know that a stranger's hand will write to me next, to say that the
- good and faithful servant has been called at length into the joy of
- his Lord. And why weep for this? No fear of death will darken St.
- John's last hour: his mind will be unclouded, his heart will be
- undaunted, his hope will be sure, his faith steadfast. His own words
- are a pledge of this-
-
- 'My Master,' he says, 'has forewarned me. Daily He announces more
- distinctly,- "Surely I come quickly!" and hourly I more eagerly
- respond,- "Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!"'
-
-
-
- THE END
-