textfiles/etext/FICTION/jane_eyre

                                      1846
                                   JANE EYRE
                              by Charlotte Bronte
                     THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE
                     TO THE SECOND EDITION

   A PREFACE to the first edition of Jane Eyre being unnecessary, I
gave none: this second edition demands a few words both of
acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark.
   My thanks are due in three quarters.
   To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain
tale with few pretensions.
   To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened
to an obscure aspirant.
   To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their
practical sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and
unrecommended Author.
   The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and
I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so
are certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only
large-hearted and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling
stranger; to them, i.e., to my Publishers and the select Reviewers,
I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.
   Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and
approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know,
but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping
few who doubt the tendency of such books as Jane Eyre: in whose eyes
whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest
against bigotry- that parent of crime- an insult to piety, that regent
of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious
distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths.
   Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not
religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck
the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand
to the Crown of Thorns.
   These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as
distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they
should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth;
narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few,
should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ.
There is- I repeat it- a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad
action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between
them.
   The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has
been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make
external show pass for sterling worth- to let white-washed walls vouch
for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose-
to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it- to penetrate the
sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is
indebted to him.
   Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good
concerning him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of
Chenaanah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he
but stopped his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel.
   There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle
delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of
society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of
Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as
prophet-like and as vital- a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the
satirist of Vanity Fair admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I
think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his
sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation,
were to take his warnings in time- they or their seed might yet escape
a fatal Ramoth-Gilead.
   Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader,
because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique
than his contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as
the first social regenerator of the day- as the very master of that
working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of
things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found
the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterise
his talent. They say he is like Fielding: they talk of his wit,
humour, comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a
vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does.
His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same
relation to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning
playing under the edge of the summer-cloud does to the electric
death-spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray,
because to him- if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger- I
have dedicated this second edition of Jane Eyre.
                                                         CURRER BELL.
   December 21st, 1847.
                       THE AUTHOR'S NOTE
                      TO THE THIRD EDITION

   I AVAIL myself of the opportunity which a third edition of Jane
Eyre affords me, of again addressing a word to the Public, to
explain that my claim to the title of novelist rests on this one
work alone. If, therefore, the authorship of other works of fiction
has been attributed to me, an honour is awarded where it is not
merited; and consequently, denied where it is justly due.
   This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already
have been made, and to prevent future errors.
                                                         CURRER BELL.
   April 13th, 1848.
                         JANE EYRE

                          CHAPTER I

   THERE was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been
wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning;
but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early)
the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a
rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of
the question.
   I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly
afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight,
with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings
of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my
physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.
   The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round
their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the
fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither
quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had
dispensed from joining the group; saying, 'She regretted to be under
the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard
from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was
endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and
childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner-
something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were- she really
must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy,
little children.'
   'What does Bessie say I have done?' I asked.
   'Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is
something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that
manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly,
remain silent.'
   A small breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in
there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume,
taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into
the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a
Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was
shrined in double retirement.
   Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to
the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating
me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the
leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon.
Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet
lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly
before a long and lamentable blast.
   I returned to my book- Bewick's History of British Birds: the
letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet
there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could
not pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts
of sea-fowl; of 'the solitary rocks and promontories' by them only
inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its
southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape-

           'Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,
            Boils round the naked, melancholy isles
            Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge
            Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.'

Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of
Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with
'the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of
dreary space,- that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields
of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine
heights above heights, surround the pole and concentre the
multiplied rigours of extreme cold.' Of these death-white realms I
formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended
notions that float dim through children's brains, but strangely
impressive. The words in these introductory pages connected themselves
with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock
standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat
stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing
through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.
   I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard,
with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low
horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent,
attesting the hour of eventide.
   The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine
phantoms.
   The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed over
quickly: it was an object of terror.
   So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a
distant crowd surrounding a gallows.
   Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped
understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting:
as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter
evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having
brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit
about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped
her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love
and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as
at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry,
Earl of Moreland.
   With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way.
I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The
breakfast-room door opened.
   'Boh! Madam Mope!' cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he
found the room apparently empty.
   'Where the dickens is she!' he continued. 'Lizzy! Georgy!
(calling to his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out
into the rain- bad animal!'
   'It is well I drew the curtain,' thought I; and I wished
fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed
have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or
conception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at
once-
   'She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack.'
   And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being
dragged forth by the said Jack.
   'What do you want?' I asked, with awkward diffidence.
   'Say, "What do you want, Master Reed?"' was the answer. 'I want you
to come here;' and seating himself in an armchair, he intimated by a
gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.
   John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older
than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy
and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy
limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table,
which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and
flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had
taken him home for a month or two, 'on account of his delicate
health.' Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if
he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home; but the mother's
heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more
refined idea that John's sallowness was owing to over-application and,
perhaps, to pining after home.
   John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an
antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in
the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I
had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he
came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he
inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his
menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend
their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was
blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him
abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more
frequently, however, behind her back.
   Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent
some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he
could without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and
while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance
of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in
my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and
strongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a
step or two from his chair.
   'That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since,' said
he, 'and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the
look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!'
   Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to
it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow
the insult.
   'What were you doing behind the curtain?' he asked.
   'I was reading.'
   'Show the book.'
   I returned to the window and fetched it thence.
   'You have no business to take our books; you are a dependant,
mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought
to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and
eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense. Now,
I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they are mine; all the
house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the
door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows.'
   I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw
him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I
instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough,
however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head
against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp:
my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.
   'Wicked and cruel boy!' I said. 'You are like a murderer- you are
like a slave-driver- you are like the Roman emperors!'
   I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion
of Nero, Caligula, etc. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I
never thought thus to have declared aloud.
   'What! what!' he cried. 'Did she say that to me? Did you hear
her, Eliza and Georgiana? Won't I tell mama? but first-'
   He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he
had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a
murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my
neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations
for the time predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic
sort. I don't very well know what I did with my hands, but he called
me 'Rat! Rat!' and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him: Eliza and
Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came
upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted:
I heard the words-
   'Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!'
   'Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!'
   Then Mrs. Reed subjoined-
   'Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.' Four
hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.
                          CHAPTER II

   I RESISTED all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance
which greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot
were disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside
myself; or rather out of myself, as the French would say: I was
conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable to
strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved,
in my desperation, to go all lengths.
   'Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she's like a mad cat.'
   'For shame! for shame!' cried the lady's-maid. 'What shocking
conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress's
son! Your young master.'
   'Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?'
   'No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep.
There, sit down, and think over your wickedness.'
   They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs.
Reed, and had thrust me upon a stool: my impulse was to rise from it
like a spring; their two pair of hands arrested me instantly.
   'If you don't sit still, you must be tied down,' said Bessie. 'Miss
Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly.'
   Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary
ligature. This preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it
inferred, took a little of the excitement out of me.
   'Don't take them off,' I cried; 'I will not stir.'
   In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands.
   'Mind you don't,' said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that
I was really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she and Miss
Abbot stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my
face, as incredulous of my sanity.
   'She never did so before,' at last said Bessie, turning to the
Abigail.
   'But it was always in her,' was the reply. 'I've told Missis
often my opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me. She's
an underhand little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with so
much cover.'
   Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said-
   'You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to
Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would
have to go to the poorhouse.'
   I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my
very first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind.
This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear:
very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible. Miss Abbot
joined in-
   'And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses
Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought
up with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will
have none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to make
yourself agreeable to them.'
   'What we tell you is for your good,' added Bessie, in no harsh
voice; 'you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you
would have a home here; but if you become passionate and rude,
Missis will send you away, I am sure.'
   'Besides,' said Miss Abbot, 'God will punish her: He might strike
her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go?
Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn't have her heart for
anything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for
if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the
chimney and fetch you away.'
   They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.
   The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might
say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at
Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the
accommodation it contained: yet it was one of the largest and
stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars
of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a
tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds
always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar
drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was
covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour with a
blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were
of darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding
shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and
pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane.
Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the
head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and
looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.
   This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent,
because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was
known to be so seldom entered. The housemaid alone came here on
Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quiet
dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review
the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were
stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her
deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the
red-room- the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur.
   Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he
breathed his last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by
the undertaker's men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary
consecration had guarded it from frequent intrusion.
   My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me
riveted, was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose
before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with
subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my
left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them
repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite
sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up
and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I
had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance
involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and
darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange
little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms
specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all
else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one
of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories
represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing
before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to my stool.
   Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her
hour for complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the
revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to
stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the
dismal present.
   All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud
indifference, all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality,
turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well.
Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for
ever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to
win any one's favour? Eliza, who, was headstrong and selfish, was
respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite,
a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her
beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to
all who, looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault.
John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the
necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at
the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the
buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called his mother
'old girl,' too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to
his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and
spoiled her silk attire; and he was still 'her own darling.' I dared
commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed
naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and
from noon to night.
   My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received:
no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had
turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was
loaded with general opprobrium.
   'Unjust!- unjust!' said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus
into precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally
wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from
insupportable oppression- as running away, or, if that could not be
effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.
   What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How
all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in
what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I
could not answer the ceaseless inward question- why I thus suffered;
now, at the distance of- I will not say how many years, I see it
clearly.
   I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had
nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen
vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love
them. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that
could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing,
opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a
useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their
pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at
their treatment, of contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been
a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child-
though equally dependent and friendless- Mrs. Reed would have
endured my presence more complacently; her children would have
entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the
servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the
nursery.
   Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o'clock,
and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the
rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the
wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a
stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation,
self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying
ire. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought
had I been but just conceiving of starving myself to death? That
certainly was a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault under
the chancel of Gateshead Church an inviting bourne? In such vault I
had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by this thought to
recall his idea, I dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could not
remember him; but I knew that he was my own uncle- my mother's
brother- that he had taken me when a parentless infant to his house;
and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed
that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children. Mrs.
Reed probably considered she had kept this promise; and so she had,
I dare say, as well as her nature would permit her; but how could
she really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnected with
her, after her husband's death, by any tie? It must have been most
irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the
stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an
uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family group.
   A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted not- never doubted-
that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and
now, as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls-
occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly
gleaming mirror- I began to recall what I had heard of dead men,
troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes,
revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the
oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs
of his sister's child, might quit its abode- whether in the church
vault or in the unknown world of the departed- and rise before me in
this chamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any
sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me,
or elicit from the gloom some haloed face, bending over me with
strange pity. This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt would be
terrible if realised: with all my might I endeavoured to stifle it-
I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my
head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; at this moment a
light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon
penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was still, and
this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and
quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this streak
of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by
some one across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for
horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift
darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world. My
heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I
deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was
oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door
and shook the lock in desperate effort. Steps came running along the
outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered.
   'Miss Eyre, are you ill?' said Bessie.
   'What a dreadful noise! it went quite through me!' exclaimed Abbot.
   'Take me out! Let me go into the nursery!' was my cry.
   'What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?' again demanded
Bessie.
   'Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come.' I had now
got hold of Bessie's hand, and she did not snatch it from me.
   'She has screamed out on purpose,' declared Abbot, in some disgust.
'And what a scream! If she had been in great pain one would have
excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know her
naughty tricks.'
   'What is all this?' demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs.
Reed came along the corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling
stormily. 'Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre
should be left in the red-room till I came to her myself.'
   'Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma'am,' pleaded Bessie.
   'Let her go,' was the only answer. 'Loose Bessie's hand, child: you
cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured. I abhor
artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show you that
tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer, and
it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness that I
shall liberate you then.'
   'O aunt! have pity! forgive me! I cannot endure it- let me be
punished some other way! I shall be killed if-'
   'Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:' and so, no doubt,
she felt it. I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely.
looked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and
dangerous duplicity.
   Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now
frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me
in, without farther parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soon
after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit:
unconsciousness closed the scene.
                         CHAPTER III

   THE next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I
had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red
glare, crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking
with a hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water:
agitation, uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror
confused my faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was
handling me; lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and
that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I
rested my head against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy.
   In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved: I knew
quite well that I was in my own bed, and that the red glare was the
nursery fire. It was night: a candle burnt on the table; Bessie
stood at the bed-foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in
a chair near my pillow, leaning over me.
   I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection
and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an
individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed.
Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to
me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised
the face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an
apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were
ailing: for herself and the children she employed a physician.
   'Well, who am I?' he asked.
   I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand: he
took it, smiling and saying, 'We shall do very well by and by.' Then
he laid me down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be very careful
that I was not disturbed during the night. Having given some further
directions, and intimated that he should call again the next day, he
departed; to my grief: I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat
in the chair near my pillow; and as he closed the door after him,
all the room darkened and my heart again sank: inexpressible sadness
weighed it down.
   'Do you feel as if you should sleep, Miss?' asked Bessie, rather
softly.
   Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might
be rough. 'I will try.'
   'Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?'
   'No, thank you, Bessie.'
   'Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twelve o'clock; but
you may call me if you want anything in the night.'
   Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question.
   'Bessie, what is the matter with me? Am I ill?'
   'You fell sick, I suppose, in the red-room with crying; you'll be
better soon, no doubt.'
   Bessie went into the housemaid's apartment, which was near. I heard
her say-
   'Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren't for my
life be alone with that poor child tonight: she might die; it's such a
strange thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw
anything. Missis was rather too hard.'
   Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were
whispering together for half an hour before they fell asleep. I caught
scraps of their conversation, from which I was able only too
distinctly to infer the main subject discussed.
   'Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished'- 'A
great black dog behind him'- 'Three loud raps on the chamber door'-
'A light in the churchyard just over his grave,' etc., etc.
   At last both slept: the fire and the candle went out. For me, the
watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; ear, eye,
and mind were alike strained by dread: such dread as children only can
feel.
   No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the
red-room; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the
reverberation to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful
pangs of mental suffering, but I ought to forgive you, for you knew
not what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were
only uprooting my bad propensities.
   Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl
by the nursery hearth. I felt physically weak and broken down: but
my worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a
wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had
I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed. Yet, I
thought, I ought to have been happy, for none of the Reeds were there,
they were all gone out in the carriage with their mama. Abbot, too,
was sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved hither and
thither, putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed to me
every now and then a word of unwonted kindness. This state of things
should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a
life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my
racked nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe,
and no pleasure excite them agreeably.
   Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with
her a tart on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird of
paradise, nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been
wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and
which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in
order to examine it more closely, but had always hitherto been
deemed unworthy of such a privilege. This precious vessel was now
placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of
delicate pastry upon it. Vain favour! coming, like most other
favours long deferred and often wished for, too late! I could not
eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird, the tints of the flowers,
seemed strangely faded: I put both plate and tart away. Bessie asked
if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus,
and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from the library. This
book I had again and again perused with delight. I considered it a
narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper
than what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves, having sought
them in vain among fox-glove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and
beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at length made
up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of England to
some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the
population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdingnag being, in
my creed, solid parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I
might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the
little fields, houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny
cows, sheep, and birds of the one realm; and the corn-fields,
forest-high, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men
and women, of the other. Yet, when this cherished volume was now
placed in my hand- when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its
marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find-
all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies
malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most
dread and dangerous regions. I closed the book, which I dared no
longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the untasted tart.
   Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having
washed her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid
shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for
Georgiana's doll. Meantime she sang: her song was-

                 'In the days when we were gipsying,
                        A long time ago.'

   I had often heard the song before, and always with lively
delight; for Bessie had a sweet voice,- at least, I thought so. But
now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an
indescribable sadness. Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she
sang the refrain very low, very lingeringly; 'A long time ago' came
out like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn. She passed into
another ballad, this time a really doleful one.

   'My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;
     Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;
   Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
     Over the path of the poor orphan child.

   Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
     Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled?
   Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only
     Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child.

   Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing,
     Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild,
   God, in His mercy, protection is showing,
     Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.

   Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing,
     Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,
   Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,
     Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.

   There is a thought that for strength should avail me,
     Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;
   Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;
     God is a friend to the poor orphan child.'

   'Come, Miss Jane, don't cry,' said Bessie as she finished. She
might as well have said to the fire, 'don't burn!' but how could she
divine the morbid suffering to which I was a prey? In the course of
the morning Mr. Lloyd came again.
   'What, already up!' said he, as he entered the nursery. 'Well,
nurse, how is she?'
   Bessie answered that I was doing very well.
   'Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Mis Jane: your
name is Jane, is it not?'
   'Yes, sir, Jane Eyre.'
   'Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what
about? Have you any pain?'
   'No, sir.'
   'Oh! I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with
Missis in the carriage,' interposed Bessie.
   'Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness.'
   I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false
charge, I answered promptly, 'I never cried for such a thing in my
life: I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable.'
   'Oh fie, Miss!' said Bessie.
   The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing
before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small
and grey; not very bright, but I daresay I should think them shrewd
now: he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking face. Having
considered me at leisure, he said-
   'What made you ill yesterday?'
   'She had a fall,' said Bessie, again putting in her word.
   'Fall! why, that is like a baby again! Can't she manage to walk
at her age? She must be eight or nine years old.'
   'I was knocked down,' was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me
by another pang of mortified pride; 'but that did not make me ill,'
I added; while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff.
   As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell
rang for the servants' dinner; he knew what it was. 'That's for you,
nurse,' said he; 'you can go down; I'll give Miss Jane a lecture
till you come back.'
   Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because
punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gates-head Hall.
   'The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?' pursued Mr.
Lloyd when Bessie was gone.
   'I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark.'
   I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time. 'Ghost! What, you
are a baby after all! You are afraid of ghosts?'
   'Of Mr. Reed's ghost I am: he died in that room, and was laid out
there. Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night, if
they can help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without a
candle,- so cruel that I think I shall never forget it.'
   'Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid
now in daylight?'
   'No: but night will come again before long: and besides,- I am
unhappy,- very unhappy, for other things.'
   'What other things? Can you tell me some of them?'
   How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it
was to frame any answer! Children can feel, but they cannot analyse
their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in
thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in
words. Fearful, however, of losing this first and only opportunity
of relieving my grief by imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause,
contrived to frame a meagre, though, as far as it went, true response.
   'For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters.'
   'You have a kind aunt and cousins.'
   Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced-
   'But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the
red-room.'
   Mr. Lloyd a second time produced his snuff-box.
   'Don't you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?' asked
he. 'Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?'
   'It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be
here than a servant.'
   'Pooh! you can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid
place?'
   'If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but
I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman.'
   'Perhaps you may- who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs.
Reed?'
   'I think not, sir.'
   'None belonging to your father?'
   'I don't know: I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I
might have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew
nothing about them.'
   'If you had such, would you like to go to them?'
   I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to
children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable
poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes,
scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices:
poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.
   'No; I should not like to belong to poor people,' was my reply.
   'Not even if they were kind to you?'
   I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of
being kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their
manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw
sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at the
cottage doors of the village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough
to purchase liberty at the price of caste.
   'But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people?'
   'I cannot tell; Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a
beggarly set: I should not like to go a-begging.'
   'Would you like to go to school?'
   Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: Bessie
sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks,
wore backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and
precise: John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John
Reed's tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie's accounts of
school-discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where
she had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her
details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies
were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful
paintings of landscapes and flowers by them executed; of songs they
could sing and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of
French books they could translate; till my spirit was moved to
emulation as I listened. Besides, school would be a complete change:
it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an
entrance into a new life.
   'I should indeed like to go to school,' was the audible
conclusion of my musings.
   'Well, well! who knows what may happen?' said Mr. Lloyd, as he
got up. 'The child ought to have change of air and scene,' he added,
speaking to himself; 'nerves not in a good state.'
   Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard
rolling up the gravel-walk.
   'Is that your mistress, nurse?' asked Mr. Lloyd. 'I should like
to speak to her before I go.'
   Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast-room, and led the way
out. In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I
presume, from after-occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to
recommend my being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt
readily enough adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the subject
with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was
in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, 'Missis was, she dared say, glad
enough to get rid of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who
always looked as if she were watching everybody, and scheming plots
underhand.' Abbot, I think, gave me credit for being a sort of
infantine Guy Fawkes.
   On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss
Abbot's communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor
clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her
friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather
Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a
shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the
latter caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a
large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that
disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from
him, and both died within a month of each other.
   Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, 'Poor
Miss Jane is to be pitied too, Abbot.'
   'Yes,' responded Abbot; 'if she were a nice, pretty child, one
might compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for
such a little toad as that.'
   'Not a great deal, to be sure,' agreed Bessie: 'at any rate, a
beauty like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same
condition.'
   'Yes, I doat on Miss Georgiana!' cried the fervent Abbot. 'Little
darling!- with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet
colour as she has; just as if she were painted!- Bessie, I could fancy
a Welsh rabbit for supper.'
   'So could I- with a roast onion. Come, we'll go down.' They went.
                          CHAPTER IV

   FROM my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported
conference between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to
suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near,-
I desired and waited it in silence. It tarried, however: days and
weeks passed: I had regained my normal state of health, but no new
allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded. Mrs. Reed
surveyed me at times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed me: since
my illness, she had drawn a more marked line of separation than ever
between me and her own children; appointing me a small closet to sleep
in by myself, condemning me to take my meals alone, and pass all my
time in the nursery, while my cousins were constantly in the
drawing-room. Not a hint, however, did she drop about sending me to
school: still I felt an instinctive certainty that she would not
long endure me under the same roof with her; for her glance, now
more than ever, when turned on me, expressed an insuperable and rooted
aversion.
   Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to
me as little as possible: John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever
he saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I instantly
turned against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep ire and
desperate revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he thought it
better to desist, and ran from me uttering execrations, and vowing I
had burst his nose. I had indeed levelled at that prominent feature as
hard a blow as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that either
that or my look daunted him, I had the greatest inclination to
follow up my advantage to purpose; but he was already with his mama. I
heard him in a blubbering tone commence the tale of how 'that nasty
Jane Eyre' had flown at him like a mad cat: he was stopped rather
harshly-
   'Don't talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her;
she is not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or your
sisters should associate with her.'
   Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and
without at all deliberating on my words-
   'They are not fit to associate with me.'
   Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this strange
and audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me
like a whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge of
my crib, dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place, or
utter one syllable during the remainder of the day.
   'What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?' was my
scarcely voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed
as if my tongue pronounced words, without my will consenting to
their utterance: something spoke out of me over which I had no
control.
   'What?' said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold
composed grey eye became troubled with a look like fear; she took
her hand from my arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know
whether I were child or fiend. I was now in for it.
   'My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think;
and so can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long,
and how you wish me dead.'
   Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly,
she boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie
supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she
proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child
ever reared under a roof. I half believed her; for I felt indeed
only bad feelings surging in my breast.
   November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas
and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual
festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening
parties given. From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my
share of the gaiety consisted in witnessing the daily apparelling of
Eliza and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawing-room,
dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair
elaborately ringleted; and afterwards, in listening to the sound of
the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the
butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments
were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room
door opened and closed. When tired of this occupation, I would
retire from the stair-head to the solitary and silent nursery:
there, though somewhat sad, I was not miserable. To speak truth, I had
not the least wish to go into company, for in company I was very
rarely noticed; and if Bessie had but been kind and companionable, I
should have deemed it a treat to spend the evenings quietly with
her, instead of passing them under the formidable eye of Mrs. Reed, in
a room full of ladies and gentlemen. But Bessie, as soon as she had
dressed her young ladies, used to take herself off to the lively
regions of the kitchen and housekeeper's room, generally bearing the
candle along with her. I then sat with my doll on my knee till the
fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure that nothing
worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers sank
to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings as
I best might, and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib. To
this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something,
and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to
find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image,
shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with
what absurd sincerity I doated on this little toy, half fancying it
alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded
in my night-gown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was
comparatively happy, believing it to be happy likewise.
   Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the
company, and listened for the sound of Bessie's step on the stairs:
sometimes she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her
scissors, or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper- a bun
or a cheese-cake- then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and
when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice
she kissed me, and said, 'Good night, Miss Jane.' When thus gentle,
Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world;
and I wished most intensely that she would always be so pleasant and
amiable, and never push me about, or scold, or task me unreasonably,
as she was too often wont to do. Bessie, Lee must, I think, have
been a girl of good natural capacity, for she was smart in all she
did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative; so, at least, I judge
from the impression made on me by her nursery tales. She was pretty
too, if my recollections of her face and person are correct. I
remember her as a slim young woman, with black hair, dark eyes, very
nice features, and good, clear complexion; but she had a capricious
and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas of principle or justice:
still, such as she was, I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead
Hall.
   It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o'clock in the morning:
Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been
summoned to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm
garden-coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she was
fond: and not less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper and
hoarding up the money she thus obtained. She had a turn for traffic,
and a marked propensity for saving; shown not only in the vending of
eggs and chickens, but also in driving hard bargains with the gardener
about flower-roots, seeds, and slips of plants; that functionary
having orders from Mrs. Reed to buy of his young lady all the products
of her parterre she wished to sell: and Eliza would have sold the hair
off her head if she could have made a handsome profit thereby. As to
her money, she first secreted it in odd corners, wrapped in a rag or
an old curl-paper; but some of these hoards having been discovered
by the housemaid, Eliza, fearful of one day losing her valued
treasure, consented to intrust it to her mother, at a usurious rate of
interest- fifty or sixty per cent.; which interest she exacted every
quarter, keeping her accounts in a little book with anxious accuracy.
   Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass,
and interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers,
of which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I was
making my bed, having received strict orders from Bessie to get it
arranged before she returned, (for Bessie now frequently employed me
as a sort of under-nurserymaid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs,
etc.). Having spread the quilt and folded my night-dress, I went to
the window-seat to put in order some picture-books and doll's house
furniture scattered there; an abrupt command from Georgiana to let her
playthings alone (for the tiny chairs and mirrors, the fairy plates
and cups, were her property) stopped my proceedings; and then, for
lack of other occupation, I fell to breathing on the frost-flowers
with which the window was fretted, and thus clearing a space in the
glass through which I might look out on the grounds, where all was
still and petrified under the influence of a hard frost.
   From this window were visible the porter's lodge and the
carriage-road, and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver-white
foliage veiling the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates
thrown open and a carriage roll through. I watched it ascending the
drive with indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none
ever brought visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of
the house, the door-bell rang loudly, the new-comer was admitted.
All this being nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found
livelier attraction in the spectacle of a little hungry robin, which
came and chirruped on the twigs of the leafless cherry-tree nailed
against the wall near the casement. The remains of my breakfast of
bread and milk stood on the table, and having crumbled a morsel of
roll, I was tugging at the sash to put out the crumbs on the
window-sill, when Bessie came running upstairs into the nursery.
   'Miss Jane, take off your pinafore; what are you doing there?
Have you washed your hands and face this morning?' I gave another
tug before I answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its
bread: the sash yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone
sill, some on the cherry-tree bough, then, closing the window, I
replied-
   'No, Bessie; I have only just finished dusting.'
   'Troublesome, careless child! and what are you doing now? You
look quite red, as if you have been about some mischief: what were you
opening the window for?'
   I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too
great a hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the
washstand, inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face
and hands with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head
with a bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying
me to the top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was
wanted in the breakfast-room.
   I would have asked who wanted me: I would have demanded if Mrs.
Reed was there; but Bessie was already gone, and had closed the
nursery-door upon me. I slowly descended. For nearly three months, I
had never been called to Mrs. Reed's presence; restricted so long to
the nursery, the breakfast, dining, and drawing-rooms were become
for me awful regions, on which it dismayed me to intrude.
   I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast-room
door, and I stopped, intimidated and trembling. What a miserable
little poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of
me in those days! I feared to return to the nursery, and feared to
go forward to the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated hesitation;
the vehement ringing of the breakfast-room bell decided me; I must
enter.
   'Who could want me?' I asked inwardly, as with both hands I
turned the stiff door-handle, which, for a second or two, resisted
my efforts. 'What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment?-
a man or a woman?' The handle turned, the door unclosed, and passing
through and curtseying low, I looked up at- a black pillar!- such,
at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow,
sable-clad shape standing erect on the rug: the grim face at the top
was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft by way of capital.
   Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a
signal to me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the stony
stranger with the words: 'This is the little girl respecting whom I
applied to you.'
   He, for it was a man, turned his head slowly towards where I stood,
and having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking grey eyes
which twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in a
bass voice, 'Her size is small: what is her age?'
   'Ten years.'
   'So much?' was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny
for some minutes. Presently he addressed me-
   'Your name, little girl?'
   'Jane Eyre, sir.'
   In uttering these words I looked up: he seemed to me a tall
gentleman; but then I was very little; his features were large, and
they and all the lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim.
   'Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?'
   Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: my little world
held a contrary opinion: I was silent. Mrs. Reed answered for me by an
expressive shake of the head, adding soon, 'Perhaps the less said on
that subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst.'
   'Sorry indeed to hear it! she and I must have some talk;' and
bending from the perpendicular, he installed his person in the
arm-chair opposite Mrs. Reed's. 'Come here,' he said.
   I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before
him. What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with
mine! what a great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent
teeth!
   'No sight so sad as that of a naughty child,' he began, 'especially
a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?'
   'They go to hell,' was my ready and orthodox answer.
   'And what is hell? Can you tell me that?'
   'A pit full of fire.'
   'And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there
for ever?'
   'No, sir.'
   'What must you do to avoid it?'
   I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was
objectionable: 'I must keep in good health, and not die.'
   'How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die
daily. I buried a little child of five years old only a day or two
since,- a good little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to
be feared the same could not be said of you were you to be called
hence.'
   Not being in a condition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes
down on the two large feet planted on the rug, and sighed, wishing
myself far enough away.
   'I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever
having been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent
benefactress.'
   'Benefactress! benefactress!' said I inwardly: 'they all call
Mrs. Reed my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable
thing.'
   'Do you say your prayers night and morning?' continued my
interrogator.
   'Yes, sir.'
   'Do you read your Bible?'
   'Sometimes.'
   'With pleasure? Are you fond of it?'
   'I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and
Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and
Chronicles, and Job and Jonah.'
   'And the Psalms? I hope you like them?'
   'No, sir.'
   'No? oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows
six Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather
have, a gingerbread-nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he
says: "Oh! the verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;" says he, "I wish
to be a little angel here below;" he then gets two nuts in
recompense for his infant piety.'
   'Psalms are not interesting,' I remarked.
   'That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to
change it: to give you a new and clean one: to take away your heart of
stone and give you a heart of flesh.'
   I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which
that operation of changing my heart was to be performed, when Mrs.
Reed interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to carry
on the conversation herself.
   'Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I
wrote to you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite
the character and disposition I could wish: should you admit her
into Lowood school, I should be glad if the superintendent and
teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above all,
to guard against her worst fault, a tendency to deceit. I mention this
in your hearing, Jane, that you may not attempt to impose on Mr.
Brocklehurst.'
   Well might I dread, well might I dislike Mrs. Reed; for it was
her nature to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence;
however carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please
her, my efforts were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences as
the above. Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to
the heart; I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope
from the new phase of existence which she destined me to enter; I
felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that she was
sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw myself
transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye into an artful, noxious
child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?
   'Nothing, indeed,' thought I, as I struggled to repress a sob,
and hastily wiped away some tears, the impotent evidences of my
anguish.
   'Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child,' said Mr. Brocklehurst;
'it is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in the
lake burning with fire and brimstone; she shall, however, be
watched, Mrs. Reed. I will speak to Miss Temple and the teachers.'
   'I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her
prospects,' continued my benefactress; 'to be made useful, to be
kept humble: as for the vacations, she will, with your permission,
spend them always at Lowood.'
   'Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam,' returned Mr.
Brocklehurst. 'Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly
appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that
especial care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them. I
have studied how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment of
pride; and, only the other day, I had a pleasing proof of my
success. My second daughter, Augusta, went with her mama to visit
the school, and on her return she exclaimed: "Oh, dear papa, how quiet
and plain all the girls at Lowood look, with their hair combed
behind their ears, and their long pinafores, and those little
holland pockets outside their frocks- they are almost like poor
people's children! and," said she, "they looked at my dress and
mama's, as if they had never seen a silk gown before."'
   'This is the state of things I quite approve,' returned Mrs.
Reed; 'had I sought all England over, I could scarcely have found a
system more exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre. Consistency, my
dear Mr. Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things.'
   'Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has
been observed in every arrangement connected with the establishment of
Lowood: plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations,
hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house and
its inhabitants.'
   'Quite right, sir. I may then depend upon this child being received
as a pupil at Lowood, and there being trained in conformity to her
position and prospects?'
   'Madam, you may: she shall be placed in that nursery of chosen
plants, and I trust she will show herself grateful for the inestimable
privilege of her election.'
   'I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for,
I assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility that
was becoming too irksome.'
   'No doubt, no doubt, madam; and now I wish you good morning. I
shall return to Brocklehurst Hall in the course of a week or two: my
good friend, the Archdeacon, will not permit me to leave him sooner. I
shall send Miss Temple notice that she is to expect a new girl, so
that there will be no difficulty about receiving her. Good-bye.'
   'Good-bye, Mr. Brocklehurst; remember me to Mrs. and Miss
Brocklehurst, and to Augusta and Theodore, and Master Broughton
Brocklehurst.'
   'I will, madam. Little girl, here is a book entitled the Child's
Guide; read it with prayer, especially that part containing "An
addicted to falsehood and deceit."'
   With these words Mr. Brocklehurst put into my hand a thin
pamphlet sewn in a cover, and having rung for his carriage, he
departed.
   Mrs. Reed and I were left alone: some minutes passed in silence;
she was sewing, I was watching her. Mrs. Reed might be at that time
some six or seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame,
square-shouldered and strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout,
not obese: she had a somewhat large face, the under jaw being much
developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and
prominent, mouth and nose sufficiently regular; under her light
eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of ruth; her skin was dark and
opaque, her hair nearly flaxen; her constitution was sound as a
bell- illness never came near her; she was an exact, clever manager;
her household and tenantry were thoroughly under her control; her
children only at times defied her authority and laughed it to scorn;
she dressed well, and had a presence and port calculated to set off
handsome attire.
   Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her arm-chair, I
examined her figure; I perused her features. In my hand I held the
tract containing the sudden death of the Liar, to which narrative my
attention had been pointed as to an appropriate warning. What had just
passed; what Mrs. Reed had said concerning me to Mr. Brocklehurst; the
whole tenor of their conversation, was recent, raw, and stinging in my
mind; I had felt every word as acutely as I had heard it plainly,
and a passion of resentment fomented now within me.
   Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her
fingers at the same time suspended their nimble movements.
   'Go out of the room; return to the nursery,' was her mandate. My
look or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she
spoke with extreme though suppressed irritation. I got up, I went to
the door; I came back again; I walked to the window, across the
room, then close up to her.
   Speak I must: I had been trodden on severely, and must turn: but
how? What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I
gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence-
   'I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I
declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the
world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give
to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I.'
   Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice
continued to dwell freezingly on mine.
   'What more have you to say?' she asked, rather in the tone in which
a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is
ordinarily used to a child.
   That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking
from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued-
   'I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you
aunt again so long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am
grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you
treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that
you treated me with miserable cruelty.'
   'How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?'
   'How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth. You
think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or
kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember
how you thrust me back- roughly and violently thrust me back- into the
red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in
agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, "Have
mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!" And that punishment you made me
suffer because your wicked boy struck me- knocked me down for nothing.
I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People
think you a good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. You are
deceitful!'
   Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult,
with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It
seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out
into unhoped-for liberty. Not without cause was this sentiment: Mrs.
Reed looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee; she was
lifting up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting
her face as if she would cry.
   'Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you? Why do
you tremble so violently? Would you like to drink some water?'
   'No, Mrs. Reed.'
   'Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you, I
desire to be your friend.'
   'Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a
deceitful disposition; and I'll let everybody at Lowood know what
you are, and what you have done.'
   'Jane, you don't understand these things: children must be
corrected for their faults.'
   'Deceit is not my fault!' I cried out in a savage, high voice.
   'But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now
return to the nursery- there's a dear- and lie down a little.'
   'I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon,
Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here.'
   'I will indeed send her to school soon,' murmured Mrs. Reed sotto
voce; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment.
   I was left there alone- winner of the field. It was the hardest
battle I had fought, and the first victory I had gained: I stood
awhile on the rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed
my conqueror's solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but
this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated
throb of my pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had
done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had
given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and
the chill of reaction. A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing,
devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and
menaced Mrs. Reed: the same ridge, black and blasted after the
flames are dead, would have represented as meetly my subsequent
condition, when half an hour's silence and reflection had shown me the
madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating
position.
   Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic
wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour,
metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.
Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed's pardon; but I
knew, partly from experience and partly from instinct, that was the
way to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby re-exciting
every turbulent impulse of my nature.
   I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce
speaking; fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than
that of sombre indignation. I took a book- some Arabian tales; I sat
down and endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my
own thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually found
fascinating. I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the
shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or
breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt
of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which
was quite sequestered; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees,
the falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet
leaves, swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. I
leaned against a gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheep
were feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched. It was
a very grey day; a most opaque sky, 'onding on snaw,' canopied all;
thence flakes fell at intervals, which settled on the hard path and on
the hoary lea without melting. I stood, a wretched child enough,
whispering to myself over and over again, 'What shall I do?- what
shall I do?'
   All at once I heard a clear voice call, 'Miss Jane! where are
you? Come to lunch!'
   It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light
step came tripping down the path.
   'You naughty little thing!' she said. 'Why don't you come when
you are called?'
   Bessie's presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been
brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat
cross. The fact is, after my conflict with and victory over Mrs. Reed,
I was not disposed to care much for the nursemaid's transitory
anger; and I was disposed to bask in her youthful lightness of
heart. I just put my two arms round her and said, 'Come, Bessie! don't
scold.'
   The action was more frank and fearless than any I was habituated to
indulge in: somehow it pleased her.
   'You are a strange child, Miss Jane,' she said, as she looked
down at me; 'a little roving, solitary thing: and you are going to
school, I suppose?'
   I nodded.
   'And won't you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?'
   'What does Bessie care for me? She is always scolding me.'
   'Because you're such a queer, frightened, shy little thing. You
should be bolder.'
   'What! to get more knocks?'
   'Nonsense! But you are rather put upon, that's certain. My mother
said, when she came to see me last week, that she would not like a
little one of her own to be in your place.- Now, come in, and I've
some good news for you.'
   'I don't think you have, Bessie.'
   'Child! what do you mean? What sorrowful eyes you fix on me!
Well, but Missis and the young ladies and Master John are going out to
tea this afternoon, and you shall have tea with me. I'll ask cook to
bake you a little cake, and then you shall help me to look over your
drawers; for I am soon to pack your trunk. Missis intends you to leave
Gateshead in a day or two, and you shall choose what toys you like
to take with you.'
   'Bessie, you must promise not to scold me any more till I go.'
   'Well, I will; but mind you are a very good girl, and don't be
afraid of me. Don't start when I chance to speak rather sharply;
it's so provoking.'
   'I don't think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie, because
I have got used to you, and I shall soon have another set of people to
dread.'
   'If you dread them they'll dislike you.'
   'As you do, Bessie?'
   'I don't dislike you, Miss: I believe I am fonder of you than of
all the others.'
   'You don't show it.'
   'You little sharp thing! you've got quite a new way of talking.
What makes you so venturesome and hardy?'
   'Why, I shall soon be away from you, and besides'- I was going to
say something about what had passed between me and Mrs. Reed, but on
second thoughts I considered it better to remain silent on that head.
   'And so you're glad to leave me?'
   'Not at all, Bessie; indeed, just now I'm rather sorry.'
   'Just now! and rather! How coolly my little lady says it! I daresay
now if I were to ask you for a kiss you wouldn't give it me: you'd say
you'd rather not.'
   'I'll kiss you and welcome: bend your head down.' Bessie stooped;
we mutually embraced, and I followed her into the house quite
comforted. That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the
evening Bessie told me some of her most enchaining stories, and sang
me some of her sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of
sunshine.
                          CHAPTER V

   FIVE o'clock had hardly struck on the morning of the 19th of
January, when Bessie brought a candle into my closet and found me
already up and nearly dressed. I had risen half an hour before her
entrance, and had washed my face, and put on my clothes by the light
of a half-moon just setting, whose rays streamed through the narrow
window near my crib. I was to leave Gateshead that day by a coach
which passed the lodge gates at six A.M. Bessie was the only person
yet risen; she had lit a fire in the nursery, where she now
proceeded to make my breakfast. Few children can eat when excited with
the thoughts of a journey; nor could I. Bessie, having pressed me in
vain to take a few spoonfuls of the boiled milk and bread she had
prepared for me, wrapped up some biscuits in a paper and put them into
my bag; then she helped me on with my pelisse and bonnet, and wrapping
herself in a shawl, she and I left the nursery. As we passed Mrs.
Reed's bedroom, she said, 'Will you go in and bid Missis good-bye?'
   'No, Bessie: she came to my crib last night when you were gone down
to supper, and said I need not disturb her in the morning, or my
cousins either; and she told me to remember that she had always been
my best friend, and to speak of her and be grateful to her
accordingly.'
   'What did you say, Miss?'
   'Nothing: I covered my face with the bedclothes, and turned from
her to the wall.'
   'That was wrong, Miss Jane.'
   'It was quite right, Bessie. Your Missis has not been my friend:
she has been my foe.'
   'O Miss Jane! don't say so!'
   'Good-bye to Gateshead!' cried I, as we passed through the hall and
went out at the front door.
   The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern,
whose light glanced on wet steps and gravel road sodden by a recent
thaw. Raw and chill was the winter morning: my teeth chattered as I
hastened down the drive. There was a light in the porter's lodge: when
we reached it, we found the porter's wife just kindling her fire: my
trunk, which had been carried down the evening before, stood corded at
the door. It wanted but a few minutes of six, and shortly after that
hour had struck, the distant roll of wheels announced the coming
coach; I went to the door and watched its lamps approach rapidly
through the gloom.
   'Is she going by herself?' asked the porter's wife.
   'Yes.'
   'And how far is it?'
   'Fifty miles.'
   'What a long way! I wonder Mrs. Reed is not afraid to trust her
so far alone.'
   The coach drew up; there it was at the gates with its four horses
and its top laden with passengers: the guard and coachman loudly urged
haste; my trunk was hoisted up; I was taken from Bessie's neck, to
which I clung with kisses.
   'Be sure and take good care of her,' cried she to the guard, as
he lifted me into the inside.
   'Ay, ay!' was the answer: the door was slapped to, a voice
exclaimed 'All right,' and on we drove. Thus was I severed from Bessie
and Gateshead; thus whirled away to unknown, and, as I then deemed,
remote and mysterious regions.
   I remember but little of the journey; I only know that the day
seemed to me of a preternatural length, and that we appeared to travel
over hundreds of miles of road. We passed through several towns, and
in one, a very large one, the coach stopped; the horses were taken
out, and the passengers alighted to dine. I was carried into an inn,
where the guard wanted me to have some dinner; but, as I had no
appetite, he left me in an immense room with a fireplace at each
end, a chandelier pendent from the ceiling, and a little red gallery
high up against the wall filled with musical instruments. Here I
walked about for a long time, feeling very strange, and mortally
apprehensive of some one coming in and kidnapping me; for I believed
in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured in Bessie's
fireside chronicles. At last the guard returned; once more I was
stowed away in the coach, my protector mounted his own seat, sounded
   The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty: as it waned into
dusk, I began to feel that we were getting very far indeed from
Gateshead: we ceased to pass through towns; the country changed; great
grey hills heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, we
descended a valley, dark with wood, and long after night had
overclouded the prospect, I heard a wild wind rushing amongst trees.
   Lulled by the sound, I at last dropped asleep; I had not long
slumbered when the sudden cessation of motion awoke me; the coach-door
was open, and a person like a servant was standing at it: I saw her
face and dress by the light of the lamps.
   'Is there a little girl called Jane Eyre here?' she asked. I
answered 'Yes', and was then lifted out; my trunk was handed down, and
the coach instantly drove away.
   I was stiff with long sitting, and bewildered with the noise and
motion of the coach: gathering my faculties, I looked about me.
Rain, wind, and darkness filled the air; nevertheless, I dimly
discerned a wall before me and a door open in it; through this door
I passed with my new guide: she shut and locked it behind her. There
was now visible a house or houses- for the building spread far- with
many windows, and lights burning in some; we went up a broad pebbly
path, splashing wet, and were admitted at a door; then the servant led
me through a passage into a room with a fire, where she left me alone.
   I stood and warmed my numbed fingers over the blaze, then I
looked round; there was no candle, but the uncertain light from the
hearth showed, by intervals, papered walls, carpet, curtains,
shining mahogany furniture: it was a parlour, not so spacious or
splendid as the drawing-room at Gateshead, but comfortable enough. I
was puzzling to make out the subject of a picture on the wall, when
the door opened, and an individual carrying a light entered; another
followed close behind.
   The first was a tall lady with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale and
large forehead; her figure was partly enveloped in a shawl, her
countenance was grave, her bearing erect.
   'The child is very young to be sent alone,' said she, putting her
candle down on the table. She considered me attentively for a minute
or two, then further added-
   'She had better be put to bed soon; she looks tired: are you
tired?' she asked, placing her hand on my shoulder.
   'A little, ma'am.'
   'And hungry too, no doubt: let her have some supper before she goes
to bed, Miss Miller. Is this the first time you have left your parents
to come to school, my little girl?'
   I explained to her that I had no parents. She inquired how long
they had been dead: then how old I was, what was my name, whether I
could read, write, and sew a little: then she touched my cheek
gently with her forefinger, and saying, 'She hoped I should be a
good child,' dismissed me along with Miss Miller.
   The lady I had left might be about twenty-nine; the one who went
with me appeared some years younger: the first impressed me by her
voice, look, and air. Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in
complexion, though of a careworn countenance; hurried in gait and
action, like one who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand: she
looked, indeed, what I afterwards found she really was, an
under-teacher. Led by her, I passed from compartment to compartment,
from passage to passage, of a large and irregular building; till,
emerging from the total and somewhat dreary silence pervading that
portion of the house we had traversed, we came upon the hum of many
voices, and presently entered a wide, long room, with great deal
tables, two at each end, on each of which burnt a pair of candles, and
seated all round on benches, a congregation of girls of every age,
from nine or ten to twenty. Seen by the dim light of the dips, their
number to me appeared countless, though not in reality exceeding
eighty; they were uniformly dressed in brown stuff frocks of quaint
fashion, and long holland pinafores. It was the hour of study; they
were engaged in conning over their to-morrow's task, and the hum I had
heard was the combined result of their whispered repetitions.
   Miss Miller signed to me to sit on a bench near the door, then
walking up to the top of the long room she cried out-
   'Monitors, collect the lesson-books and put them away!'
   Four tall girls arose from different tables, and going round,
gathered the books and removed them. Miss Miller again gave the word
of command-
   'Monitors, fetch the supper-trays!'
   The tall girls went out and returned presently, each bearing a
tray, with portions of something, I knew not what, arranged thereon,
and a pitcher of water and mug in the middle of each tray. The
portions were handed round; those who liked took a draught of the
water, the mug being common to all. When it came to my turn, I
drank, for I was thirsty, but did not touch the food, excitement and
fatigue rendering me incapable of eating; I now saw, however, that
it was a thin oaten cake shared into fragments.
   The meal over, prayers were read by Miss Miller, and the classes
filed off, two and two, upstairs. Overpowered by this time with
weariness, I scarcely noticed what sort of a place the bedroom was,
except that, like the schoolroom, I saw it was very long. To-night I
was to be Miss Miller's bed-fellow; she helped me to undress: when
laid down I glanced at the long rows of beds, each of which was
quickly filled with two occupants; in ten minutes the single light was
extinguished, and amidst silence and complete darkness I fell asleep.
   The night passed rapidly: I was too tired even to dream; I only
once awoke to hear the wind rave in furious gusts, and the rain fall
in torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken her place
by my side. When I again unclosed my eyes, a loud bell was ringing;
the girls were up and dressing; day had not yet begun to dawn, and a
rushlight or two burned in the room. I too rose reluctantly; it was
bitter cold, and I dressed as well as I could for shivering, and
washed when there was a basin at liberty, which did not occur soon, as
there was but one basin to six girls, on the stands down the middle of
the room. Again the bell rang; all formed in file, two and two, and in
that order descended the stairs and entered the cold and dimly lit
schoolroom: here prayers were read by Miss Miller; afterwards she
called out-
   'Form classes!'
   A great tumult succeeded for some minutes, during which Miss Miller
repeatedly exclaimed, 'Silence!' and 'Order!' When it subsided, I
saw them all drawn up in four semicircles, before four chairs,
placed at the four tables; all held books in their hands, and a
great book, like a Bible, lay on each table, before the vacant seat. A
pause of some seconds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum of
numbers; Miss Miller walked from class to class, hushing this
indefinite sound.
   A distant bell tinkled: immediately three ladies entered the
room, each walked to a table and took her seat; Miss Miller assumed
the fourth vacant chair, which was that nearest the door, and around
which the smallest of the children were assembled: to this inferior
class I was called, and placed at the bottom of it.
   Business now began: the day's Collect was repeated, then certain
texts of Scripture were said, and to these succeeded a protracted
reading of chapters in the Bible, which lasted an hour. By the time
that exercise was terminated, day had fully dawned. The
indefatigable bell now sounded for the fourth time: the classes were
marshalled and marched into another room to breakfast: how glad I
was to behold a prospect of getting something to eat! I was now nearly
sick from inanition, having taken so little the day before.
   The refectory was a great, low-ceiled, gloomy room; on two long
tables smoked basins of something hot, which, however, to my dismay,
sent forth an odour far from inviting. I saw a universal manifestation
of discontent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils of those
destined to swallow it; from the van of the procession, the tall girls
of the first class, rose the whispered words-
   'Disgusting! The porridge is burnt again!'
   'Silence!' ejaculated a voice; not that of Miss Miller, but one
of the upper teachers, a little and dark personage, smartly dressed,
but of somewhat morose aspect, who installed herself at the top of one
table, while a more buxom lady presided at the other. I looked in vain
for her I had first seen the night before; she was not visible: Miss
Miller occupied the foot of the table where I sat, and a strange,
foreign-looking, elderly lady, the French teacher, as I afterwards
found, took the corresponding seat at the other board. A long grace
was said and a hymn sung; then a servant brought in some tea for the
teachers, and the meal began.
   Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my
portion without thinking of its taste; but the first edge of hunger
blunted, I perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess; burnt porridge
is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over
it. The spoons were moved slowly: I saw each girl taste her food and
try to swallow it; but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished.
Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted. Thanks being returned
for what we had not got, and a second hymn chanted, the refectory
was evacuated for the schoolroom. I was one of the last to go out, and
in passing the tables, I saw one teacher take a basin of the
porridge and taste it; she looked at the others; all their
countenances expressed displeasure, and one of them, the stout one,
whispered-
   'Abominable stuff! How shameful!'
   A quarter of an hour passed before lessons again began, during
which the schoolroom was in a glorious tumult; for that space of
time it seemed to be permitted to talk loud and more freely, and
they used their privilege. The whole conversation ran on the
breakfast, which one and all abused roundly. Poor things! it was the
sole consolation they had. Miss Miller was now the only teacher in the
room: a group of great girls standing about her spoke with serious and
sullen gestures. I heard the name of Mr. Brocklehurst pronounced by
some lips; at which Miss Miller shook her head disapprovingly; but she
made no great effort to check the general wrath; doubtless she
shared in it.
   A clock in the schoolroom struck nine; Miss Miller left her circle,
and standing in the middle of the room, cried-
   'Silence! To your seats!'
   Discipline prevailed: in five minutes the confused throng was
resolved into order, and comparative silence quelled the Babel clamour
of tongues. The upper teachers now punctually resumed their posts: but
still, all seemed to wait. Ranged on benches down the sides of the
room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect; a quaint assemblage
they appeared, all with plain locks combed from their faces, not a
curl visible; in brown dresses, made high and surrounded by a narrow
tucker about the throat, with little pockets of holland (shaped
something like a Highlander's purse) tied in front of their frocks,
and destined to serve the purpose of a work-bag: all, too, wearing
woollen stockings and country-made shoes, fastened with brass buckles.
Above twenty of those clad in this costume were full-grown girls, or
rather young women; it suited them ill, and gave an air of oddity even
to the prettiest.
   I was still looking at them, and also at intervals examining the
teachers- none of whom precisely pleased me; for the stout one was a
little coarse, the dark one not a little fierce, the foreigner harsh
and grotesque, and Miss Miller, poor thing! looked purple,
weather-beaten, and over-worked- when, as my eye wandered from face to
face, the whole school rose simultaneously, as if moved by a common
spring.
   What was the matter? I had heard no order given: I was puzzled. Ere
I had gathered my wits, the classes were again seated: but as all eyes
were now turned to one point, mine followed the general direction, and
encountered the personage who had received me last night. She stood at
the bottom of the long room, on the hearth; for there was a fire at
each end; she surveyed the two rows of girls silently and gravely.
Miss Miller, approaching, seemed to ask her a question, and having
received her answer, went back to her place, and said aloud-
   'Monitor of the first class, fetch the globes!'
   While the direction was being executed, the lady consulted moved
slowly up the room. I suppose I have a considerable organ of
veneration, for I retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my
eyes traced her steps. Seen now, in broad day-light, she looked
tall, fair, and shapely; brown eyes with a benignant light in their
irids, and a fine pencilling of long lashes round, relieved the
whiteness of her large front; on each of her temples her hair, of a
very dark brown, was clustered in round curls, according to the
fashion of those times, when neither smooth bands nor long ringlets
were in vogue; her dress, also in the mode of the day, was of purple
cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish trimming of black velvet; a
gold watch (watches were not so common then as now) shone at her
girdle. Let the reader add, to complete the picture, refined features;
a complexion, if pale, clear; and a stately air and carriage, and he
will have, at least, as clearly as words can give it, a correct idea
of the exterior of Miss Temple- Maria Temple, as I afterwards saw
the name written in a prayer-book intrusted to me to carry to church.
   The superintendent of Lowood (for such was this lady) having
taken her seat before a pair of globes placed on one of the tables,
summoned the first class round her, and commenced giving a lesson on
geography; the lower classes were called by the teachers:
repetitions in history, grammar, etc., went on for an hour; writing
and arithmetic succeeded, and music lessons were given by Miss
Temple to some of the elder girls. The duration of each lesson was
measured by the clock, which at last struck twelve. The superintendent
rose-
   'I have a word to address to the pupils,' said she.
   The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth,
but it sank at her voice. She went on-
   'You had this morning a breakfast which you could not eat; you must
be hungry:- I have ordered that a lunch of bread and cheese shall be
served to all.'
   The teachers looked at her with a sort of surprise.
   'It is to be done on my responsibility,' she added, in an
explanatory tone to them, and immediately afterwards left the room.
   The bread and cheese was presently brought in and distributed, to
the high delight and refreshment of the whole school. The order was
now given 'To the garden!' Each put on a coarse straw bonnet, with
strings of coloured calico, and a cloak of grey frieze, I was
similarly equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into
the open air.
   The garden was a wide enclosure, surrounded with walls so high as
to exclude every glimpse of prospect; a covered verandah ran down
one side, and broad walks bordered a middle space divided into
scores of little beds: these beds were assigned as gardens for the
pupils to cultivate, and each bed had an owner. When full of flowers
they would doubtless look pretty; but now, at the latter end of
January, all was wintry blight and brown decay. I shuddered as I stood
and looked round me: it was an inclement day for outdoor exercise; not
positively rainy, but darkened by a drizzling yellow fog; all under
foot was still soaking wet with the floods of yesterday. The
stronger among the girls ran about and engaged in active games, but
sundry pale and thin ones herded together for shelter and warmth in
the verandah; and amongst these, as the dense mist penetrated to their
shivering frames, I heard frequently the sound of a hollow cough.
   As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take
notice of me; I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of
isolation I was accustomed; it did not oppress me much. I leant
against a pillar of the verandah, drew my grey mantle close about
me, and, trying to forget the cold which nipped me without, and the
unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within, delivered myself up to
the employment of watching and thinking. My reflections were too
undefined and fragmentary to merit record: I hardly yet knew where I
was; Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable
distance; the present was vague and strange, and of the future I could
form no conjecture. I looked round the convent-like garden, and then
up at the house- a large building, half of which seemed grey and
old, the other half quite new. The new part, containing the schoolroom
and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and latticed windows, which gave
it a church-like aspect; a stone tablet over the door bore this
inscription-
Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county.' 'Let your light
so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify
your Father which is in heaven.'- St. Matt. v. 16.
   I read these words over and over again: I felt that an
explanation belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate
their import. I was still pondering the signification of
'Institution', and endeavouring to make out a connection between the
first words and the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a cough
close behind me made me turn my head. I saw a girl sitting on a
stone bench near; she was bent over a book, on the perusal of which
she seemed intent: from where I stood I could see the title- it was
Rasselas; a name that struck me as strange, and consequently
attractive. In turning a leaf she happened to look up, and I said to
her directly-
   'Is your book interesting?' I had already formed the intention of
asking her to lend it to me some day.
   'I like it,' she answered, after a pause of a second or two, during
which she examined me.
   'What is it about?' I continued. I hardly know where I found the
hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was
contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a
chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a
frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the
serious or substantial.
   'You may look at it,' replied the girl, offering me the book.
   I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were
less taking than the title: Rasselas looked dull to my trifling taste;
I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright variety
seemed spread over the closely-printed pages. I returned it to her;
she received it quietly, and without saying anything she was about
to relapse into her former studious mood: again I ventured to
disturb her-
   'Can you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door
means? What is Lowood Institution?'
   'This house where you are come to live.'
   'And why do they call it Institution? Is it in any way different
from other schools?'
   'It is partly a charity-school: you and I, and all the rest of
us, are charity-children. I suppose you are an orphan: are not
either your father or your mother dead?'
   'Both died before I can remember.'
   'Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and
this is called an institution for educating orphans.'
   'Do we pay no money? Do they keep us for nothing?'
   'We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each.'
   'Then why do they call us charity-children?'
   'Because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching, and
the deficiency is supplied by subscription.'
   'Who subscribes?'
   'Different benevolent-minded ladies and gentlemen in this
neighbourhood and in London.'
   'Who was Naomi Brocklehurst?'
   'The lady who built the new part of this house as that tablet
records, and whose son overlooks and directs everything here.'
   'Why?'
   'Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment.'
   'Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a
watch, and who said we were to have some bread and cheese?'
   'To Miss Temple? Oh, no! I wish it did: she has to answer to Mr.
Brocklehurst for all she does. Mr. Brocklehurst buys all our food
and all our clothes.'
   'Does he live here?'
   'No- two miles off, at a large hall.'
   'Is he a good man?'
   'He is a clergyman, and is said to do a great deal of good.'
   'Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple?'
   'Yes.'
   'And what are the other teachers called?'
   'The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the
work, and cuts out- for we make our own clothes, our frocks, and
pelisses, and everything; the little one with black hair is Miss
Scatcherd; she teaches history and grammar, and hears the second class
repetitions; and the one who wears a shawl, and has a
pocket-handkerchief tied to her side with a yellow ribband, is
Madame Pierrot: she comes from Lisle, in France, and teaches French.'
   'Do you like the teachers?'
   'Well enough.'
   'Do you like the little black one, and the Madame-? -I cannot
pronounce her name as you do.'
   'Miss Scatcherd is hasty- you must take care not to offend her;
Madame Pierrot is not a bad sort of person.'
   'But Miss Temple is the best- isn't she?'
   'Miss Temple is very good and very clever; she is above the rest,
because she knows far more than they do.'
   'Have you been long here?'
   'Two years.'
   'Are you an orphan?'
   'My mother is dead.'
   'Are you happy here?'
   'You ask rather too many questions. I have given you answers enough
for the present: now I want to read.'
   But at that moment the summons sounded for dinner; all re-entered
the house. The odour which now filled the refectory was scarcely
more appetising than that which had regaled our nostrils at breakfast:
the dinner was served in two huge tin-plated vessels, whence rose a
strong steam redolent of rancid fat. I found the mess to consist of
indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and
cooked together. Of this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful was
apportioned to each pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered within
myself whether every day's fare would be like this.
   After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom: lessons
recommenced, and were continued till five o'clock.
   The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl
with whom I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace by
Miss Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to stand in the middle
of the large schoolroom. The punishment seemed to me in a high
degree ignominious, especially for so great a girl- she looked
thirteen or upwards. I expected she would show signs of great distress
and shame; but to my surprise she neither wept nor blushed:
composed, though grave, she stood, the central mark of all eyes.
'How can she bear it so quietly- so firmly?' I asked of myself.
'Were I in her place, it seems to me I should wish the earth to open
and swallow me up. She looks as if she were thinking of something
beyond her punishment- beyond her situation: of something not round
her nor before her. I have heard of day-dreams- is she in a
day-dream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I am sure they
do not see it- her sight seems turned in, gone down into her heart:
she is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not at what is
really present. I wonder what sort of a girl she is- whether good or
naughty.'
   Soon after five P.M. we had another meal, consisting of a small mug
of coffee, and half a slice of brown bread. I devoured my bread and
drank my coffee with relish; but I should have been glad of as much
more- I was still hungry. Half an hour's recreation succeeded, then
study; then the glass of water and the piece of oat-cake, prayers, and
bed. Such was my first day at Lowood.
                          CHAPTER VI

   THE next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by
rushlight; but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the
ceremony of washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen. A change
had taken place in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen
north-east wind, whistling through the crevices of our bedroom windows
all night long, had made us shiver in our beds, and turned the
contents of the ewers to ice.
   Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible-reading was
over, I felt ready to perish with cold. Breakfast-time came at last,
and this morning the porridge was not burnt; the quality was
eatable, the quantity small. How small my portion seemed! I wished
it had been doubled.
   In the course of the day I was enrolled a member of the fourth
class, and regular tasks and occupations were assigned me: hitherto, I
had only been a spectator of the proceedings at Lowood; I was now to
become an actor therein. At first, being little accustomed to learn by
heart, the lessons appeared to me both long and difficult; the
frequent change from task to task, too, bewildered me; and I was
glad when, about three o'clock in the afternoon, Miss Smith put into
my hands a border of muslin two yards long, together with needle,
thimble, etc., and sent me to sit in a quiet corner of the schoolroom,
with directions to hem the same. At that hour most of the others
were sewing likewise; but one class still stood round Miss Scatcherd's
chair reading, and as all was quiet, the subject of their lessons
could be heard, together with the manner in which each girl
acquitted herself, and the animadversions or commendations of Miss
Scatcherd on the performance. It was English history: among the
readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah: at the
commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the top of the
class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some inattention to
stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom. Even in that
obscure position, Miss Scatcherd continued to make her an object of
constant notice; she was continually addressing to her such phrases as
the following:-
   'Burns' (such it seems was her name: the girls here were all called
by their surnames, as boys are elsewhere), 'Burns, you are standing on
the side of your shoe; turn your toes out immediately.' 'Burns, you
poke your chin most unpleasantly; draw it in.' 'Burns, I insist on
your holding your head up; I will not have you before me in that
attitude,' etc. etc.
   A chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed and
the girls examined. The lesson had comprised part of the reign of
Charles I, and there were sundry questions about tonnage and
poundage and ship-money, which most of them appeared unable to answer;
still, every little difficulty was solved instantly when it reached
Burns: her memory seemed to have retained the substance of the whole
lesson, and she was ready with answers on every point. I kept
expecting that Miss Scatcherd would praise her attention; but, instead
of that, she suddenly cried out-
   'You dirty, disagreeable girl! you have never cleaned your nails
this morning!'
   Burns made no answer: I wondered at her silence.
   'Why,' thought I, 'does she not explain that she could neither
clean her nails nor wash her face, as the water was frozen?'
   My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a
skein of thread: while she was winding it, she talked to me from
time to time, asking whether I had ever been at school before, whether
I could mark, stitch, knit, etc.; till she dismissed me, I could not
pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd's movements. When I
returned to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order of which I
did not catch the import; but Burns immediately left the class, and
going into the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in
half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at
one end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a
respectful curtsey; then she quietly, and without being told, unloosed
her pinafore, and the teacher instantly and sharply inflicted on her
neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to
Burns's eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers
quivered at this spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent
anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary
expression.
   'Hardened girl!' exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; 'nothing can correct you
of your slatternly habits: carry the rod away.'
   Burns obeyed: I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from the
book-closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief into her
pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek.
   The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction
of the day at Lowood: the bit of bread, the draught of coffee
swallowed at five o'clock had revived vitality, if it had not
satisfied hunger: the long restraint of the day was slackened; the
schoolroom felt warmer than in the morning- its fires being allowed to
burn a little more brightly, to supply, in some measure, the place
of candles, not yet introduced: the ruddy gloaming, the licensed
uproar, the confusion of many voices gave one a welcome sense of
liberty.
   On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog
her pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables and
laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely: when I
passed the windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked out;
it snowed fast, a drift was already forming against the lower panes;
putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from the
gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan of the wind outside.
   Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this
would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted
the separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart, this
obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace! as it was, I derived from
both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the
wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the
confusion to rise to clamour.
   Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to one
of the fire-places; there, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found
Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the
companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the
embers.
   'Is it still Rasselas?' I asked, coming behind her.
   'Yes,' she said, 'and I have just finished it.'
   And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this.
   'Now,' thought I, 'I can perhaps get her to talk.' I sat down by
her on the floor.
   'What is your name besides Burns?'
   'Helen.'
   'Do you come a long way from here?'
   'I come from a place farther north, quite on the borders of
Scotland.'
   'Will you ever go back?'
   'I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future.'
   'You must wish to leave Lowood?'
   'No! why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it
would be of no use going away until I have attained that object.'
   'But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?'
   'Cruel? Not at all! She is severe: she dislikes my faults.'
   'And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should
resist her. If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her
hand; I should break it under her nose.'
   'Probably you would do nothing of the sort: but if you did, Mr.
Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great
grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a
smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action
whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and
besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil.'
   'But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to
stand in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great
girl: I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it.'
   'Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it:
it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be
required to bear.'
   I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of
endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathise with the
forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen
Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected
she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the matter
deeply; like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season.
   'You say you have faults, Helen: what are they? To me you seem very
good.'
   'Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances: I am, as Miss
Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things in
order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my
lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot
bear to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all very
provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and
particular.'
   'And cross and cruel,' I added; but Helen Burns would not admit
my addition: she kept silence.
   'Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?'
   At the utterance of Miss Temple's name, a soft smile flitted over
her grave face.
   'Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to
any one, even the worst in the school: she sees my errors, and tells
me of them gently; and if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives me
my meed liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective
nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have no
influence to cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value
it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight.'
   'That is curious,' said I, 'it is so easy to be careful.'
   'For you I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this
morning, and saw you were closely attentive: your thoughts never
seemed to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned
you. Now, mine continually rove away; when I should be listening to
Miss Scatcherd, and collecting all she says with assiduity, often I
lose the very sound of her voice; I fall into a sort of dream.
Sometimes I think I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I hear
round me are the bubbling of a little brook which runs through
Deepden, near our house;- then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I
have to be awakened; and having heard nothing of what was read for
listening to the visionary brook, I have no answer ready.'
   'Yet how well you replied this afternoon.'
   'It was mere chance; the subject on which we had been reading had
interested me. This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was
wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and
unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what a pity
it was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he could see no
farther than the prerogatives of the crown. If he had but been able to
look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age
was tending! Still, I like Charles- I respect him- I pity him, poor
murdered king! Yes, his enemies were the worst: they shed blood they
had no right to shed. How dared they kill him!'
   Helen was talking to herself now: she had forgotten I could not
very well understand her- that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the
subject she discussed. I recalled her to my level.
   'And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?'
   'No, certainly, not often: because Miss Temple has generally
something to say which is newer than my own reflections; her
language is singularly agreeable to me, and the information she
communicates is often just what I wished to gain.'
   'Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?'
   'Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination
guides me. There is no merit in such goodness.'
   'A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all
I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to
those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all
their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never
alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a
reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should- so
hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.'
   'You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you
are but a little untaught girl.'
   'But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to
please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish
me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show
me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.'
   'Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians
and civilised nations disown it.'
   'How? I don't understand.'
   'It is not violence that best overcomes hate- nor vengeance that
most certainly heals injury.'
   'What then?'
   'Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He
acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example.'
   'What does He say?'
   'Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that
hate you and despitefully use you.'
   'Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless
her son John, which is impossible.'
   In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded
forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and
resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt,
without reserve or softening.
   Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then make
a remark, but she said nothing.
   'Well,' I asked impatiently, 'is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted,
bad woman?'
   'She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she
dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but
how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a
singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your
heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not
be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the
passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be
spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be,
one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will
soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our
corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with
this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will
remain,- the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when
it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will
return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than
man- perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale
human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it Will never, on the
contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot
believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and
which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I
cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest- a
mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I
can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can
so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed
revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply
disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm,
looking to the end.'
   Helen's head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she
finished this sentence. I saw by her look she wished no longer to talk
to me, but rather to converse with her own thoughts. She was not
allowed much time for meditation: a monitor, a great rough girl,
presently came up, exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent-
   'Helen Burns, if you don't go and put your drawer in order, and
fold up your work this minute, I'll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and
look at it!'
   Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the
monitor without reply as without delay.
                         CHAPTER VII

   MY first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age
either; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in
habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of
failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical
hardships of my lot; though these were no trifles.
   During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and,
after their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our
stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but within
these limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our
clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold: we had
no boots, the snow got into our shoes and melted there: our ungloved
hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet: I
remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this cause
every evening, when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the
swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes in the morning. Then the
scanty supply of food was distressing: with the keen appetites of
growing children, we had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a
delicate invalid. From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an
abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils: whenever the
famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or menace the
little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between
two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at
teatime; and after relinquishing to a third half the contents of my
mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of
secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger.
   Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk
two miles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We set
out cold, we arrived at church colder: during the morning service we
became almost paralysed. It was too far to return to dinner, and an
allowance of cold meat and bread, in the same penurious proportion
observed in our ordinary meals, was served round between the services.
   At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and
hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of
snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.
   I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our
drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered,
gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and
example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said, 'like
stalwart soldiers.' The other teachers, poor things, were generally
themselves too much dejected to attempt the task of cheering others.
   How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we
got back! But, to the little ones at least, this was denied: each
hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row of
great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in
groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores.
   A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration
of bread- a whole, instead of a half, slice- with the delicious
addition of a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to
which we all looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally
contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself; but
the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.
   The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church
Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St.
Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose
irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of
these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some
half-dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with sleep, would fall
down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be
taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust them forward into the
centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them to stand there till the
sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sank
together in a heap; they were then propped up with the monitors'
high stools.
   I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and
indeed that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the
first month after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his
friend the archdeacon: his absence was a relief to me. I need not
say that I had my own reasons for dreading his coming: but come he did
at last.
   One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was
sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division,
my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure
just passing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline;
and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose
en masse, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain
whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the
schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen,
stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously
from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this
piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr. Brocklehurst,
buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid
than ever.
   I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too
well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my
disposition, etc.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to
apprise Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I
had been dreading the fulfilment of this promise,- I had been
looking out daily for the 'Coming Man,' whose information respecting
my past life and conversation was to brand me as a bad child for ever:
now there he was.
   He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear: I
did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I
watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see
its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I
listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the
room, I caught most of what he said: its import relieved me from
immediate apprehension.
   'I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do;
it struck me that it would be just of the quality for the calico
chemises, and I sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith
that I forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she
shall have some papers sent in next week; and she is not, on any
account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil: if they
have more, they are apt to be careless and lose them. And, O ma'am!
I wish the woollen stockings were better looked to!- when I was here
last, I went into the kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying
on the line; there was a quantity of black hose in a very bad state of
repair: from the size of the holes in them I was sure they had not
been well mended from time to time.'
   He paused.
   'Your directions shall be attended to, sir,' said Miss Temple.
   'And, ma'am,' he continued, 'the laundress tells me some of the
girls have two clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the rules
limit them to one.'
   'I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and
Catherine Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at
Lowton last Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers
for the occasion.'
   Mr. Brocklehurst nodded.
   'Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance
occur too often. And there is another thing which surprised me; I
find, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch,
consisting of bread and cheese, has twice been served out to the girls
during the past fortnight. How is this? I looked over the regulations,
and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned. Who introduced this
innovation? and by what authority?'
   'I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir,' replied Miss
Temple: 'the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not
possibly eat it; and I dared not allow them to remain fasting till
dinner-time.'
   'Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing
up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and
indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Should
any little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as
the spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish,
the incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with something
more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and
obviating the aim of this institution; it ought to be improved to
the spiritual edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince
fortitude under the temporary privation. A brief address on those
occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor
would take the opportunity of referring to the sufferings of the
primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs; to the
exhortations of our blessed Lord Himself, calling upon His disciples
to take up their cross and follow Him; to His warnings that man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of God; to His divine consolations, "If ye suffer
hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye." Oh, madam, when you put
bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children's
mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think
how you starve their immortal souls!'
   Mr. Brocklehurst again paused- perhaps overcome by his feelings.
Miss Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her; but
she now gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale as
marble, appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that
material; especially her mouth, closed as if it would have required
a sculptor's chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into
petrified severity.
   Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands
behind his back, majestically surveyed the whole school. Suddenly
his eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled
or shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents than he
had hitherto used-
   'Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what- what is that girl with curled
hair? Red hair, ma'am, curled- curled all over?' And extending his
cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.
   'It is Julia Severn,' replied Miss Temple, very quietly.
   'Julia Severn, ma'am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair?
Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does
she conform to the world so openly- here in an evangelical, charitable
establishment- as to wear her hair one mass of curls?'
   'Julia's hair curls naturally,' returned Miss Temple, still more
quietly.
   'Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish
these girls to be the children of Grace: and why that abundance? I
have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged
closely, modestly, plainly. Miss Temple, that girl's hair must be
cut off entirely; I will send a barber tomorrow: and I see others
who have far too much of the excrescence- that tall girl, tell her
to turn round. Tell all the first form to rise up and direct their
faces to the wall.'
   Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to
smooth away the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the
order, however, and when the first class could take in what was
required of them, they obeyed. Leaning a little back on my bench, I
could see the looks and grimaces with which they commented on this
manoeuvre: it was a pity Mr. Brocklehurst could not see them too; he
would perhaps have felt that, whatever he might do with the outside of
the cup and platter, the inside was further beyond his interference
than he imagined.
   He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five
minutes, then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell
of doom-
   'All those top-knots must be cut off.'
   Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate.
   'Madam,' he pursued, 'I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not
of this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of
the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and
sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the
young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which
vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off;
think of the time wasted, of-'
   Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors,
ladies, now entered the room. They ought to have come a little
sooner to have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly
attired in velvet, silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine
girls of sixteen and seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion,
shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful
head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled;
the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with
ermine, and she wore a false front of French curls.
   These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs.
and the Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the
top of the room. It seems they had come in the carriage with their
reverend relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the
room upstairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper,
questioned the laundress, and lectured the superintendent. They now
proceeded to address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who
was charged with the care of the linen and the inspection of the
dormitories: but I had no time to listen to what they said; other
matters called off and enchained my attention.
   Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst
and Miss Temple, I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions to
secure my personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if I
could only elude observation. To this end, I had sat well back on
the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my
slate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped
notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from
my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye
upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up
the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst. It
came.
   'A careless girl!' said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after-
'It is the new pupil, I perceive.' And before I could draw breath,
'I must not forget I have a word to say respecting her.' Then aloud:
how loud it seemed to me! 'Let the child who broke her slate come
forward!'
   Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but the
two great girls who sat on each side of me, set me on my legs and
pushed me towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently
assisted me to his very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel-
   'Don't be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not
be punished.'
   The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.
   'Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite,'
thought I; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and
Co. bounded in my pulses at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns.
   'Fetch that stool,' said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very
high one from which a monitor had just risen: it was brought.
   'Place the child upon it.'
   And I was placed there, by whom I don't know: I was in no condition
to note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to
the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard of
me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and a
cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me.
   Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.
   'Ladies,' said he, turning to his family, 'Miss Temple, teachers,
and children, you all see this girl?'
   Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like
burning-glasses against my scorched skin.
   'You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary
form of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He
has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked
character. Who would think that the Evil One had already found a
servant and agent in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case.'
   A pause- in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and
to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer
to be shirked, must be firmly sustained.
   'My dear children,' pursued the black marble clergyman, with
pathos, 'this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my
duty to warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs,
is a little castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an
interloper and an alien. You must be on your guard against her; you
must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her
from your sports, and shut her out from your converse. Teachers, you
must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words,
scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul: if,
indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters while I
tell it) this girl, this child, the native of a Christian land,
worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and
kneels before Juggernaut- this girl is- a liar!'
   Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in
perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts
produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics,
while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two
younger ones whispered, 'How shocking!'
   Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.
   'This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and
charitable lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her
own daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl
repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her
excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young
ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their
purity: she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old
sent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers,
superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the waters to stagnate round
her.'
   With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top
button of his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose,
bowed to Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in state
from the room. Turning at the door, my judge said-
   'Let her stand half an hour longer on that stool, and let no one
speak to her during the remainder of the day.'
   There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not
bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the
room, was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my
sensations were, no language can describe; but just as they all
rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came up
and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange light
inspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through
me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had
passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit. I
mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand
on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight questions about her work
of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned
to her place, and smiled at me as she again went by. What a smile! I
remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fine
intellect, of true courage; it lit up her marked lineaments, her
thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a reflection from the aspect of
an angel. Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm 'the untidy
badge;' scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by Miss
Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she had
blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such is the imperfect nature of
man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes
like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind
to the full brightness of the orb.
                         CHAPTER VIII

   ERE the half-hour ended, five o'clock struck; school was dismissed,
and all were gone into the refectory to tea. I now ventured to
descend: it was deep dusk; I retired into a corner and sat down on the
floor. The spell by which I had been so far supported began to
dissolve; reaction took place, and soon, so overwhelming was the grief
that seized me, I sank prostrate with my face to the ground. Now I
wept: Helen Burns was not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself I
abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards. I had meant to be
so good, and to do so much at Lowood: to make so many friends, to earn
respect and win affection. Already I had made visible progress; that
very morning I had reached the head of my class; Miss Miller had
praised me warmly; Miss Temple had smiled approbation; she had
promised to teach me drawing, and to let me learn French, if I
continued to make similar improvement two months longer: and then I
was well received by my fellow-pupils; treated as an equal by those of
my own age, and not molested by any; now, here I lay again crushed and
trodden on; and could I ever rise more?
   'Never,' I thought; and ardently I wished to die. While sobbing out
this wish in broken accents, some one approached: I started up-
again Helen Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed her coming
up the long, vacant room; she brought my coffee and bread.
   'Come, eat something,' she said; but I put both away from me,
feeling as if a drop or a crumb would have choked me in my present
condition. Helen regarded me, probably with surprise: I could not
now abate my agitation, though I tried hard; I continued to weep
aloud. She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her
arms, and rested her head upon them; in that attitude she remained
silent as an Indian. I was the first who spoke-
   'Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a
liar?'
   'Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have
heard you called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions.'
   'But what have I to do with millions? The eighty, I know, despise
me.'
   'Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either
despises or dislikes you: many, I am sure, pity you much.'
   'How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst has said?'
   'Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and
admired man; he is little liked here; he never took steps to make
himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you
would have found enemies, declared or covert, all around you; as it
is, the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared.
Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but
friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you
persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere long appear so much
the more evidently for their temporary suppression. Besides, Jane'-
she paused.
   'Well, Helen?' said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my
fingers gently to warm them, and went on-
   'If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your
own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would
not be without friends.'
   'No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not
enough: if others don't love me I would rather die than live- I cannot
bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real
affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love,
I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to
let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it
dash its hoof at my chest-'
   'Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you
are too impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created
your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other
resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you.
Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible
world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is
everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to
guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on
all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise
our innocence (if innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge
which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at secondhand
from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on
your clear front), and God waits only the separation of spirit from
flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink
overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is
so certain an entrance to happiness- to glory?'
   I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but in the tranquillity she
imparted there was an alloy of inexpressible sadness. I felt the
impression of woe as she spoke, but I could not tell whence it came;
and when, having done speaking, she breathed a little fast and coughed
a short cough, I momentarily forgot my own sorrows to yield to a vague
concern for her.
   Resting my head on Helen's shoulder, I put my arms round her waist;
she drew me to her, and we reposed in silence. We had not sat long
thus, when another person came in. Some heavy clouds, swept from the
sky by a rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light, streaming
in through a window near, shone full both on us and on the approaching
figure, which we at once recognised as Miss Temple.
   'I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre,' said she; 'I want you
in my room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too.'
   We went; following the superintendent's guidance, we had to
thread some intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we
reached her apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked
cheerful. Miss Temple told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm-chair
on one side of the hearth, and herself taking another, she called me
to her side.
   'Is it all over?' she asked, looking down at my face. 'Have you
cried your grief away?'
   'I am afraid I never shall do that.'
   'Why?'
   'Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody
else, will now think me wicked.'
   'We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child.
Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us.'
   'Shall I, Miss Temple?'
   'You will,' said she, passing her arm round me. 'And now tell me
who is the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?'
   'Mrs. Reed, my uncle's wife. My uncle is dead, and he left me to
her care.'
   'Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?'
   'No, ma'am; she was sorry to have to do it: but my uncle, as I have
often heard the servants say, got her to promise before he died that
she would always keep me.'
   'Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when a
criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own defence.
You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to me as well as
you can. Say whatever your memory suggests as true; but add nothing
and exaggerate nothing.'
   I resolved, in the depth of my heart, that I would be most
moderate- most correct; and, having reflected a few minutes in order
to arrange coherently what I had to say, I told her all the story of
my sad childhood. Exhausted by emotion, my language was more subdued
than it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and mindful of
Helen's warnings against the indulgence of resentment, I infused
into the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary. Thus
restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible: I felt as I
went on that Miss Temple fully believed me.
   In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having
come to see me after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful
episode of the red-room: in detailing which, my excitement was sure,
in some degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften in my
recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed
spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time
in the dark and haunted chamber.
   I had finished: Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes in silence;
she then said-
   'I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his
reply agrees with your statement, you shall be publicly cleared from
every imputation; to me, Jane, you are clear now.'
   She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was well
contented to stand for I derived a child's pleasure from the
contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two ornaments, her
white forehead, her clustered and shining curls, and beaming dark
eyes), she proceeded to address Helen Burns.
   'How are you to-night, Helen? Have you coughed much to-day?'
   'Not quite so much, I think, ma'am.'
   'And the pain in your chest?'
   'It is a little better.'
   Miss Temple got up, took her hand and examined her pulse; then
she returned to her own seat: as she resumed it, I heard her sigh low.
She was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself, she said
cheerfully-
   'But you two are my visitors to-night; I must treat you as such.'
She rang her bell.
   'Barbara,' she said to the servant who answered it, 'I have not yet
had tea; bring the tray and place cups for these two young ladies.'
   And a tray was soon brought. How pretty, to my eyes, did the
china cups and bright teapot look, placed on the little round table
near the fire! How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the
scent of the toast! of which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was
beginning to be hungry), discerned only a very small portion: Miss
Temple discerned it too.
   'Barbara,' said she, 'can you not bring a little more bread and
butter? There is not enough for three.'
   Barbara went out: she returned soon-
   'Madam, Mrs. Harden says she has sent up the usual quantity.'
   Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper: a woman after Mr.
Brocklehurst's own heart, made up of equal parts of whalebone and
iron.
   'Oh, very well!' returned Miss Temple; 'we must make it do,
Barbara, I suppose.' And as the girl withdrew she added, smiling,
'Fortunately, I have it in my power to supply deficiencies for this
once.'
   Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed
before each of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel of
toast, she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel
wrapped in paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized
seed-cake.
   'I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you,' said
she, 'but as there is so little toast, you must have it now,' and
she proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand.
   We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the
least delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with
which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished
appetites on the delicate fare she liberally supplied.
   Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire;
we sat one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed
between her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be
admitted to hear.
   Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state
in her mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded
deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which
chastened the pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her,
by a controlling sense of awe; and such was my feeling now: but as
to Helen Burns, I was struck with wonder.
   The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and
kindness of her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all
these, something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers
within her. They woke, they kindled: first, they glowed in the
bright tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never seen but
pale and bloodless; then they shone in the liquid lustre of her
eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more singular than that
of Miss Temple's- a beauty neither of fine colour nor long eyelash,
nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance. Then her
soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source I cannot
tell. Has a girl of fourteen a heart large enough, vigorous enough, to
hold the swelling spring of pure, full, fervid eloquence? Such was the
characteristic of Helen's discourse on that, to me, memorable evening;
her spirit seemed hastening to live within a very brief span as much
as many live during a protracted existence.
   They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times
past; of countries far away; of secrets of nature discovered or
guessed at: they spoke of books: how many they had read! What stores
of knowledge they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with
French names and French authors: but my amazement reached its climax
when Miss Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to
recall the Latin her father had taught her, and taking a book from a
shelf, bade her read and construe a page of Virgil; and Helen
obeyed, my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding line. She
had scarcely finished ere the bell announced bedtime! no delay could
be admitted; Miss Temple embraced us both, saying, as she drew us to
her heart-
   'God bless you, my children!'
   Helen she held a little longer than me: she let her go more
reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her
she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from
her cheek.
   On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd:
she was examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns's,
and when we entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told
that to-morrow she should have half a dozen of untidily folded
articles pinned to her shoulder.
   'My things were indeed in shameful disorder,' murmured Helen to me,
in a low voice: 'I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot.'
   Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a
piece of pasteboard the word 'Slattern,' and bound it like a
phylactery round Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and
benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening, patient,
unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss
Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it
off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of which she was
incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and
large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of
her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart.
   About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss
Temple, who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared
that what he said went to corroborate my account. Miss Temple,
having assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry had been
made into the charges alleged against Jane Eyre, and that she was most
happy to be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every
imputation. The teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a
murmur of pleasure ran through the ranks of my companions.
   Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work
afresh, resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty: I
toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts; my
memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practice; exercise
sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class; in
less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing. I
learned the first two tenses of the verb Etre, and sketched my first
cottage (whose walls, by the bye, outrivalled in slope those of the
leaning tower of Pisa), on the same day. That night, on going to
bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper of hot
roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont
to amuse my inward cravings: I feasted instead on the spectacle of
ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark; all the work of my own hands:
freely pencilled houses and trees, picturesque rocks and ruins,
Cuyp-like groups of cattle, sweet paintings of butterflies hovering
over unblown roses, of birds picking at ripe cherries, of wrens' nests
enclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed about with young ivy sprays. I
examined, too, in thought, the possibility of my ever being able to
translate currently a certain little French story which Madame Pierrot
had that day shown me; nor was that problem solved to my
satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep.
   Well has Solomon said- 'Better is a dinner of herbs where love
is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.'
   I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for
Gateshead and its daily luxuries.
                          CHAPTER IX

   BUT the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened.
Spring drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter
had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My
wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of
January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of
April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature
froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour
passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be
pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds,
which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed
them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.
Flowers peeped out amongst the leaves; snowdrops, crocuses, purple
auriculas, and golden-eyed pansies. On Thursday afternoons
(half-holidays) we now took walks, and found still sweeter flowers
opening by the wayside, under the hedges.
   I discovered, too, that a great pleasure, an enjoyment which the
horizon only bounded, lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls
of our garden: this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble summits
girdling a great hill-hollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a
bright beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies. How different
had this scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky
of winter, stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow!- when mists as
chill as death wandered to the impulse of east winds along those
purple peaks, and rolled down 'ing' and holm till they blended with
the frozen fog of the beck! That beck itself was then a torrent,
turbid and curbless: it tore asunder the wood, and sent a raving sound
through the air, often thickened with wild rain or whirling sleet; and
for the forest on its banks, that showed only ranks of skeletons.
   April advanced to May: a bright, serene May it was; days of blue
sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales filled up its
duration. And now vegetation matured with vigour; Lowood shook loose
its tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its great elm, ash, and
oak skeletons were restored to majestic life; woodland plants sprang
up profusely in its recesses; unnumbered varieties of moss filled
its hollows, and it made a strange ground-sunshine out of the wealth
of its wild primrose plants: I have seen their pale gold gleam in
overshadowed spots like scatterings of the sweetest lustre. All this I
enjoyed often and fully, free, unwatched, and almost alone: for this
unwonted liberty and pleasure there was a cause, to which it now
becomes my task to advert.
   Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak
of it as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising from the verge of a
stream? Assuredly, pleasant enough: but whether healthy or not is
another question.
   That forest-dell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and
fog-bred pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring,
crept into the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded
schoolroom and dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the
seminary into an hospital.
   Semi-starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the
pupils to receive infection: forty-five out of the eighty girls lay
ill at one time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few who
continued well were allowed almost unlimited license; because the
medical attendant insisted on the necessity of frequent exercise to
keep them in health: and had it been otherwise, no one had leisure
to watch or restrain them. Miss Temple's whole attention was
absorbed by the patients: she lived in the sick-room, never quitting
it except to snatch a few hours' rest at night. The teachers were
fully occupied with packing up and making other necessary preparations
for the departure of those girls who were fortunate enough to have
friends and relations able and willing to remove them from the seat of
contagion. Many, already smitten, went home only to die: some died
at the school, and were buried quietly and quickly, the nature of
the malady forbidding delay.
   While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death
its frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls;
while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells, the drug
and the pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of
mortality, that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and
beautiful woodland out of doors. Its garden, too, glowed with flowers:
hollyhocks had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had opened, tulips
and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay
with pink thrift and crimson double daisies; the sweetbriars gave out,
morning and evening, their scent of spice and apples; and these
fragrant treasures were all useless for most of the inmates of Lowood,
except to furnish now and then a handful of herbs and blossoms to
put in a coffin.
   But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the
beauties of the scene and season; they let us ramble in the wood, like
gipsies, from morning till night; we did what we liked, went where
we liked: we lived better too. Mr. Brocklehurst and his family never
came near Lowood now: household matters were not scrutinised into; the
cross housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear of infection;
her successor, who had been matron at the Lowton Dispensary, unused to
the ways of her new abode, provided with comparative liberality.
Besides, there were fewer to feed; the sick could eat little; our
breakfast-basins were better filled; when there was no time to prepare
a regular dinner, which often happened, she would give us a large
piece of cold pie, or a thick slice of bread and cheese, and this we
carried away with us to the wood, where we each chose the spot we
liked best, and dined sumptuously.
   My favourite seat was a smooth and broad stone, rising white and
dry from the very middle of the beck, and only to be got at by
wading through the water; a feat I accomplished barefoot. The stone
was just broad enough to accommodate, comfortably, another girl and
me, at that time my chosen comrade- one Mary Ann Wilson; a shrewd,
observant personage, whose society I took pleasure in, partly
because she was witty and original, and partly because she had a
manner which set me at my ease. Some years older than I, she knew more
of the world, and could tell me many things I liked to hear: with
her my curiosity found gratification: to my faults also she gave ample
indulgence, never imposing curb or rein on anything I said. She had
a turn for narrative, I for analysis; she liked to inform, I to
question; so we got on swimmingly together, deriving much
entertainment, if not much improvement, from our mutual intercourse.
   And where, meantime, was Helen Burns? Why did I not spend these
sweet days of liberty with her? Had I forgotten her? or was I so
worthless as to have grown tired of her pure society? Surely the
Mary Ann Wilson I have mentioned was inferior to my first
acquaintance: she could only tell me amusing stories, and
reciprocate any racy and pungent gossip I chose to indulge in;
while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, she was qualified to give
those who enjoyed the privilege of her converse a taste of far
higher things.
   True, reader; and I knew and felt this: and though I am a defective
being, with many faults and few redeeming points, yet I never tired of
Helen Burns; nor ever ceased to cherish for her a sentiment of
attachment, as strong, tender, and respectful as any that ever
animated my heart. How could it be otherwise, when Helen, at all times
and under all circumstances, evinced for me a quiet and faithful
friendship, which ill-humour never soured, nor irritation never
troubled? But Helen was ill at present: for some weeks she had been
removed from my sight to I knew not what room upstairs. She was not, I
was told, in the hospital portion of the house with the fever
patients; for her complaint was consumption, not typhus: and by
consumption I, in my ignorance, understood something mild, which
time and care would be sure to alleviate.
   I was confirmed in this idea by the fact of her once or twice
coming downstairs on very warm sunny afternoons, and being taken by
Miss Temple into the garden; but, on these occasions, I was not
allowed to go and speak to her; I only saw her from the schoolroom
window, and then not distinctly; for she was much wrapped up, and
sat at a distance under the verandah.
   One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late
with Mary Ann in the wood; we had, as usual, separated ourselves
from the others, and had wandered far; so far that we lost our way,
and had to ask it at a lonely cottage, where a man and woman lived,
who looked after a herd of half-wild swine that fed on the mast in the
wood. When we got back, it was after moonrise: a pony, which we knew
to be the surgeon's, was standing at the garden door. Mary Ann
remarked that she supposed some one must be very ill, as Mr. Bates had
been sent for at that time of the evening. She went into the house;
I stayed behind a few minutes to plant in my garden a handful of roots
I had dug up in the forest, and which I feared would wither if I
left them till the morning. This done, I lingered yet a little longer:
the flowers smelt so sweet as the dew fell; it was such a pleasant
evening, so serene, so warm; the still glowing west promised so fairly
another fine day on the morrow; the moon rose with such majesty in the
grave east. I was noting these things and enjoying them as a child
might, when it entered my mind as it had never done before:-
   'How sad to be lying now on a sick bed, and to be in danger of
dying! This world is pleasant- it would be dreary to be called from
it, and to have to go who knows where?'
   And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what
had been infused into it concerning heaven and hell; and for the first
time it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing behind,
on each side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf: it
felt the one point where it stood- the present; all the rest was
formless cloud and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of
tottering, and plunging amid that chaos. While pondering this new
idea, I heard the front door open; Mr. Bates came out, and with him
was a nurse. After she had seen him mount his horse and depart, she
was about to close the door, but I ran up to her.
   'How is Helen Burns?'
   'Very poorly,' was the answer.
   'Is it her Mr. Bates has been to see?'
   'Yes.'
   'And what does he say about her?'
   'He says she'll not be here long.'
   This phrase, uttered in my hearing yesterday, would have only
conveyed the notion that she was about to be removed to
Northumberland, to her own home. I should not have suspected that it
meant she was dying; but I knew instantly now! It opened clear on my
comprehension that Helen Burns was numbering her last days in this
world, and that she was going to be taken to the region of spirits, if
such region there were. I experienced a shock of horror, then a strong
thrill of grief, then a desire- a necessity to see her; and I asked in
what room she lay.
   'She is in Miss Temple's room,' said the nurse.
   'May I go up and speak to her?'
   'Oh no, child! It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come
in; you'll catch the fever if you stop out when the dew is falling.'
   The nurse closed the front door; I went in by the side entrance
which led to the schoolroom: I was just in time; it was nine
o'clock, and Miss Miller was calling the pupils to go to bed.
   It might be two hours later, probably near eleven, when I- not
having been able to fall asleep, and deeming, from the perfect silence
of the dormitory, that my companions were all wrapt in profound
repose- rose softly, put on my frock over my night-dress, and, without
shoes, crept from the apartment, and set off in quest of Miss Temple's
room. It was quite at the other end of the house; but I knew my way;
and the light of the unclouded summer moon, entering here and there at
passage windows, enabled me to find it without difficulty. An odour of
camphor and burnt vinegar warned me when I came near the fever room:
and I passed its door quickly, fearful lest the nurse who sat up all
night should hear me. I dreaded being discovered and sent back; for
I must see Helen,- I must embrace her before she died,- I must give
her one last kiss, exchange with her one last word.
   Having descended a staircase, traversed a portion of the house
below, and succeeded in opening and shutting, without noise, two
doors, I reached another flight of steps; these I mounted, and then
just opposite to me was Miss Temple's room. A light shone through
the keyhole and from under the door; a profound stillness pervaded the
vicinity. Coming near, I found the door slightly ajar; probably to
admit some fresh air into the close abode of sickness. Indisposed to
hesitate, and full of impatient impulses- soul and senses quivering
with keen throes- I put it back and looked in. My eye sought Helen,
and feared to find death.
   Close by Miss Temple's bed, and half covered with its white
curtains, there stood a little crib. I saw the outline of a form under
the clothes, but the face was hid by the hangings: the nurse I had
spoken to in the garden sat in an easy-chair asleep; an unsnuffed
candle burnt dimly on the table. Miss Temple was not to be seen: I
knew afterwards that she had been called to a delirious patient in the
fever-room. I advanced; then paused by the crib side: my hand was on
the curtain, but I preferred speaking before I withdrew it. I still
recoiled at the dread of seeing a corpse.
   'Helen!' I whispered softly, 'are you awake?'
   She stirred herself, put back the curtain, and I saw her face,
pale, wasted, but quite composed: she looked so little changed that my
fear was instantly dissipated.
   'Can it be you, Jane?' she asked, in her own gentle voice.
   'Oh!' I thought, 'she is not going to die; they are mistaken: she
could not speak and look so calmly if she were.'
   I got on to her crib and kissed her: her forehead was cold, and her
cheek both cold and thin, and so were her hand and wrist; but she
smiled as of old.
   'Why are you come here, Jane? It is past eleven o'clock: I heard it
strike some minutes since.'
   'I came to see you, Helen: I heard you were very ill, and I could
not sleep till I had spoken to you.'
   'You came to bid me good-bye, then: you are just in time probably.'
   'Are you going somewhere, Helen? Are you going home?'
   'Yes; to my long home- my last home.'
   'No, no, Helen!' I stopped, distressed. While I tried to devour
my tears, a fit of coughing seized Helen; it did not, however, wake
the nurse; when it was over, she lay some minutes exhausted; then
she whispered-
   'Jane, your little feet are bare; lie down and cover yourself
with my quilt.'
   I did so: she put her arm over me, and I nestled close to her.
After a long silence, she resumed, still whispering-
   'I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you
must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We
all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not
painful; it is gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no
one to regret me much: I have only a father; and he is lately married,
and will not miss me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings.
I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the
world: I should have been continually at fault.'
   'But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?'
   'I believe; I have faith: I am going to God.'
   'Where is God? What is God?'
   'My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely
implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count
the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to
Him, reveal Him to me.'
   'You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven,
and that our souls can get to it when we die?'
   'I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can
resign my immortal part to Him without any misgiving. God is my
father; God is my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me.'
   'And shall I see you again, Helen, when I die?'
   'You will come to the same region of happiness: be received by
the same mighty, universal Parent, no doubt, dear Jane.'
   Again I questioned, but this time only in thought. 'Where is that
region? Does it exist?' And I clasped my arms closer around Helen; she
seemed dearer to me than ever; I felt as if I could not let her go;
I lay with my face hidden on her neck. Presently she said, in the
sweetest tone-
   'How comfortable I am! That last fit of coughing has tired me a
little; I feel as if I could sleep: but don't leave me, Jane; I like
to have you near me.'
   'I'll stay with you, dear Helen: no one shall take me away.'
   'Are you warm, darling?'
   'Yes.'
   'Good-night, Jane.'
   'Good-night, Helen.'
   She kissed me, and I her, and we both soon slumbered.
   When I awoke it was day: an unusual movement roused me; I looked
up; I was in somebody's arms; the nurse held me; she was carrying me
through the passage back to the dormitory. I was not reprimanded for
leaving my bed; people had something else to think about; no
explanation was afforded then to my many questions; but a day or two
afterwards I learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at
dawn, had found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen
Burns's shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was-
dead.
   Her grave is in Brocklebridge churchyard: for fifteen years after
her death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a grey marble
tablet marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word
'Resurgam.'
                          CHAPTER X

   HITHERTO I have recorded in detail the events of my insignificant
existence: to the first ten years of my life I have given almost as
many chapters. But this is not to be a regular autobiography: I am
only bound to invoke Memory where I know her responses will possess
some degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of eight years
almost in silence: a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links
of connection.
   When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at
Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till its
virulence and the number of its victims had drawn public attention
on the school. Inquiry was made into the origin of the scourge, and by
degrees various facts came out which excited public indignation in a
high degree. The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and
quality of the children's food; the brackish, fetid water used in
its preparation; the pupils' wretched clothing and accommodations- all
these things were discovered, and the discovery produced a result
mortifying to Mr. Brocklehurst, but beneficial to the institution.
   Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribed
largely for the erection of a more convenient building in a better
situation; new regulations were made; improvements in diet and
clothing introduced; the funds of the school were intrusted to the
management of a committee. Mr. Brocklehurst, who, from his wealth
and family connections, could not be overlooked, still retained the
post of treasurer; but he was aided in the discharge of his duties
by gentlemen of rather more enlarged and sympathising minds: his
office of inspector, too, was shared by those who knew how to
combine reason with strictness, comfort with economy, compassion
with uprightness. The school, thus improved, became in time a truly
useful and noble institution. I remained an inmate of its walls, after
its regeneration, for eight years: six as pupil, and two as teacher;
and in both capacities I bear my testimony to its value and
importance.
   During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy,
because it was not inactive. I had the means of an excellent education
placed within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies, and a
desire to excel in all, together with a great delight in pleasing my
teachers, especially such as I loved, urged me on: I availed myself
fully of the advantages offered me. In time I rose to be the first
girl of the first class; then I was invested with the office of
teacher; which I discharged with zeal for two years: but at the end of
that time I altered.
   Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued
superintendent of the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best
part of my acquirements; her friendship and society had been my
continual solace; she had stood me in the stead of mother,
governess, and, latterly, companion. At this period she married,
removed with her husband (a clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy
of such a wife) to a distant county, and consequently was lost to me.
   From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was gone
every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in
some degree a home to me. I had imbibed from her something of her
nature and much of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed
better regulated feelings had become the inmates of my mind. I had
given in allegiance to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was
content: to the eyes of others, usually even to my own, I appeared a
disciplined and subdued character.
   But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between
me and Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step into a
post-chaise, shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise
mount the hill and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my
own room, and there spent in solitude the greatest part of the
half-holiday granted in honour of the occasion.
   I walked about the chamber most of the time. I imagined myself only
to be regretting my loss, and thinking how to repair it; but when my
reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the
afternoon was gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned
on me, namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming
process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss
Temple- or rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere
I had been breathing in her vicinity- and that now I was left in my
natural element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions.
It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive
were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me,
but the reason for tranquillity was no more. My world had for some
years been in Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems;
now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field
of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who
had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of
life amidst its perils.
   I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. There were the
two wings of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirts
of Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all other
objects to rest on those most remote, the blue peaks; it was those I
longed to surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed
prison-ground, exile limits. I traced the white road winding round the
base of one mountain, and vanishing in a gorge between two; how I
longed to follow it farther! I recalled the time when I had
travelled that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill
at twilight; an age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought
me first to Lowood, and I had never quitted it since. My vacations had
all been spent at school: Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to
Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had ever been to visit
me. I had had no communication by letter or message with the outer
world: school-rules, school-duties, school-habits and notions, and
voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and
antipathies- such was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it
was not enough; I tired of the routine of eight years in one
afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I
uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly
blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change,
stimulus: that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space:
'Then,' I cried, half desperate, 'grant me at least a new servitude!'
   Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me downstairs.
   I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections
till bedtime: even then a teacher who occupied the same room with me
kept me from the subject to which I longed to recur, by a prolonged
effusion of small talk. How I wished sleep would silence her. It
seemed as if, could I but go back to the idea which had last entered
my mind as I stood at the window, some inventive suggestion would rise
for my relief.
   Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welsh-woman, and till
now her habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any
other light than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deep notes
with satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my
half-effaced thought instantly revived.
   'A new servitude! There is something in that,' I soliloquised
(mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud). 'I know there
is, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words
as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no
more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere
waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be matter of
fact. Any one may serve: I have served here eight years; now all I
want is to serve elsewhere. Can I not get so much of my own will? Is
not the thing feasible? Yes- yes- the end is not so difficult; if I
had only a brain active enough to ferret out the means of attaining
it.'
   I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain: it was a chilly
night; I covered my shoulders with a shawl, and then I proceeded to
think again with all my might.
   'What do I want? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces,
under new circumstances: I want this because it is of no use wanting
anything better. How do people do to get a new place? They apply to
friends, I suppose: I have no friends. There are many others who
have no friends, who must look about for themselves and be their own
helpers; and what is their resource?'
   I could not tell: nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain to
find a response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster: I felt
the pulses throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it
worked in chaos; and no result came of its efforts. Feverish with vain
labour, I got up and took a turn in the room; undrew the curtain,
noted a star or two, shivered with cold, and again crept to bed.
   A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required
suggestion on my pillow; for as I lay down, it came quietly and
naturally to my mind:- 'Those who want situations advertise; you
   'How? I know nothing about advertising.'
   Replies rose smooth and prompt now:-
   'You must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it
under a cover directed to the editor of the Herald; you must put it,
the first opportunity you have, into the post at Lowton; answers
must be addressed to J. E., at the post-office there; you can go and
inquire in about a week after you send your letter, if any are come,
and act accordingly.'
   This scheme I went over twice, thrice; it was then digested in my
mind; I had it in a clear practical form: I felt satisfied, and fell
asleep.
   With earliest day, I was up: I had my advertisement written,
enclosed, and directed before the bell rang to rouse the school; it
ran thus:-
   'A young lady accustomed to tuition' (had I not been a teacher
two years?) 'is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private
family where the children are under fourteen' (I thought that as I was
barely eighteen, it would not do to undertake the guidance of pupils
nearer my own age). 'She is qualified to teach the usual branches of a
good English education, together with French, Drawing, and Music'
(in those days, reader, this now narrow catalogue of
accomplishments, would have been held tolerably comprehensive).
   This document remained locked in my drawer all day: after tea, I
asked leave of the new superintendent to go to Lowton, in order to
perform some small commissions for myself and one or two of my
fellow-teachers; permission was readily granted; I went. It was a walk
of two miles, and the evening was wet, but the days were still long; I
visited a shop or two, slipped the letter into the post-office, and
came back through heavy rain, with streaming garments, but with a
relieved heart.
   The succeeding week seemed long: it came to an end at last,
however, like all sublunary things, and once more, towards the close
of a pleasant autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to
Lowton. A picturesque track it was, by the way; lying along the side
of the beck and through the sweetest curves of the dale: but that
day I thought more of the letters, that might or might not be awaiting
me at the little burgh whither I was bound, than of the charms of
lea and water.
   My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a
pair of shoes; so I discharged that business first, and when it was
done, I stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the
shoemaker's to the post-office: it was kept by an old dame, who wore
horn spectacles on her nose, and black mittens on her hands.
   'Are there any letters for J. E.?' I asked.
   She peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a
drawer and fumbled among its contents for a long time, so long that my
hopes began to falter. At last, having held a document before her
glasses for nearly five minutes, she presented it across the
counter, accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful
glance- it was for J. E.
   'Is there only one?' I demanded.
   'There are no more,' said she; and I put it in my pocket and turned
my face homeward: I could not open it then; rules obliged me to be
back by eight, and it was already half-past seven.
   Various duties awaited me on my arrival: I had to sit with the
girls during their hour of study; then it was my turn to read prayers;
to see them to bed: afterwards I supped with the other teachers.
Even when we finally retired for the night, the inevitable Miss
Gryce was still my companion: we had only a short end of candle in our
candlestick, and I dreaded lest she should talk till it was all
burnt out; fortunately, however, the heavy supper she had eaten
produced a soporific effect: she was already snoring before I had
finished undressing. There still remained an inch of candle: I now
took out my letter; the seal was an initial F.; I broke it; the
contents were brief.
Thursday, possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a
position to give satisfactory references as to character and
competency, a situation can be offered her where there is but one
pupil, a little girl, under ten years of age; and where the salary
is thirty pounds per annum. J. E. is requested to send references,
name, address, and all particulars to the direction:-
   I examined the document long: the writing was old-fashioned and
rather uncertain, like that of an elderly lady. This circumstance
was satisfactory: a private fear had haunted me, that in thus acting
for myself, and by my own guidance, I ran the risk of getting into
some scrape; and, above all things, I wished the result of my
endeavours to be respectable, proper, en regle. I now felt that an
elderly lady was no bad ingredient in the business I had on hand. Mrs.
Fairfax! I saw her in a black gown and widow's cap; frigid, perhaps,
but not uncivil: a model of elderly English respectability.
Thornfield! that, doubtless, was the name of her house: a neat orderly
spot, I was sure; though I failed in my efforts to conceive a
recollections of the map of England; yes, I saw it; both the shire and
county where I now resided: that was a recommendation to me. I
longed to go where there was life and movement: Millcote was a large
doubtless: so much the better; it would be a complete change at least.
Not that my fancy was much captivated by the idea of long chimneys and
clouds of smoke- 'but,' I argued, 'Thornfield will, probably, be a
good way from the town.'
   Here the socket of the candle dropped, and the wick went out.
   Next day new steps were to be taken; my plans could no longer be
confined to my own breast; I must impart them in order to achieve
their success. Having sought and obtained an audience of the
superintendent during the noontide recreation, I told her I had a
prospect of getting a new situation where the salary would be double
what I now received (for at Lowood I only got L15 per annum); and
requested she would break the matter for me to Mr. Brocklehurst, or
some of the committee, and ascertain whether they would permit me to
mention them as references. She obligingly consented to act as
mediatrix in the matter. The next day she laid the affair before Mr.
Brocklehurst, who said that Mrs. Reed must be written to, as she was
my natural guardian. A note was accordingly addressed to that lady,
who returned for answer, that 'I might do as I pleased: she had long
relinquished all interference in my affairs.' This note went the round
of the committee, and at last, after what appeared to me most
tedious delay, formal leave was given me to better my condition if I
could; and an assurance added, that as I had always conducted myself
well, both as teacher and pupil, at Lowood, a testimonial of character
and capacity, signed by the inspectors of that institution, should
forthwith be furnished me.
   This testimonial I accordingly received in about a month, forwarded
a copy of it to Mrs. Fairfax, and got that lady's reply, stating
that she was satisfied, and fixing that day fortnight as the period
for my assuming the post of governess in her house.
   I now busied myself in preparations: the fortnight passed
rapidly. I had not a very large wardrobe, though it was adequate to my
wants; and the last day sufficed to pack my trunk,- the same I had
brought with me eight years ago from Gateshead.
   The box was corded, the card nailed on. In half an hour the carrier
was to call for it to take it to Lowton, whither I myself was to
repair at an early hour the next morning to meet the coach. I had
brushed my black stuff travelling-dress, prepared my bonnet, gloves,
and muff; sought in all my drawers to see that no article was left
behind; and now having nothing more to do, I sat down and tried to
rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not
now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life
was closing tonight, a new one opening to-morrow: impossible to
slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly while the change
was being accomplished.
   'Miss,' said a servant who met me in the lobby, where I was
wandering like a troubled spirit, 'a person below wishes to see you.'
   'The carrier, no doubt,' I thought, and ran downstairs without
inquiry. I was passing the back-parlour or teachers' sitting-room, the
door of which was half open, to go to the kitchen, when some one ran
out-
   'It's her, I am sure!- I could have told her anywhere!' cried the
individual who stopped my progress and took my hand.
   I looked: I saw a woman attired like a well-dressed servant,
matronly, yet still young; very good-looking, with black hair and
eyes, and lively complexion.
   'Well, who is it?' she asked, in a voice and with a smile I half
recognised; 'you've not quite forgotten me, I think, Miss Jane?'
   In another second I was embracing and kissing her rapturously:
'Bessie! Bessie! Bessie!' that was all I said; whereat she half
laughed, half cried, and we both went into the parlour. By the fire
stood a little fellow of three years old, in plaid frock and trousers.
   'That is my little boy,' said Bessie directly.
   'Then you are married, Bessie?'
   'Yes; nearly five years since to Robert Leaven, the coachman; and
I've a little girl besides Bobby there, that I've christened Jane.'
   'And you don't live at Gateshead?'
   'I live at the lodge: the old porter has left.'
   'Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them,
Bessie: but sit down first; and, Bobby, come and sit on my knee,
will you?' but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother.
   'You're not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout,'
continued Mrs. Leaven. 'I daresay they've not kept you too well at
school: Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are; and
Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth.'
   'Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?'
   'Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there
everybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her: but his
relations were against the match; and- what do you think?- he and Miss
Georgiana made it up to run away; but they were found out and stopped.
It was Miss Reed that found them out: I believe she was envious; and
now she and her sister lead a cat and dog life together; they are
always quarrelling.'
   'Well, and what of John Reed?'
   'Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to
college, and he got- plucked, I think they call it: and then his
uncles wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such
a dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think.'
   'What does he look like?'
   'He is very tall: some people call him a fine-looking young man;
but he has such thick lips.'
   'And Mrs. Reed?'
   'Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think
she's not quite easy in her mind: Mr. John's conduct does not please
her- he spends a deal of money.'
   'Did she send you here, Bessie?'
   'No, indeed: but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heard
that there had been a letter from you, and that you were going to
another part of the country, I thought I'd just set off, and get a
look at you before you were quite out of my reach.'
   'I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie.' I said this
laughing: I perceived that Bessie's glance, though it expressed
regard, did in no shape denote admiration.
   'No, Miss Jane, not exactly: you are genteel enough; you look
like a lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you: you were
no beauty as a child.'
   I smiled at Bessie's frank answer: I felt that it was correct,
but I confess I was not quite indifferent to its import: at eighteen
most people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an
exterior likely to second that desire brings anything but
gratification.
   'I daresay you are clever, though,' continued Bessie, by way of
solace. 'What can you do? Can you play on the piano?'
   'A little.'
   There was one in the room; Bessie went and opened it, and then
asked me to sit down and give her a tune: I played a waltz or two, and
she was charmed.
   'The Miss Reeds could not play as well!' said she exultingly. 'I
always said you would surpass them in learning: and can you draw?'
   'That is one of my paintings over the chimney-piece.' It was a
landscape in water colours, of which I had made a present to the
superintendent, in acknowledgment of her obliging mediation with the
committee on my behalf, and which she had framed and glazed.
   'Well, that is beautiful, Miss Jane! It is as fine a picture as any
Miss Reed's drawing-master could paint, let alone the young ladies
themselves, who could not come near it: and have you learnt French?'
   'Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it.'
   'And you can work on muslin and canvas?'
   'I can.'
   'Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane! I knew you would be: you will
get on whether your relations notice you or not. There was something I
wanted to ask you. Have you ever heard anything from your father's
kinsfolk, the Eyres?'
   'Never in my life.'
   'Well, you know, Missis always said they were poor and quite
despicable: and they may be poor; but I believe they are as much
gentry as the Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr.
Eyre came to Gateshead and wanted to see you; Missis said you were
at school fifty miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, for he
could not stay: he was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the
ship was to sail from London in a day or two. He looked quite a
gentleman, and I believe he was your father's brother.'
   'What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?'
   'An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine- the butler
did tell me-'
   'Madeira?' I suggested.
   'Yes, that is it- that is the very word.'
   'So he went?'
   'Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house: Missis was very
high with him; she called him afterwards a "sneaking tradesman." My
Robert believes he was a wine-merchant.'
   'Very likely,' I returned; 'or perhaps clerk or agent to a
wine-merchant.'
   Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer, and then she
was obliged to leave me: I saw her again for a few minutes the next
morning at Lowton, while I was waiting for the coach. We parted
finally at the door of the Brocklehurst Arms there, each went her
separate way; she set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the
conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the
vehicle which was to bear me to new duties and a new life in the
unknown environs of Millcote.
                          CHAPTER XI

   A NEW chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play;
and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you
see a room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured
papering on the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such
furniture, such ornaments on the mantel-piece, such prints,
including a portrait of George the Third, and another of the Prince of
Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible
to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by
that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my
muff and umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness
and chill contracted by sixteen hours' exposure to the rawness of an
October day: I left Lowton at four o'clock A.M., and the Millcote town
clock is now just striking eight.
   Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very
tranquil in my mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would
be some one to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the
wooden steps the 'boots' placed for my convenience, expecting to
hear my name pronounced, and to see some description of carriage
waiting to convey me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible;
and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a
Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no resource but to
request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting,
while all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.
   It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel
itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection,
uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and
prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted.
The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride
warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me
became predominant when half an hour elapsed and still I was alone.
I bethought myself to ring the bell.
   'Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?' I asked
of the waiter who answered the summons.
   'Thornfield? I don't know, ma'am; I'll inquire at the bar.' He
vanished, but reappeared instantly-
   'Is your name Eyre, Miss?'
   'Yes.'
   'Person here waiting for you.'
   I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the
inn-passage: a man was standing by the open door, and in the
lamp-lit street I dimly saw a one-horse conveyance.
   'This will be your luggage, I suppose?' said the man rather
abruptly when he saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage.
   'Yes.' He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car,
and then I got in; before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to
Thornfield.
   'A matter of six miles.'
   'How long shall we be before we get there?'
   'Happen an hour and a half.'
   He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we
set off. Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to
reflect; I was content to be at length so near the end of my
journey; and as I leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant
conveyance, I meditated much at my ease.
   'I suppose,' thought I, 'judging from the plainness of the
servant and carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so
much the better; I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was
very miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this
little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall
surely be able to get on with her; I will do my best; it is a pity
that doing one's best does not always answer. At Lowood, indeed, I
took that resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with
Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray
God Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if she does,
I am not bound to stay with her! let the worst come to the worst, I
can advertise again. How far are we on our road now, I wonder?'
   I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us;
judging by the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable
magnitude, much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could
see, on a sort of common; but there were houses scattered all over the
district; I felt we were in a different region to Lowood, more
populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less romantic.
   The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse
walk all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily
believe, to two hours; at last he turned in his seat and said-
   'You're noan so far fro' Thornfield now.'
   Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad
tower against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a
narrow galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or
hamlet. About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair
of gates: we passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now
slowly ascended a drive, and came upon the long front of a house:
candlelight gleamed from one curtained bow-window; all the rest were
dark. The car stopped at the front door; it was opened by a
maid-servant; I alighted and went in.
   'Will you walk this way, ma'am?' said the girl; and I followed
her across a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me
into a room whose double illumination of fire and candle at first
dazzled me, contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes
had been for two hours inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and
agreeable picture presented itself to my view.
   A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair
high-backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable
little elderly lady, in widow's cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin
apron; exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately
and milder looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat
demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the
beau-ideal of domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for a
new governess could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to
overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the
old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.
   'How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride;
John drives so slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire.'
   'Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?' said I.
   'Yes, you are right: do sit down.'
   She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my
shawl and untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself
so much trouble.
   'Oh, it is no trouble; I daresay your own hands are almost numbed
with cold. Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two:
here are the keys of the storeroom.'
   And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of
keys, and delivered them to the servant.
   'Now, then, draw nearer to the fire,' she continued. 'You've
brought your luggage with you, haven't you, my dear?'
   'Yes, ma'am.'
   'I'll see it carried into your room,' she said, and bustled out.
   'She treats me like a visitor,' thought I. 'I little expected
such a reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is
not like what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must
not exult too soon.'
   She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and
a book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now
brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather
confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever
before received, and, that too, shown by my employer and superior; but
as she did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out
of her place, I thought it better to take her civilities quietly.
   'Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?' I
asked, when I had partaken of what she offered me.
   'What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf,' returned the
good lady, approaching her ear to my mouth.
   I repeated the question more distinctly.
   'Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your
future pupil.'
   'Indeed! Then she is not your daughter?'
   'No,- I have no family.'
   I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way
Miss Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was not
polite to ask too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time.
   'I am so glad,' she continued, as she sat down opposite to me,
and took the cat on her knee; 'I am so glad you are come; it will be
quite pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is
pleasant at any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather
neglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a respectable
place; yet you know in winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in the
best quarters. I say alone- Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John
and his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are only
servants, and one can't converse with them on terms of equality: one
must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one's authority.
I'm sure last winter (it was a very severe one, if you recollect,
and when it did not snow, it rained and blew), not a creature but
the butcher and postman came to the house, from November till
February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night after
night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don't
think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt it confining. In
spring and summer one got on better: sunshine and long days make
such a difference; and then, just at the commencement of this
autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child makes a
house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite gay.'
   My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk;
and I drew my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere
wish that she might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated.
   'But I'll not keep you sitting up late to-night,' said she; 'it
is on the stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all
day: you must feel tired. If you have got your feet well warmed,
I'll show you your bedroom. I've had the room next to mine prepared
for you; it is only a small apartment, but I thought you would like it
better than one of the large front chambers: to be sure they have
finer furniture, but they are so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in
them myself.'
   I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt
fatigued with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She
took her candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to
see if the hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock,
she led the way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the
staircase window was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery
into which the bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a
church rather than a house. A very chill and vault-like air pervaded
the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and
solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to
find it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style.
   When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had
fastened my door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced
the eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious
staircase, and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my
little room, I remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and
mental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven. The impulse of
gratitude swelled my heart, and I knelt down at the bedside, and
offered up thanks where thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose,
to implore aid on my further path, and the power of meriting the
kindness which seemed so frankly offered me before it was earned. My
couch had no thorns in it that night; my solitary room no fears. At
once weary and content, I slept soon and soundly: when I awoke it
was broad day.
   The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun
shone in between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing
papered walls and a carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and
stained plaster of Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view. Externals
have a great effect on the young: I thought that a fairer era of
life was beginning for me- one that was to have its flowers and
pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused by
the change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all
astir. I cannot precisely define what they expected, but it was
something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at an
indefinite future period.
   I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain- for I
had no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity-
I was still by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be
disregardful of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on
the contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to
please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes
regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy
cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall,
stately, and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I
was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and so marked.
And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would be
difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yet
I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when I had
brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frock- which,
Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety-
and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do
respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new
pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having
opened my chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and
neat on the toilet table, I ventured forth.
   Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery
steps of oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I
looked at some pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a
grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl
necklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock
whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and
rubbing. Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then
I was so little accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was
half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine
autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and
still green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed
the front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions
not vast, though considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not a
nobleman's seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look.
Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery,
whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and
grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated
by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong,
knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the
mansion's designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those
round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from
the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming
to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find
existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet,
whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of
these hills; the church of the district stood nearer Thornfield: its
old tower-top looked over a knoll between the house and gates.
   I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet
listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the
wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it
was for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that
lady appeared at the door.
   'What! out already?' said she. 'I see you are an early riser.' I
went up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the
hand.
   'How do you like Thornfield?' she asked. I told her I liked it very
much.
   'Yes,' she said, 'it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be
getting out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his
head to come and reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it
rather oftener: great houses and fine grounds require the presence
of the proprietor.'
   'Mr. Rochester!' I exclaimed. 'Who is he?'
   'The owner of Thornfield,' she responded quietly. 'Did you not know
he was called Rochester?'
   Of course I did not- I had never heard of him before; but the old
lady seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood
fact, with which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.
   'I thought,' I continued, 'Thornfield belonged to you.'
   'To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the
housekeeper- the manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the
Rochesters by the mother's side, or at least my husband was; he was
a clergyman, incumbent of Hay- that little village yonder on the hill-
and that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester's
mother was a Fairfax, second cousin to my husband: but I never presume
on the connection- in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself
quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always
civil, and I expect nothing more.'
   'And the little girl- my pupil!'
   'She is Mr. Rochester's ward; he commissioned me to find a
believe. Here she comes, with her "bonne," as she calls her nurse.'
The enigma then was explained: this affable and kind little widow
was no great dame; but a dependant like myself. I did not like her the
worse for that; on the contrary, I felt better pleased than ever.
The equality between her and me was real; not the mere result of
condescension on her part: so much the better- my position was all the
freer.
   As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by
her attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did
not at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven
or eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured
face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist.
   'Good morning, Miss Adela,' said Mrs. Fairfax. 'Come and speak to
the lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some
day.' She approached.
   'C'est la ma gouvernante!' said she, pointing to me, and addressing
her nurse; who answered-
   'Mais oui, certainement.'
   'Are they foreigners?' I inquired, amazed at hearing the French
language.
   'The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent;
and, I believe, never left it till within six months ago. When she
first came here she could speak no English; now she can make shift
to talk it a little: I don't understand her, she mixes it so with
French; but you will make out her meaning very well, I daresay.'
   Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a
French lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with
Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last
seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily- applying
myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as
possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain
degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was not
likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came and
shook hands with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as
I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her
own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated
at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her
large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.
   'Ah!' cried she, in French, 'you speak my language as well as Mr.
Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can
Sophie. She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame
Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over
the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked- how it did smoke!-
and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr.
Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and
Sophie and I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell out of
mine; it was like a shelf. And Mademoiselle- what is your name?'
   'Eyre- Jane Eyre.'
   'Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning,
before it was quite daylight, at a great city- a huge city, with
very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean
town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a
plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach,
which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and
finer, called an hotel. We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie
used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called
the Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond
with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs.'
   'Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?' asked Mrs.
Fairfax.
   I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent
tongue of Madame Pierrot.
   'I wish,' continued the good lady, 'you would ask her a question or
two about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?'
   'Adele,' I inquired, 'with whom did you live when you were in
that pretty clean town you spoke of?'
   'I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin.
Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great
many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before
them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I
let you hear me sing now?'
   She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a
specimen of her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came
and placed herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurely
before her, shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the
ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera. It was the
strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her
lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in
her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false
one that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her
demeanour, how little his desertion has affected her.
   The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I
suppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love
and jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste
that point was: at least I thought so.
   Adele sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the naivete of
her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, 'Now,
Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry.'
   Assuming an attitude, she began 'La Ligue des Rats: fable de La
Fontaine.' She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to
punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an
appropriateness of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and
which proved she had been carefully trained.
   'Was it your mama who taught you that piece?' I asked.
   'Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: "Qu'avez vous
donc? lui dit un de ces rats; parlez!" She made me lift my hand- so-
to remind me to raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance
for you?'
   'No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin,
as you say, with whom did you live then?'
   'With Madame Frederic and her husband: she took care of me, but she
is nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine
a house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I
would like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I
knew Mr. Rochester before I knew Madame Frederic, and he was always
kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not
kept his word, for he has brought me to England, and now he is gone
back again himself, and I never see him.'
   After breakfast, Adele and I withdrew to the library, which room,
it appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the
schoolroom. Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but
there was one bookcase left open containing everything that could be
needed in the way of elementary works, and several volumes of light
literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, etc. I suppose
he had considered that these were all the governess would require
for her private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me amply for
the present; compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been
able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of
entertainment and information. In this room, too, there was a
cabinet piano, quite new and of superior tone; also an easel for
painting and a pair of globes.
   I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to
apply: she had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt
it would be injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I
had talked to her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and
when the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to
her nurse. I then proposed to occupy myself till dinner-time in
drawing some little sketches for her use.
   As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs.
Fairfax called to me: 'Your morning school-hours are over now, I
suppose,' said she. She was in a room the folding doors of which stood
open: I went in when she addressed me. It was a large, stately
apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet,
walnut-panelled walls, one vast window rich in stained glass, and a
lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases of
fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard.
   'What a beautiful room!' I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I
had never before seen any half so imposing.
   'Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to
let in a little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in
apartments that are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels
like a vault.'
   She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung
like it with a Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by
two broad steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse
of a fairy place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view
beyond. Yet it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it
a boudoir, both spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid
brilliant garlands of flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of
white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in rich contrast
crimson couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian
mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between
the windows large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and
fire.
   'In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!' said I. 'No
dust, no canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would
think they were inhabited daily.'
   'Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester's visits here are rare,
they are always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put
him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of
arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in
readiness.'
   'Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?'
   'Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman's tastes and habits,
and he expects to have things managed in conformity to them.'
   'Do you like him? Is he generally liked?'
   'Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all
the land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to
the Rochesters time out of mind.'
   'Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like
him? Is he liked for himself?'
   'I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is
considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has
never lived much amongst them.'
   'But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?'
   'Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather
peculiar, perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great
deal of the world, I should think. I daresay he is clever, but I never
had much conversation with him.'
   'In what way is he peculiar?'
   'I don't know- it is not easy to describe- nothing striking, but
you feel it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether
he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you
don't thoroughly understand him, in short- at least, I don't: but it
is of no consequence, he is a very good master.'
   This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer
and mine. There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a
character, or observing and describing salient points, either in
persons or things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class;
my queries puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr.
Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor- nothing more:
she inquired and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my
wish to gain a more definite notion of his identity.
   When we left the dining-room she proposed to show me over the
rest of the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs,
admiring as I went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The
large front chambers I thought especially grand: and some of the
third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were interesting from their
air of antiquity. The furniture once appropriated to the lower
apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions
changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement
showed bed-steads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut,
looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs'
heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs,
high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose
cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced
embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been
coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield
Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory. I liked the
hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by
no means coveted a night's repose on one of those wide and heavy beds:
shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought
old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of
strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings,-
all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of
moonlight.
   'Do the servants sleep in these rooms?' I asked.
   'No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no
one ever sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost
at Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt.'
   'So I think: you have no ghost, then?'
   'None that I ever heard of,' returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.
   'Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?'
   'I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been
rather a violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though,
that is the reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now.'
   'Yes- "after life's fitful fever they sleep well,"' I muttered.
'Where are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?' for she was moving away.
   'On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?' I
followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence
by a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now
on a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests.
Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the
grounds laid out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely
girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park,
dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a
path visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with
foliage; the church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all
reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon bounded by a
propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No feature in the
scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I turned from it
and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the
ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of
blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene of
grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre,
and over which I had been gazing with delight.
   Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I,
by dint of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded
to descend the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage
to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third
storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far
end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut,
like a corridor in some Bluebeard's castle.
   While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so
still a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh;
distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for
an instant; it began again, louder: for at first, though distinct,
it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake
an echo in every lonely chamber; though it originated but in one,
and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents issued.
   'Mrs. Fairfax!' I called out: for I now heard her descending the
great stairs. 'Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?'
   'Some of the servants, very likely,' she answered: 'perhaps Grace
Poole.'
   'Did you hear it?' I again inquired.
   'Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms.
Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together.'
   The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in
an odd murmur.
   'Grace!' exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.
   I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as
tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it
was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the
curious cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear,
I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed
me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.
   The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,- a woman of
between thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and
with a hard, plain face: any apparition less romantic or less
ghostly could scarcely be conceived.
   'Too much noise, Grace,' said Mrs. Fairfax. 'Remember
directions!' Grace curtseyed silently and went in.
   'She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her
housemaid's work,' continued the widow; 'not altogether
unobjectionable in some points, but she does well enough. By the
bye, how have you got on with your new pupil this morning?'
   The conversation, thus turned on Adele, continued till we reached
the light and cheerful region below. Adele came running to meet us
in the hall, exclaiming-
   'Mesdames, vous etes servies!' adding, 'J'ai bien faim, moi!'
   We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax's room.
                         CHAPTER XII

   THE promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to
Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer
acquaintance with the place and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out
to be what she appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of
competent education and average intelligence. My pupil was a lively
child, who had been spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes
wayward; but as she was committed entirely to my care, and no
injudicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans for
her improvement, she soon forgot her little freaks, and became
obedient and teachable. She had no great talents, no marked traits
of character, no peculiar development of feeling or taste which raised
her one inch above the ordinary level of childhood; but neither had
she any deficiency or vice which sunk her below it. She made
reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps
not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay prattle,
and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of
attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.
   This, par parenthese, will be thought cool language by persons
who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children,
and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for
them an idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter
parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling
the truth. I felt a conscientious solicitude for Adele's welfare and
progress, and a quiet liking for her little self: just as I
cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and
a pleasure in her society proportionate to the tranquil regard she had
for me, and the moderation of her mind and character.
   Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and
then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to
the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele
played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom,
I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and
having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and
hill, and along dim sky-line- that then I longed for a power of vision
which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world,
towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen- that then I
desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of
intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character,
than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax,
and what was good in Adele; but I believed in the existence of other
and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to
behold.
   Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called
discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my
nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to
walk along the corridor of the third storey, backwards and forwards,
safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's
eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it- and,
certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by
the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded
it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that
was never ended- a tale my imagination created, and narrated
continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling,
that I desired and had not in my actual existence.
   It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with
tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they
cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine,
and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows
how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses
of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm
generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for
their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their
brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a
stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded
in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to
confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to
playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to
condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn
more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.
   When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole's laugh:
the same peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had
thrilled me: I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her
laugh. There were days when she was quite silent; but there were
others when I could not account for the sounds she made. Sometimes I
saw her: she would come out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a
tray in her hand, go down to the kitchen and shortly return, generally
(oh, romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing
a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the
curiosity raised by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she
had no point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to
draw her into conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a
monosyllabic reply usually cut short every effort of that sort.
   The other members of the household, viz., John and his wife, Leah
the housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people; but in
no respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and
sometimes I asked her questions about her native country; but she
was not of a descriptive or narrative turn, and generally gave such
vapid and confused answers as were calculated rather to check than
encourage inquiry.
   October, November, December passed away. One afternoon in
January, Mrs. Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adele, because she
had a cold; and, as Adele seconded the request with an ardour that
reminded me how precious occasional holidays had been to me in my
own childhood, I accorded it, deeming that I did well in showing
pliability on the point. It was a fine, calm day, though very cold;
I was tired of sitting still in the library through a whole long
morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a letter which was waiting to
be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak and volunteered to carry it
to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a pleasant winter
afternoon walk. Having seen Adele comfortably seated in her little
chair by Mrs. Fairfax's parlour fireside, and given her her best wax
doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a drawer) to
play with, and a story-book for a change of amusement; and having
replied to her 'Revenez bientot, ma bonne amie, ma chere Mdlle.
Jeannette,' with a kiss I set out.
   The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I
walked fast till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and
analyse the species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and
situation. It was three o'clock; the church bell tolled as I passed
under the belfry: the charm of the hour lay in its approaching
dimness, in the low-gliding and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from
Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and
blackberries in autumn, and even now possessing a few coral
treasures in hips and haws, but whose best winter delight lay in its
utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of air stirred, it
made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to
rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as still as
the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path. Far
and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now
browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the
hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.
   This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the
middle, I sat down on a stile which led thence into a field. Gathering
my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel
the cold, though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice
covering the causeway, where a little brooklet, now congealed, had
overflowed after a rapid thaw some days since. From my seat I could
look down on Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall was the
principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose
against the, west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the
trees, and sank crimson and clear behind them. I then turned eastward.
   On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a
cloud, but brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half
lost in trees, sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was
yet a mile distant, but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly
its thin murmurs of life. My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in
what dales and depths I could not tell: but there were many hills
beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks threading their passes. That
evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the
sough of the most remote.
   A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once
so far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter,
which effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid
mass of a crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and
strong on the foreground, efface the aerial distance of azure hill,
sunny horizon, and blended clouds where tint melts into tint.
   The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of
the lane yet hid it, but it approached. I was just leaving the
stile; yet, as the path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In
those days I was young, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark
tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories were there amongst
other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them
a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could give. As this horse
approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I
remembered certain of Bessie's tales, wherein figured a
North-of-England spirit called a 'Gytrash,' which, in the form of
horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came
upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me.
   It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the
tramp, tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the
hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made
him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one form of
Bessie's Gytrash- a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head:
it passed me, however, quietly enough; not staying to look up, with
strange pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half expected it would.
The horse followed,- a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man,
the human being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the
Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though
they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet
shelter in the commonplace human form. No Gytrash was this,- only a
traveller taking the short cut to Millcote. He passed, and I went
on; a few steps, and I turned: a sliding sound and an exclamation of
'What the deuce is to do now?' and a clattering tumble, arrested my
attention. Man and horse were down; they had slipped on the sheet of
ice which glazed the causeway. The dog came bounding back, and
seeing his master in a predicament, and hearing the horse groan,
barked till the evening hills echoed the sound, which was deep in
proportion to his magnitude. He snuffed round the prostrate group, and
then he ran up to me; it was all he could do,- there was no other help
at hand to summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to the traveller,
by this time struggling himself free of his steed. His efforts were so
vigorous, I thought he could not be much hurt; but I asked him the
question-
   'Are you injured, sir?'
   I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was
pronouncing some formula which prevented him from replying to me
directly.
   'Can I do anything?' I asked again.
   'You must just stand on one side,' he answered as he rose, first to
his knees, and then to his feet. I did; whereupon began a heaving,
stamping, clattering process, accompanied by a barking and baying
which removed me effectually some yards' distance; but I would not
be driven quite away till I saw the event. This was finally fortunate;
the horse was re-established, and the dog was silenced with a 'Down,
Pilot!' The traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and leg, as if
trying whether they were sound; apparently something ailed them, for
he halted to the stile whence I had just risen, and sat down.
   I was in the mood for being useful, or at least officious, I think,
for I now drew near him again.
   'If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch some one either
from Thornfield Hall or from Hay.'
   'Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones,- only a sprain;'
and again he stood up and tried his foot, but the result extorted an
involuntary 'Ugh!'
   Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing
bright: I could see him plainly. His figure was enveloped in a
riding cloak, fur collared and steel clasped; its details were not
apparent, but I traced the general points of middle height and
considerable breadth of chest. He had a dark face, with stern features
and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and
thwarted just now; he was past youth, but had not reached
middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt no fear of him,
and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, heroic-looking young
gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus questioning him
against his will, and offering my services unasked. I had hardly
ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one. I had a
theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry,
fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine
shape, I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor
could have sympathy with anything in me, and should have shunned
them as one would fire, lightning, or anything else that is bright but
antipathetic.
   If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me
when I addressed him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily
and with thanks, I should have gone on my way and not felt any
vocation to renew inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the
traveller, set me at my ease: I retained my station when he waved to
me to go, and announced-
   'I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this
solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse.'
   He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes
in my direction before.
   'I should think you ought to be at home yourself,' said he, 'if you
have a home in this neighbourhood: where do you come from?'
   'From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when
it is moonlight: I will run over to Hay for you with pleasure, if
you wish it: indeed, I am going there to post a letter.'
   'You live just below- do you mean at that house with the
battlements?' pointing to Thornfield Hall, on which the moon cast a
hoary gleam, bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods, that,
by contrast with the western sky, now seemed one mass of shadow.
   'Yes, sir.'
   'Whose house is it?'
   'Mr. Rochester's.'
   'Do you know Mr. Rochester?'
   'No, I have never seen him.'
   'He is not resident, then?'
   'No.'
   'Can you tell me where he is?'
   'I cannot.'
   'You are not a servant at the hall, of course. You are-' He
stopped, ran his eye over my dress, which, as usual, was quite simple:
a black merino cloak, a black beaver bonnet; neither of them half fine
enough for a lady's-maid. He seemed puzzled to decide what I was; I
helped him.
   'I am the governess.'
   'Ah, the governess!' he repeated; 'deuce take me, if I had not
forgotten! The governess!' and again my raiment underwent scrutiny. In
two minutes he rose from the stile: his face expressed pain when he
tried to move.
   'I cannot commission you to fetch help,' he said; 'but you may help
me a little yourself, if you will be so kind.'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'You have not an umbrella that I can use as a stick?'
   'No.'
   'Try to get hold of my horse's bridle and lead him to me: you are
not afraid?'
   I should have been afraid to touch a horse when alone, but when
told to do it, I was disposed to obey. I put down my muff on the
stile, and went up to the tall steed; I endeavoured to catch the
bridle, but it was a spirited thing, and would not let me come near
its head; I made effort on effort, though in vain: meantime, I was
mortally afraid of its trampling forefeet. The traveller waited and
watched for some time, and at last he laughed.
   'I see,' he said, 'the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet,
so all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain; I must
beg of you to come here.'
   I came. 'Excuse me,' he continued: 'necessity compels me to make
you useful.' He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and leaning on me
with some stress, limped to his horse. Having once caught the
bridle, he mastered it directly and sprang to his saddle; grimacing
grimly as he made the effort, for it wrenched his sprain.
   'Now,' said he, releasing his under lip from a hard bite, 'just
hand me my whip; it lies there under the hedge.'
   I sought it and found it.
   'Thank you; now make haste with the letter to Hay, and return as
fast as you can.'
   A touch of a spurred heel made his horse first start and rear,
and then bound away; the dog rushed in his traces; all three vanished,


                'Like heath that, in the wilderness,
                   The wild wind whirls away.'

   I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and
was gone for me: it was an incident of no moment, no romance, no
interest in a sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a
monotonous life. My help had been needed and claimed; I had given
it: I was pleased to have done something; trivial, transitory though
the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary of an
existence all passive. The new face, too, was like a new picture
introduced to the gallery of memory; and it was dissimilar to all
the others hanging there: firstly, because it was masculine; and,
secondly, because it was dark, strong, and stern. I had it still
before me when I entered Hay, and slipped the letter into the
post-office; I saw it as I walked fast down-hill all the way home.
When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked round and
listened, with an idea that a horse's hoofs might ring on the causeway
again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like Newfoundland
dog, might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a pollard
willow before me, rising up still and straight to meet the
moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among
the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when I glanced down in
the direction of the murmur, my eye, traversing the hall-front, caught
a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was late, and I
hurried on.
   I did not like re-entering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to
return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome
staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet
tranquil Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and
her only, was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my
walk,- to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an
uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges
of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What
good it would have done me at that time to have been tossed in the
storms of an uncertain struggling life, and to have been taught by
rough and bitter experience to long for the calm amidst which I now
repined! Yes, just as much good as it would do a man tired of
sitting still in a 'too easy chair' to take a long walk: and just as
natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances, as it would be
under his.
   I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced
backwards and forwards on the pavement; the shutters of the glass door
were closed; I could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and
spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy house- from the grey hollow filled
with rayless cells, as it appeared to me- to that sky expanded
before me,- a blue sea absolved from taint of cloud; the moon
ascending it in solemn march; her orb seeming to look up as she left
the hill-tops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below
her, and aspired to the zenith, midnight dark in its fathomless
depth and measureless distance; and for those trembling stars that
followed her course; they made my heart tremble, my veins glow when
I viewed them. Little things recall us to earth; the clock struck in
the hall; that sufficed; I turned from moon and stars, opened a
side-door, and went in.
   The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the high-hung
bronze lamp; a warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the
oak staircase. This ruddy shine issued from the great dining-room,
whose two-leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the
grate, glancing on marble hearth and brass fire-irons, and revealing
purple draperies and polished furniture, in the most pleasant
radiance. It revealed, too, a group near the mantelpiece: I had
scarcely caught it, and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling
of voices, amongst which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adele,
when the door closed.
   I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax's room; there was a fire there too,
but no candle, and no Mrs. Fairfax. Instead, all alone, sitting
upright on the rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a
great black and white long-haired dog, just like the Gytrash of the
lane. It was so like it that I went forward and said- 'Pilot,' and the
thing got up and came to me and snuffed me. I caressed him, and he
wagged his great tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone
with, and I could not tell whence he had come. I rang the bell, for
I wanted a candle; and I wanted, too, to get an account of this
visitant. Leah entered.
   'What dog is this?'
   'He came with master.'
   'With whom?'
   'With master- Mr. Rochester- he is just arrived.'
   'Indeed! and is Mrs. Fairfax with him?'
   'Yes, and Miss Adele; they are in the dining-room, and John is gone
for a surgeon; for master has had an accident; his horse fell and
his ankle is sprained.'
   'Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?'
   'Yes, coming down-hill; it slipped on some ice.'
   'Ah! Bring me a candle, will you, Leah?'
   Leah brought it; she entered, followed by Mrs. Fairfax, who
repeated the news; adding that Mr. Carter the surgeon was come, and
was now with Mr. Rochester: then she hurried out to give orders
about tea, and I went upstairs to take off my things.
                         CHAPTER XIII

   MR. ROCHESTER, it seems, by the surgeon's orders, went to bed early
that night; nor did he rise soon next morning. When he did come
down, it was to attend to business: his agent and some of his
tenants were arrived, and waiting to speak with him.
   Adele and I had now to vacate the library: it would be in daily
requisition as a reception-room for callers. A fire was lit in an
apartment upstairs, and there I carried our books, and arranged it for
the future schoolroom. I discerned in the course of the morning that
Thornfield Hall was a changed place: no longer silent as a church,
it echoed every hour or two to a knock at the door, or a clang of
the bell: steps, too, often traversed the hall, and new voices spoke
in different keys below; a rill from the outer world was flowing
through it; it had a master: for my part, I liked it better.
   Adele was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept
running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could
get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go
downstairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library,
where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry,
and made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her 'ami,
Monsieur Edouard Fairfax de Rochester,' as she dubbed him (I had not
before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he had
brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that
when his luggage came from Millcote, there would be found amongst it a
little box in whose contents she had an interest.
   'Et cela doit signifier,' said she, 'qu'il y aura la dedans un
cadeau pour moi, et peut-etre pour vous aussi, mademoiselle.
Monsieur a parle de vous: il m'a demande le nom de ma gouvernante,
et si elle n'etait pas une petite personne, assez mince et un peu
pale. J'ai dit qu'oui: car c'est vrai, n'est-ce pas, mademoiselle?'
   I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax's parlour; the
afternoon was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the schoolroom. At
dark I allowed Adele to put away books and work, and to run
downstairs; for, from the comparative silence below, and from the
cessation of appeals to the door-bell, I conjectured that Mr.
Rochester was now at liberty. Left alone, I walked to the window;
but nothing was to be seen thence: twilight and snowflakes together
thickened the air, and hid the very shrubs on the lawn. I let down the
curtain and went back to the fireside.
   In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I
remembered to have seen of the castle of Heidelberg, on the Rhine,
when Mrs. Fairfax came in, breaking up by her entrance the fiery
mosaic I had been piecing together, and scattering too some heavy
unwelcome thoughts that were beginning to throng on my solitude.
   'Mr. Rochester would be glad if you and your pupil would take tea
with him in the drawing-room this evening,' said she: 'he has been
so much engaged all day that he could not ask to see you before.'
   'When is his tea-time?' I inquired.
   'Oh, at six o'clock: he keeps early hours in the country. You had
better change your frock now; I will go with you and fasten it. Here
is a candle.'
   'Is it necessary to change my frock?'
   'Yes, you had better: I always dress for the evening when Mr.
Rochester is here.'
   This additional ceremony seemed somewhat stately; however, I
repaired to my room, and, with Mrs. Fairfax's aid, replaced my black
stuff dress by one of black silk; the best and the only additional one
I had, except one of light grey, which, in my Lowood notions of the
toilette, I thought too fine to be worn, except on first-rate
occasions.
   'You want a brooch,' said Mrs. Fairfax. I had a single little pearl
ornament which Miss Temple gave me as a parting keepsake: I put it on,
and then we went downstairs. Unused as I was to strangers, it was
rather a trial to appear thus formally summoned in Mr. Rochester's
presence. I let Mrs. Fairfax precede me into the dining-room, and kept
in her shade as we crossed that apartment; and, passing the arch,
whose curtain was now dropped, entered the elegant recess beyond.
   Two wax candles stood lighted on the table, and two on the
mantelpiece; basking in the light and heat of a superb fire, lay
Pilot- Adele knelt near him. Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr.
Rochester, his foot supported by the cushion; he was looking at
Adele and the dog: the fire shone full on his face. I knew my
traveller with his broad and jetty eyebrows; his square forehead, made
squarer by the horizontal sweep of his black hair. I recognised his
decisive nose, more remarkable for character than beauty; his full
nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; his grim mouth, chin, and
jaw- yes, all three were very grim, and no mistake. His shape, now
divested of cloak, I perceived harmonised in squareness with his
physiognomy: I suppose it was a good figure in the athletic sense of
the term- broad chested and thin flanked, though neither tall nor
graceful.
   Mr. Rochester must have been aware of the entrance of Mrs.
Fairfax and myself; but it appeared he was not in the mood to notice
us, for he never lifted his head as we approached.
   'Here is Miss Eyre, sir,' said Mrs. Fairfax, in her quiet way. He
bowed, still not taking his eyes from the group of the dog and child.
   'Let Miss Eyre be seated,' said he: and there was something in
the forced stiff bow, in the impatient yet formal tone, which seemed
further to express, 'What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be
there or not? At this moment I am not disposed to accost her.'
   I sat down quite disembarrassed. A reception of finished politeness
would probably have confused me: I could not have returned or repaid
it by answering grace and elegance on my part; but harsh caprice
laid me under no obligation; on the contrary, a decent quiescence,
under the freak of manner, gave me the advantage. Besides, the
eccentricity of the proceeding was piquant: I felt interested to see
how he would go on.
   He went on as a statue would, that is, he neither spoke nor
moved. Mrs. Fairfax seemed to think it necessary that some one
should be amiable, and she began to talk. Kindly, as usual- and, as
usual, rather trite- she condoled with him on the pressure of business
he had had all day; on the annoyance it must have been to him with
that painful sprain: then she commended his patience and
perseverance in going through with it.
   'Madam, I should like some tea,' was the sole rejoinder she got.
She hastened to ring the bell; and when the tray came, she proceeded
to arrange the cups, spoons, etc., with assiduous celerity. I and
Adele went to the table; but the master did not leave his couch.
   'Will you hand Mr. Rochester's cup?' said Mrs. Fairfax to me;
'Adele might perhaps spill it.'
   I did as requested. As he took the cup from my hand, Adele,
thinking the moment propitious for making a request in my favour,
cried out-
   'N'est-ce pas, monsieur, qu'il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre
dans votre petit coffre?'
   'Who talks of cadeaux?' said he gruffly. 'Did you expect a present,
Miss Eyre? Are you fond of presents?' and he searched my face with
eyes that I saw were dark, irate, and piercing.
   'I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are
generally thought pleasant things.'
   'Generally thought? But what do you think?'
   'I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you
an answer worthy of your acceptance: a present has many faces to it,
has it not? and one should consider all, before pronouncing an opinion
as to its nature.'
   'Miss Eyre, you are not so unsophisticated as Adele: she demands
a "cadeau," clamorously, the moment she sees me: you beat about the
bush.'
   'Because I have less confidence in my deserts than Adele has: she
can prefer the claim of old acquaintance, and the right too of custom;
for she says you have always been in the habit of giving her
playthings; but if I had to make out a case I should be puzzled, since
I am a stranger, and have done nothing to entitle me to an
acknowledgment.'
   'Oh, don't fall back on over-modesty! I have examined Adele, and
find you have taken great pains with her: she is not bright, she has
no talents; yet in a short time she has made much improvement.'
   'Sir, you have now given me my "cadeau"; I am obliged to you: it is
the meed teachers most covet-praise of their pupils' progress.'
   'Humph!' said Mr. Rochester, and he took his tea in silence.
   'Come to the fire,' said the master, when the tray was taken
away, and Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner with her knitting;
while Adele was leading me by the hand round the room, showing me
the beautiful books and ornaments on the consoles and chiffonnieres.
We obeyed, as in duty bound; Adele wanted to take a seat on my knee,
but she was ordered to amuse herself with Pilot.
   'You have been resident in my house three months?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'And you came from-?'
   'Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?'
   'Eight years.'
   'Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the
time in such a place would have done up any constitution! No wonder
you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had
got that sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I
thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand
whether you had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your
parents?'
   'I have none.'
   'Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?'
   'No.'
   'I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you
sat on that stile?'
   'For whom, sir?'
   'For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for
them. Did I break through one of your rings, that you spread that
damned ice on the causeway?'
   I shook my head. 'The men in green all forsook England a hundred
years ago,' said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. 'And not
even in Hay Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of
them. I don't think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will
ever shine on their revels more.'
   Mrs. Fairfax had dropped her knitting, and, with raised eyebrows,
seemed wondering what sort of talk this was.
   'Well,' resumed Mr. Rochester, 'if you disown parents, you must
have some sort of kinsfolk: uncles and aunts?'
   'No; none that I ever saw.'
   'And your home?'
   'I have none.'
   'Where do your brothers and sisters live?'
   'I have no brothers or sisters.'
   'Who recommended you to come here?'
   'I advertised, and Mrs. Fairfax answered my advertisement.'
   'Yes,' said the good lady, who now knew what ground we were upon,
'and I am daily thankful for the choice Providence led me to make.
Miss Eyre has been an invaluable companion to me, and a kind and
careful teacher to Adele.'
   'Don't trouble yourself to give her a character,' returned Mr.
Rochester: 'eulogiums will not bias me; I shall judge for myself.
She began by felling my horse.'
   'Sir?' said Mrs. Fairfax.
   'I have to thank her for this sprain.'
   The widow looked bewildered.
   'Miss Eyre, have you ever lived in a town?'
   'No, sir.'
   'Have you seen much society?'
   'None but the pupils and teachers of Lowood, and now the inmates of
Thornfield.'
   'Have you read much?'
   'Only such books as came in my way; and they have not been numerous
or very learned.'
   'You have lived the life of a nun: no doubt you are well drilled in
religious forms;- Brocklehurst, who I understand directs Lowood, is
a parson, is he not?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'And you girls probably worshipped him, as a convent full of
religieuses would worship their director.'
   'Oh, no.'
   'You are very cool! No! What! a novice not worship her priest! That
sounds blasphemous.'
   'I disliked Mr. Brocklehurst; and I was not alone in the feeling.
He is a harsh man; at once pompous and meddling; he cut off our
hair; and for economy's sake bought us bad needles and thread, with
which we could hardly sew.'
   'That was very false economy,' remarked Mrs. Fairfax, who now again
caught the drift of the dialogue.
   'And was that the head and front of his offending?' demanded Mr.
Rochester.
   'He starved us when he had the sole superintendence of the
provision department, before the committee was appointed; and he bored
us with long lectures once a week, and with evening readings from
books of his own inditing, about sudden deaths and judgments, which
made us afraid to go to bed.'
   'What age were you when you went to Lowood?'
   'About ten.'
   'And you stayed there eight years: you are now, then, eighteen?'
   I assented.
   'Arithmetic, you see, is useful; without its aid, I should hardly
have been able to guess your age. It is a point difficult to fix where
the features and countenance are so much at variance as in your
case. And now what did you learn at Lowood? Can you play?'
   'A little.'
   'Of course: that is the established answer. Go into the library-
I mean, if you please.- (Excuse my tone of command; I am used to
say, "Do this," and it is done: I cannot alter my customary habits for
one new inmate.)- Go, then, into the library; take a candle with
you; leave the door open; sit down to the piano, and play a tune.'
   I departed, obeying his directions.
   'Enough!' he called out in a few minutes. 'You play a little, I
see; like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than
some, but not well.'
   I closed the piano and returned. Mr. Rochester continued-
   'Adele showed me some sketches this morning, which she said were
yours. I don't know whether they were entirely of your doing; probably
a master aided you?'
   'No, indeed!' I interjected.
   'Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can
vouch for its contents being original; but don't pass your word unless
you are certain: I can recognise patchwork.'
   'Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir.'
   I brought the portfolio from the library.
   'Approach the table,' said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adele
and Mrs. Fairfax drew near to see the pictures.
   'No crowding,' said Mr. Rochester: 'take the drawings from my
hand as I finish with them; but don't push your faces up to mine.'
   He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laid
aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him.
   'Take them off to the other table, Mrs. Fairfax,' said he, 'and
look at them with Adele;- you' (glancing at me) 'resume your seat, and
answer my questions. I perceive those pictures were done by one
hand: was that hand yours?'
   'Yes.'
   'And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much
time, and some thought.'
   'I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had
no other occupation.'
   'Where did you get your copies?'
   'Out of my head.'
   'That head I see now on your shoulders?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'Has it other furniture of the same kind within?'
   'I should think it may have: I should hope- better.'
   He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them
alternately.
   While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are:
and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The
subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the
spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were
striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it
had wrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived.
   These pictures were in water-colours. The first represented
clouds low and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was
in eclipse; so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest
billows, for there was no land. One gleam of light lifted into
relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and
large, with wings flecked with foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set
with gems, that I had touched with as brilliant tints as my palette
could yield, and as glittering distinctness as my pencil could impart.
Sinking below the bird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced through
the green water; a fair arm was the only limb clearly visible,
whence the bracelet had been washed or torn.
   The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of
a hill, with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze.
Beyond and above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight:
rising into the sky was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in
tints as dusk and soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was
crowned with a star; the lineaments below were seen as through the
suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark and wild; the hair streamed
shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail.
On the neck lay a pale reflection like moonlight; the same faint
lustre touched the train of thin clouds from which rose and bowed this
vision of the Evening Star.
   The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter
sky: a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close
serried, along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the
foreground, a head,- a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg,
and resting against it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and
supporting it, drew up before the lower features a sable veil; a
brow quite bloodless, white as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed,
blank of meaning but for the glassiness of despair, alone were
visible. Above the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black
drapery, vague in its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a
ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge.
This pale crescent was 'the likeness of a kingly crown'; what it
diademed was 'the shape which shape had none.'
   'Were you happy when you painted these pictures?' asked Mr.
Rochester presently.
   'I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in
short, was to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known.'
   'That is not saying much. Your pleasures, by your own account, have
been few; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist's
dreamland while you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you
sit at them long each day?'
   'I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat
at them from morning till noon, and from noon till night: the length
of the midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply.'
   'And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent
labours?'
   'Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and
my handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was
quite powerless to realise.'
   'Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought; but no
more, probably. You had not enough of the artist's skill and science
to give it full being: yet the drawings are, for a school-girl,
peculiar. As to the thoughts, they are elfish. These eyes in the
Evening Star you must have seen in a dream. How could you make them
look so clear, and yet not at all brilliant? for the planet above
quells their rays. And what meaning is that in their solemn depth? And
who taught you to paint wind? There is a high gale in that sky, and on
this hill-top. Where did you see Latmos? For that is Latmos. There!
put the drawings away!'
   I had scarce tied the strings of the portfolio, when, looking at
his watch, he said abruptly-
   'It is nine o'clock: what are you about, Miss Eyre, to let Adele
sit up so long? Take her to bed!'
   Adele went to kiss him before quitting the room: he endured the
caress, but scarcely seemed to relish it more than Pilot would have
done, nor so much.
   'I wish you all good-night, now,' said he, making a movement of the
hand towards the door, in token that he was tired of our company,
and wished to dismiss us. Mrs. Fairfax folded up her knitting: I
took my portfolio: we curtseyed to him, received a frigid bow in
return, and so withdrew.
   'You said Mr. Rochester was not strikingly peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax,'
I observed, when I rejoined her in her room, after putting Adele to
bed.
   'Well, is he?'
   'I think so: he is very changeful and abrupt.'
   'True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so
accustomed to his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has
peculiarities of temper, allowance should be made.'
   'Why?'
   'Partly because it is his nature- and we can none of us help our
nature; and partly because he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to
harass him, and make his spirits unequal.'
   'What about?'
   'Family troubles, for one thing.'
   'But he has no family.'
   'Not now, but he has had- or, at least, relatives. He lost his
elder brother a few years since.'
   'His elder brother?'
   'Yes. The present Mr. Rochester has not been very long in
possession of the property; only about nine years.'
   'Nine years is a tolerable time. Was he so very fond of his brother
as to be still inconsolable for his loss?'
   'Why, no- perhaps not. I believe there were some
misunderstandings between them. Mr. Rowland Rochester was not quite
just to Mr. Edward; and perhaps he prejudiced his father against
him. The old gentleman was fond of money, and anxious to keep the
family estate together. He did not like to diminish the property by
division, and yet he was anxious that Mr. Edward should have wealth,
too, to keep up the consequence of the name; and, soon after he was of
age, some steps were taken that were not quite fair, and made a
great deal of mischief. Old Mr. Rochester and Mr. Rowland combined
to bring Mr. Edward into what he considered a painful position, for
the sake of making his fortune: what the precise nature of that
position was I never clearly knew, but his spirit could not brook what
he had to suffer in it. He is not very forgiving: he broke with his
family, and now for many years he has led an unsettled kind of life. I
don't think he has ever been resident at Thornfield for a fortnight
together, since the death of his brother without a will left him
master of the estate; and, indeed, no wonder he shuns the old place.'
   'Why should he shun it?'
   'Perhaps he thinks it gloomy.'
   The answer was evasive. I should have liked something clearer;
but Mrs. Fairfax either could not, or would not, give me more explicit
information of the origin and nature of Mr. Rochester's trials. She
averred they were a mystery to herself, and that what she knew was
chiefly from conjecture. It was evident, indeed, that she wished me to
drop the subject, which I did accordingly.
                         CHAPTER XIV

   FOR several subsequent days I saw little of Mr. Rochester. In the
mornings he seemed much engaged with business, and, in the
afternoon, gentlemen from Millcote or the neighbourhood called, and
sometimes stayed to dine with him. When his sprain was well enough
to admit of horse exercise, he rode out a good deal; probably to
return these visits, as he generally did not come back till late at
night.
   During this interval, even Adele was seldom sent for to his
presence, and all my acquaintance with him was confined to an
occasional rencontre in the hall, on the stairs, or in the gallery,
when he would sometimes pass me haughtily and coldly, just
acknowledging my presence by a distant nod or a cool glance, and
sometimes bow and smile with gentlemanlike affability. His changes
of mood did not offend me, because I saw that I had nothing to do with
their alternation; the ebb and flow depended on causes quite
disconnected with me.
   One day he had had company to dinner, and had sent for my
portfolio; in order, doubtless, to exhibit its contents: the gentlemen
went away early, to attend a public meeting at Millcote, as Mrs.
Fairfax informed me; but the night being wet and inclement, Mr.
Rochester did not accompany them. Soon after they were gone he rang
the bell: a message came that I and Adele were to go downstairs. I
brushed Adele's hair and made her neat, and having ascertained that
I was myself in my usual Quaker trim, where there was nothing to
retouch- all being too close and plain, braided locks included, to
admit of disarrangement- we descended, Adele wondering whether the
petit coffre was at length come; for, owing to some mistake, its
arrival had hitherto been delayed. She was gratified: there it
stood, a little carton, on the table when we entered the
dining-room. She appeared to know it by instinct.
   'Ma boite! ma boite!' exclaimed she, running towards it.
   'Yes, there is your "boite" at last: take it into a corner, you
genuine daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with disembowelling it,'
said the deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester,
proceeding from the depths of an immense easy-chair at the fireside.
'And mind,' he continued, 'don't bother me with any details of the
anatomical process, or any notice of the condition of the entrails:
let your operation be conducted in silence: tiens-toi tranquille,
enfant; comprends-tu?'
   Adele seemed scarcely to need the warning; she had already
retired to a sofa with her treasure, and was busy untying the cord
which secured the lid. Having removed this impediment, and lifted
certain silvery envelopes of tissue paper, she merely exclaimed-
   'Oh ciel! Que c'est beau!' and then remained absorbed in ecstatic
contemplation.
   'Is Miss Eyre there?' now demanded the master, half rising from his
seat to look round to the door, near which I still stood.
   'Ah! well, come forward; be seated here.' He drew a chair near
his own. 'I am not fond of the prattle of children,' he continued;
'for, old bachelor as I am, I have no pleasant associations
connected with their lisp. It would be intolerable to me to pass a
whole evening tete-a-tete with a brat. Don't draw that chair farther
off, Miss Eyre; sit down exactly where I placed it- if you please,
that is. Confound these civilities! I continually forget them. Nor
do I particularly affect simple-minded old ladies. By the bye, I
must have mine in mind; it won't do to neglect her; she is a
Fairfax, or wed to one; and blood is said to be thicker than water.'
   He rang, and despatched an invitation to Mrs. Fairfax, who soon
arrived, knitting-basket in hand.
   'Good evening, madam; I sent to you for a charitable purpose. I
have forbidden Adele to talk to me about her presents, and she is
bursting with repletion; have the goodness to serve her as auditress
and interlocutrice; it will be one of the most benevolent acts you
ever performed.'
   Adele, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs. Fairfax, than she summoned her to
her sofa, and there quickly filled her lap with the porcelain, the
ivory, the waxen contents of her 'boite'; pouring out, meantime,
explanations and raptures in such broken English as she was mistress
of.
   'Now I have performed the part of a good host,' pursued Mr.
Rochester, 'put my guests into the way of amusing each other, I
ought to be at liberty to attend to my own pleasure. Miss Eyre, draw
your chair still a little farther forward: you are yet too far back; I
cannot see you without disturbing my position in this comfortable
chair, which I have no mind to do.'
   I did as I was bid, though I would much rather have remained
somewhat in the shade; but Mr. Rochester had such a direct way of
giving orders, it seemed a matter of course to obey him promptly.
   We were, as I have said, in the dining-room: the lustre, which
had been lit for dinner, filled the room with a festal breadth of
light; the large fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains
hung rich and ample before the lofty window and loftier arch;
everything was still, save the subdued chat of Adele (she dared not
speak loud), and, filling up each pause, the beating of winter rain
against the panes.
   Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked
different to what I had seen him look before; not quite so stern- much
less gloomy. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled,
whether with wine or not, I am not sure; but I think it very probable.
He was, in short, in his after dinner mood; more expanded and
genial, and also more self-indulgent than the frigid and rigid
temper of the morning; still he looked preciously grim, cushioning his
massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the
light of the fire on his granite-hewn features, and in his great, dark
eyes; for he had great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too- not
without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it was
not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling.
   He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking
the same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my
gaze fastened on his physiognomy.
   'You examine me, Miss Eyre,' said he: 'do you think me handsome?'
   I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by
something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow
slipped from my tongue before I was aware- 'No, sir.'
   'Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you,' said he:
'you have the air of a little nonnette; quaint, quiet, grave, and
simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally
bent on the carpet (except, by the bye, when they are directed
piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks
you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply,
you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least
brusque. What do you mean by it?'
   'Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon. I ought to have replied
that it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about
appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little
consequence, or something of that sort.'
   'You ought to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little
consequence, indeed! And so, under pretence of softening the
previous outrage, of stroking and soothing me into placidity, you
stick a sly penknife under my ear! Go on: what fault do you find
with me, pray? I suppose I have all my limbs and all my features
like any other man?'
   'Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer: I intended no
pointed repartee: it was only a blunder.'
   'Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise
me: does my forehead not please you?'
   He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over
his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but
an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have
risen.
   'Now, ma'am, am I a fool?'
   'Far from it, sir. You would, perhaps, think me rude if I
inquired in return whether you are a philanthropist?'
   'There again! Another stick of the penknife, when she pretended
to pat my head: and that is because I said I did not like the
society of children and old women (low be it spoken!). No, young lady,
I am not a general philanthropist; but I bear a conscience'; and he
pointed to the prominences which are said to indicate that faculty,
and which, fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving,
indeed, a marked breadth to the upper part of his head: 'and, besides,
I once had a kind of rude tenderness of heart. When I was as old as
you, I was a feeling fellow enough; partial to the unfledged,
unfostered, and unlucky; but Fortune has knocked me about since: she
has even kneaded me with her knuckles, and now I flatter myself I am
hard and tough as an India-rubber ball; pervious, though, through a
chink or two still, and with one sentient point in the middle of the
lump. Yes: does that leave hope for me?'
   'Hope of what, sir?'
   'Of my final re-transformation from India-rubber back to flesh?'
   'Decidedly he has had too much wine,' I thought; and I did not know
what answer to make to his queer question: how could I tell whether he
was capable of being re-transformed?
   'You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not
pretty any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you;
besides, it is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of
yours away from my physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted
flowers of the rug; so puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed to be
gregarious and communicative tonight.'
   With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning
his arm on the marble mantelpiece: in that attitude his shape was seen
plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest,
disproportionate almost to his length of limb. I am sure most people
would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much
unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a
look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so
haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or
adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness,
that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference,
and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence.
   'I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative tonight,' he
repeated, 'and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier
were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for
none of these can talk. Adele is a degree better, but still far
below the mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me
if you will: you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here.
I have almost forgotten you since: other ideas have driven yours
from my head; but to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss
what importunes, and recall what pleases. It would please me now to
draw you out- to learn more of you- therefore speak.'
   Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or
submissive smile either.
   'Speak,' he urged.
   'What about, sir?'
   'Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the
manner of treating it entirely to yourself.'
   Accordingly I sat and said nothing: 'If he expects me to talk for
the mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has
addressed himself to the wrong person,' I thought.
   'You are dumb, Miss Eyre.'
   I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with
a single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes.
   'Stubborn?' he said, 'and annoyed. Ah! it is consistent. I put my
request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your
pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don't wish to treat you like an
inferior: that is' (correcting himself), 'I claim only such
superiority as must result from twenty years' difference in age and
a century's advance in experience. This is legitimate, et j'y tiens,
as Adele would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and
this alone, that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a
little now, and divert my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling
on one point- cankering as a rusty nail.'
   He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not
feel insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so.
   'I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir- quite willing; but I
cannot introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest
you? Ask me questions, and I will do my best to answer them.'
   'Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right
to be a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps exacting, sometimes, on
the grounds I stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your
father, and that I have battled through a varied experience with
many men of many nations, and roamed over half the globe, while you
have lived quietly with one set of people in one house?'
   'Do as you please, sir.'
   'That is no answer; or rather it is a very irritating, because a
very evasive one. Reply clearly.'
   'I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because
you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world
than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have
made of your time and experience.'
   'Humph! Promptly spoken. But I won't allow that, seeing that it
would never suit my case, as I have made an indifferent, not to say
a bad, use of both advantages. Leaving superiority out of the
question, then, you must still agree to receive my orders now and
then, without being piqued or hurt by the tone of command. Will you?'
   I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester is peculiar- he seems
to forget that he pays me L30 per annum for receiving his orders.
   'The smile is very well,' said he, catching instantly the passing
expression; 'but speak too.'
   'I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble
themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were
piqued and hurt by their orders.'
   'Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you?
Oh yes, I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary
ground, will you agree to let me hector a little?'
   'No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did
forget it, and that you care whether or not a dependant is comfortable
in his dependency, I agree heartily.'
   'And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional
forms and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from
insolence?'
   'I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for
insolence: one I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit
to, even for a salary.'
   'Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a
salary; therefore, keep to yourself, and don't venture on generalities
of which you are intensely ignorant. However, I mentally shake hands
with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for
the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of the speech;
the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a
manner: no, on the contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid,
coarse-minded misapprehension of one's meaning are the usual rewards
of candour. Not three in three thousand raw school-girl-governesses
would have answered me as you have just done. But I don't mean to
flatter you: if you are cast in a different mould to the majority,
it is no merit of yours: Nature did it. And then, after all, I go
too fast in my conclusions: for what I yet know, you may be no
better than the rest; you may have intolerable defects to
counterbalance your few good points.'
   'And so may you,' I thought. My eye met his as the idea crossed
my mind: he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import
had been spoken as well as imagined-
   'Yes, yes, you are right,' said he; 'I have plenty of faults of
my own: I know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you.
God wot I need not be too severe about others; I have a past
existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within
my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my
neighbours to myself. I started, or rather (for like other defaulters,
I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances)
was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have
never recovered the right course since: but I might have been very
different; I might have been as good as you- wiser- almost as
stainless. I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience,
your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or
contamination must be an exquisite treasure- an inexhaustible source
of pure refreshment: is it not?'
   'How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?'
   'All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had
turned it to fetid puddle. I was your equal at eighteen- quite your
equal. Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one
of the better kind, and you see I am not so. You would say you don't
see it; at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye
(beware, by the bye, what you express with that organ; I am quick at
interpreting its language). Then take my word for it,- I am not a
villain: you are not to suppose that- not to attribute to me any
such bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to
circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace
sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the
rich and worthless try to put on life. Do you wonder that I avow
this to you? Know, that in the course of your future life you will
often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your
acquaintances' secrets: people will instinctively find out, as I
have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to
listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that
you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with
a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging
because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations.'
   'How do you know?- how can you guess all this, sir?'
   'I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I
were writing my thoughts in a diary. You would say, I should have been
superior to circumstances; so I should- so I should; but you see I was
not. When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I
turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious
simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot
flatter myself that I am better than he: I am forced to confess that
he and I are on a level. I wish I had stood firm- God knows I do!
Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the
poison of life.'
   'Repentance is said to be its cure, sir.'
   'It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could
reform- I have strength yet for that- if- but where is the use of
thinking of it, hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since
happiness is irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out
of life: and I will get it, cost what it may.'
   'Then you will degenerate still more, sir.'
   'Possibly: yet why should I, if I can get sweet, fresh pleasure?
And I may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee
gathers on the moor.'
   'It will sting- it will taste bitter, sir.'
   'How do you know?- you never tried it. How very serious- how very
solemn you look: and you are as ignorant of the matter as this cameo
head' (taking one from the mantelpiece). 'You have no right to
preach to me, you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life,
and are absolutely unacquainted with its mysteries.'
   'I only remind you of your own words, sir: you said error brought
remorse, and you pronounced remorse the poison of existence.'
   'And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that
flittered across my brain was an error. I believe it was an
inspiration rather than a temptation: it was very genial, very
soothing- I know that. Here it comes again! It is no devil, I assure
you; or if it be, it has put on the robes of an angel of light. I
think I must admit so fair a guest when it asks entrance to my heart.'
   'Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel.'
   'Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to
distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger
from the eternal throne- between a guide and a seducer?'
   'I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you
said the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work
you more misery if you listen to it.'
   'Not at all- it bears the most gracious message in the world: for
the rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don't make yourself
uneasy. Here, come in, bonny wanderer!'
   He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but
his own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his
chest, he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being.
   'Now,' he continued, again addressing me, 'I have received the
pilgrim- a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done
me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine.'
   'To speak truth, sir, I don't understand you at all: I cannot
keep up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one
thing, I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be,
and that you regretted your own imperfection;- one thing I can
comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a
perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in
time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and
that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your
thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new
and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with
pleasure.'
   'Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am
paving hell with energy.'
   'Sir?'
   'I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as
flint. Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than
they have been.'
   'And better?'
   'And better- so much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You
seem to doubt me; I don't doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my
motives are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of
the Medes and Persians, that both are right.'
   'They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise
them.'
   'They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute:
unheard-of combinations or circumstances demand unheard-of rules.'
   'That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once
that it is liable to abuse.'
   'Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not
to abuse it.'
   'You are human and fallible.'
   'I am: so are you- what then?'
   'The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which
the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted.'
   'What power?'
   'That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action,-
"Let it be right."'
   '"Let it be right"- the very words: you have pronounced them.'
   'May it be right then,' I said, as I rose, deeming it useless to
continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides,
sensible that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my
penetration; at least, beyond its present reach; and feeling the
uncertainty, the vague sense of insecurity, which accompanies a
conviction of ignorance.
   'Where are you going?'
   'To put Adele to bed: it is past her bedtime.'
   'You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx.'
   'Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I
am certainly not afraid.'
   'You are afraid- your self-love dreads a blunder.'
   'In that sense I do feel apprehensive- I have no wish to talk
nonsense.'
   'If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should
mistake it for sense. Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre? Don't trouble
yourself to answer- I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very
merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am
naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat;
controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your
limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother- or father,
or master, or what you will- to smile too gaily, speak too freely,
or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be
natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with
you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and
variety than they dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a
curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid,
restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar
cloud-high. You are still bent on going?'
   'It has struck nine, sir.'
   'Never mind,- wait a minute: Adele is not ready to go to bed yet.
My position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the
room, favours observation. While talking to you, I have also
occasionally watched Adele (I have my own reasons for thinking her a
curious study,- reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart to you
some day). She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a
little pink silk frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it;
coquetry runs in her blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the
marrow of her bones. "Il faut que je l'essaie!" cried she, "et a
l'instant meme!" and she rushed out of the room. She is now with
Sophie, undergoing a robing process: in a few minutes she will
re-enter; and I know what I shall see,- a miniature of Celine
Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the rising of-. But
never mind that. However, my tenderest feelings are about to receive a
shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether it will be
realised.'
   Ere long, Adele's little foot was heard tripping across the hall.
She entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of
rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it
could be gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a
wreath of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk
stockings and small white satin sandals.
   'Est-ce que ma robe va bien?' cried she, bounding forwards; 'et mes
souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!'
   And spreading out her dress, she chasseed across the room; till,
having reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him
on tip-toe, then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming-
   'Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonte; then rising,
she added, 'C'est comme cela que maman faisait, n'est-ce pas,
monsieur?'
   'Pre-cise-ly!' was the answer; 'and, "comme cella," she charmed
my English gold out of my British breeches' pocket. I have been green,
too, Miss Eyre- ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you
now than once freshened me. My Spring is gone, however, but it has
left me that French floweret on my hands, which, in some moods, I
would fain be rid of. Not valuing now the root whence it sprang;
having found that it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust could
manure, I have but half a liking to the blossom, especially when it
looks so artificial as just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the
Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small,
by one good work. I'll explain all this some day. Good-night.'
                          CHAPTER XV

   MR. ROCHESTER did, on a future occasion, explain it. It was one
afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adele in the grounds: and
while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk
up and down a long beech avenue within sight of her.
   He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer,
Celine Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called a
'grande passion.' This passion Celine had professed to return with
even superior ardour. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was:
he believed, as he said, that she preferred his 'taille d'athlete'
to the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.
   'And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of
the Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an
hotel; gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage,
cashmeres, diamonds, dentelles, etc. In short, I began the process
of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoony. I
had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame
and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not
to deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had- as I deserved to
have- the fate of all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening
when Celine did not expect me, I found her out; but it was a warm
night, and I was tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down
in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air consecrated so lately by
her presence. No,- I exaggerate; I never thought there was any
consecrating virtue about her: it was rather a sort of pastille
perfume she had left; a scent of musk and amber, than an odour of
sanctity. I was just beginning to stifle with the fumes of
conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, when I bethought myself
to open the window and step out on to the balcony. It was moonlight
and gaslight besides, and very still and serene. The balcony was
furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar,- I
will take one now, if you will excuse me.'
   Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a
cigar; having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah
incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on-
   'I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was
croquant- (overlook the barbarism)- croquant chocolate comfits, and
smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along
the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when
in an elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English
horses, and distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I
recognised the "voiture" I had given Celine. She was returning: of
course my heart thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leant
upon. The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my
flame (that is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted:
though muffled in a cloak- an unnecessary encumbrance, by the bye,
on so warm a June evening- I knew her instantly by her little foot,
seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the
carriage step. Bending over the balcony, I was about to murmur "Mon
ange"- in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the ear of
love alone- when a figure jumped from the carriage after her;
cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the
pavement, and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched
porte cochere of the hotel.
   'You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need
not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet
to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which
shall waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as
that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with
closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling
not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at
their base. But I tell you- and you may mark my words- you will come
some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's
stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either
you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne
on by some master-wave into a calmer current- as I am now.
   'I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sterness and
stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield, its
antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its
grey facade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin:
and yet how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it
like a great plague-house? How I do still abhor-'
   He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck
his boot against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to have
him in its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance.
   We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was
before us. Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a
glare such as I never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire,
impatience, disgust, detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a
quivering conflict in the large pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow.
Wild was the wrestle which should be paramount; but another feeling
rose and triumphed: something hard and cynical: self-willed and
resolute: it settled his passion and petrified his countenance: he
went on-
   'During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point
with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk- a hag like
one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. "You like
Thornfield?" she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the
air a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the
house-front, between the upper and lower row of windows, "Like it if
you can? Like it if you dare!"
   '"I will like it" said I; "I dare like it;" and' (he subjoined
moodily) 'I will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness, to
goodness- yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been,
than I am; as Job's leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the
habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will
esteem but straw and rotten wood.'
   Adele here ran before him with her shuttlecock. 'Away!' he cried
harshly; 'keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!' Continuing
then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the
point whence he had abruptly diverged-
   'Did you leave the balcony, sir,' I asked, 'when Mdlle. Varens
entered?'
   I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question,
but, on the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he
turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his
brow. 'Oh, I had forgotten Celine! Well, to resume. When I saw my
charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a
hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from
the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in
two minutes to my heart's core. Strange!' he exclaimed, suddenly
starting again from the point. 'Strange that I should choose you for
the confidant of all this, young lady; passing strange that you should
listen to me quietly, as if it were the most usual thing in the
world for a man like me to tell stories of his opera-mistresses to a
quaint, inexperienced girl like you! But the last singularity explains
the first, as I intimated once before: you, with your gravity,
considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient of secrets.
Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication
with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a
peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm it:
but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I
converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh
me.' After this digression he proceeded-
   'I remained in the balcony. "They will come to her boudoir, no
doubt," thought I: "Let me prepare an ambush." So putting my hand in
through the open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an
opening through which I could take observations; then I closed the
casement, all but a chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to
lovers' whispered vows: then I stole back to my chair; and as I
resumed it the pair came in. My eye was quickly at the aperture.
Celine's chambermaid entered, lit a lamp, left it on the table, and
withdrew. The couple were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed
their cloaks, and there was "the Varens," shining in satin and
jewels,- my gifts of course,- and there was her companion in an
officer's uniform; and I knew him for a young roue of a vicomte- a
brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and
had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely. On
recognising him, the fang of the snake Jealousy was instantly
broken; because at the same moment my love for Celine sank under an
extinguisher. A woman who could betray me for such a rival was not
worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, however, than
I, who had been her dupe.
   'They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely:
frivolous, mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather
calculated to weary than enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on
the table; this being perceived, brought my name under discussion.
Neither of them possessed energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but
they insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way:
especially Celine, who even waxed rather brilliant on my personal
defects- deformities she termed them. Now it had been her custom to
launch out into fervent admiration of what she called my "beaute
male": wherein she differed diametrically from you, who told me
point-blank, at the second interview, that you did not think me
handsome. The contrast struck me at the time and-'
   Adele here came running up again.
   'Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and
wishes to see you.'
   'Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in
upon them; liberated Celine from my protection; gave her notice to
vacate her hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies;
disregarded screams, hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions;
made an appointment with the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de
Boulogne. Next morning I had the pleasure of encountering him; left
a bullet in one of his poor etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a
chicken in the pip, and then thought I had done with the whole crew.
But unluckily the Varens, six months before, had given me this filette
Adele, who, she affirmed, was my daughter; and perhaps she may be,
though I see no proofs of such grim paternity written in her
countenance: Pilot is more like me than she. Some years after I had
broken with the mother, she abandoned her child, and ran away to Italy
with a musician or singer. I acknowledged no natural claim on
Adele's part to be supported by me, nor do I now acknowledge any,
for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite destitute, I
e'en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris, and
transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an
English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but now
you know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French opera-girl,
you will perhaps think differently of your post and protegee: you will
be coming to me some day with notice that you have found another
place- that you beg me to look out for a new governess, etc.- Eh?'
   'No: Adele is not answerable for either her mother's faults or
yours: I have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a
sense, parentless- forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir-
I shall cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer
the spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as
a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a
friend?'
   'Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in
now; and you too: it darkens.'
   But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adele and Pilot- ran a
race with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When
we went in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my
knee; kept her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked:
not rebuking even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she
was apt to stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a
superficiality of character, inherited probably from her mother,
hardly congenial to an English mind. Still she had her merits; and I
was disposed to appreciate all that was good in her to the utmost. I
sought in her countenance and features a likeness to Mr. Rochester,
but found none: no trait, no turn of expression announced
relationship. It was a pity: if she could but have been proved to
resemble him, he would have thought more of her.
   It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the
night, that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me. As
he had said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the
substance of the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman's passion
for a French dancer, and her treachery to him, were every-day
matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was something
decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized
him when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of
his mood, and his newly revived pleasure in the old hall and its
environs. I meditated wonderingly on this incident; but gradually
quitting it, as I found it for the present inexplicable, I turned to
the consideration of my master's manner to myself. The confidence he
had thought fit to repose in me seemed a tribute to my discretion: I
regarded and accepted it as such. His deportment had now for some
weeks been more uniform towards me than at the first. I never seemed
in his way; he did not take fits of chilling hauteur: when he met me
unexpectedly, the encounter seemed welcome; he had always a word and
sometimes a smile for me: when summoned by formal invitation to his
presence, I was honoured by a cordiality of reception that made me
feel I really possessed the power to amuse him, and that these evening
conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as for my benefit.
   I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with
relish. It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a
mind unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do
not mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their
interest from the great scale on which they were acted, the strange
novelty by which they were characterised); and I had a keen delight in
receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he
portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he
disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion.
   The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the
friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me,
drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather
than my master: yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not
mind that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become
with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after
kindred: my thin crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of
existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered
flesh and strength.
   And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude,
and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the
object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering
than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I
could not, for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud,
sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul
I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity
to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once,
when sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library
alone, with his head bent on his folded arms; and, when he looked
up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But
I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of
morality (I say former, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their
source in some cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a
man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than
such as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny
encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials in him; though
for the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled. I
cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would
have given much to assuage it.
   Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I
could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue,
and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to
be happy at Thornfield.
   'Why not?' I asked myself. 'What alienates him from the house? Will
he leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer
than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight
weeks. If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be
absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine
days will seem!'
   I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at
any rate, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and
lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had
kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were
depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was hushed.
   I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward
tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck
two. Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers
had swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery
outside. I said, 'Who is there?' Nothing answered. I was chilled
with fear.
   All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the
kitchen-door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way
up to the threshold of Mr. Rochester's chamber: I had seen him lying
there myself in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down.
Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again
through the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it
was not fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely
approached my ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a
marrow-freezing incident enough.
   This was a demoniac laugh- low, suppressed, and deep- uttered, as
it seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my
bed was near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood
at my bedside- or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked
round, and could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural
sound was reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My
first impulse was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry
out, 'Who is there?'
   Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the
gallery towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been
made to shut in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was
still.
   'Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?'
thought I. Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to
Mrs. Fairfax. I hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt
and opened the door with a trembling hand. There was a candle
burning just outside, and on the matting in the gallery. I was
surprised at this circumstance: but still more was I amazed to
perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with smoke; and, while
looking to the right hand and left, to find whence these blue
wreaths issued, I became further aware of a strong smell of burning.
   Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr.
Rochester's, and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no
more of Mrs. Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the
laugh: in an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame
darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze
and vapour, Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep.
   'Wake! wake!' I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and
turned: the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the
very sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer;
fortunately, one was wide and the other deep, and both were filled
with water. I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew
back to my own room, brought my own water-jug, baptized the couch
afresh, and, by God's aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which
were devouring it.
   The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I
flung from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash
of the shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at
last. Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him
fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of
water.
   'Is there a flood?' he cried.
   No, sir,' I answered; 'but there has been a fire: get up, do; you
are quenched now; I will fetch you a candle.'
   'In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?'
he demanded. 'What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is
in the room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?'
   'I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven's name, get up.
Somebody has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and
what it is.'
   'There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait
two minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be-
yes, here is my dressing-gown. Now run!'
   I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the
gallery. He took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed,
all blackened and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round
swimming in water.
   'What is it? and who did it?' he asked.
   I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I
had heard in the gallery; the step ascending to the third storey;
the smoke,- the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in
what state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with
all the water I could lay hands on.
   He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more
concern than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had
concluded.
   'Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?' I asked.
   'Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What
can she do? Let her sleep unmolested.'
   'Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife.'
   'Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not
warm enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and
sit down in the arm-chair: there,- I will put it on. Now place your
feet on the stool, to keep them out of the wet. I am going to leave
you a few minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you are
till I return; be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the
second storey. Don't move, remember, or call any one.'
   He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery
very softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as
possible, shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left
in total darkness. I listened for some noise, but heard nothing. A
very long time elapsed. I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of the
cloak; and then I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to
rouse the house. I was on the point of risking Mr. Rochester's
displeasure by disobeying his orders, when the light once more gleamed
dimly on the gallery wall, and I heard his unshod feet tread the
matting. 'I hope it is he,' thought I, 'and not something worse.'
   He re-entered, pale and very gloomy. 'I have found it all out,'
said he, setting his candle down on the washstand; 'it is as I
thought.'
   'How, sir?'
   He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the
ground. At the end of a few minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar
tone-
   'I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your
chamber door.'
   'No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground.'
   'But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I
should think, or something like it?'
   'Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,- she
laughs in that way. She is a singular person.'
   'Just so. Grace Poole- you have guessed it. She is, as you say,
singular- very. Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am
glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the
precise details of to-night's incident. You are no talking fool: say
nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs'
(pointing to the bed): 'and now return to your own room. I shall do
very well on the sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It
is near four:- in two hours the servants will be up.'
   'Good-night, then, sir,' said I, departing.
   He seemed surprised- very inconsistently so, as he had just told me
to go.
   'What!' he exclaimed, 'are you quitting me already, and in that
way?'
   'You said I might go, sir.'
   'But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of
acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry
fashion. Why, you have saved my life!- snatched me from a horrible and
excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual
strangers! At least shake hands.'
   He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one,
then in both his own.
   'You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so
immense a debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would
have been tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an
obligation: but you: it is different;- I feel your benefits no burden,
Jane.'
   He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,-
but his voice was checked.
   'Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden,
obligation, in the case.'
   'I knew,' he continued, you would do me good in some way, at some
time;- I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression
and smile did not'- (again he stopped)- 'did not' (he proceeded
hastily) 'strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing.
People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there
are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver,
good-night!'
   Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.
   'I am glad I happened to be awake,' I said: and then I was going.
   'What! you will go?'
   'I am cold, sir.'
   'Cold? Yes,- and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!' But he
still retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of
an expedient.
   'I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir,' said I.
   'Well, leave me': he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone.
   I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning
dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of
trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond
its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and
then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly
towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy- a
counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back.
Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion. Too feverish
to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned.
                         CHAPTER XVI

   I BOTH wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which
followed this sleepless night: I wanted to hear his voice again, yet
feared to meet his eye. During the early part of the morning, I
momentarily expected his coming; he was not in the frequent habit of
entering the schoolroom, but he did step in for a few minutes
sometimes, and I had the impression that he was sure to visit it
that day.
   But the morning passed just as usual: nothing happened to interrupt
the quiet course of Adele's studies; only soon after breakfast, I
heard some bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester's chamber,
Mrs. Fairfax's voice, and Leah's, and the cook's- that is, John's
wife- and even John's own gruff tones. There were exclamations of
'What a mercy master was not burnt in his bed!' 'It is always
dangerous to keep a candle lit at night.' 'How providential that he
had presence of mind to think of the water-jug!' 'I wonder he waked
nobody!' 'It is to be hoped he will not take cold with sleeping on the
library sofa,' etc.
   To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to
rights; and when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I
saw through the open door that all was again restored to complete
order; only the bed was stripped of its hangings. Leah stood up in the
window-seat, rubbing the panes of glass dimmed with smoke. I was about
to address her, for I wished to know what account had been given of
the affair: but, on advancing, I saw a second person in the chamber- a
woman sitting on a chair by the bedside, and sewing rings to new
curtains. That woman was no other than Grace Poole.
   There she sat, staid and taciturn-looking, as usual, in her brown
stuff gown, her check apron, White handkerchief, and cap. She was
intent on her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on
her hard forehead, and in her commonplace features, was nothing either
of the paleness or desperation one would have expected to see
marking the countenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose
intended victim had followed her last night to her lair, and (as I
believed), charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate. I
was amazed-confounded. She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no
start, no increase or failure of colour betrayed emotion,
consciousness of guilt, or fear of detection. She said 'Good
morning, Miss,' in her usual phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking
up another ring and more tape, went on with her sewing.
   'I will put her to some test,' thought I: 'such absolute
impenetrability is past comprehension.'
   'Good morning, Grace,' I said. 'Has anything happened here? I
thought I heard the servants all talking together a while ago.'
   'Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep
with his candle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately,
he awoke before the bedclothes or the woodwork caught, and contrived
to quench the flames with the water in the ewer.'
   'A strange affair!' I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her
fixedly- 'Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move?'
   She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was
something of consciousness in their expression. She seemed to
examine me warily; then she answered-
   'The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be
likely to hear. Mrs. Fairfax's room and yours are the nearest to
master's; but Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get
elderly, they often sleep heavy.' She paused, and then added, with a
sort of assumed indifference, but still in a marked and significant
tone- 'But you are young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper:
perhaps you may have heard a noise?'
   'I did,' said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still
polishing the panes, could not hear me, 'and at first I thought it was
Pilot: but Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a
strange one.'
   She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded
her needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect
composure-
   'It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when
he was in such danger: you must have been dreaming.'
   'I was not dreaming,' I said, with some warmth, for her brazen
coolness provoked me. Again she looked at me; and with the same
scrutinising and conscious eye.
   'Have you told master that you heard a laugh?' she inquired.
   'I have not had the opportunity of speaking to him this morning.'
   'You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the
gallery?' she further asked.
   She appeared to be cross-questioning me, attempting to draw from me
information unawares. The idea struck me that if she discovered I knew
or suspected her guilt, she would be playing off some of her malignant
pranks on me; I thought it advisable to be on my guard.
   'On the contrary,' said I, 'I bolted my door.'
   'Then you are not in the habit of bolting your door every night
before you get into bed?'
   'Fiend! she wants to know my habits, that she may lay her plans
accordingly!' Indignation again prevailed over prudence: I replied
sharply, 'Hitherto I have often omitted to fasten the bolt: I did
not think it necessary. I was not aware any danger or annoyance was to
be dreaded at Thornfield Hall: but in future' (and I laid marked
stress on the words) 'I shall take good care to make all secure before
I venture to lie down.'
   'It will be wise so to do,' was her answer: 'this neighbourhood
is as quiet as any I know, and I never heard of the hall being
attempted by robbers since it was a house; though there are hundreds
of pounds' worth of plate in the plate-closet, as is well known. And
you see, for such a large house, there are very few servants,
because master has never lived here much; and when he does come, being
a bachelor, he needs little waiting on: but I always think it best
to err on the safe side; a door is soon fastened, and it is as well to
have a drawn bolt between one and any mischief that may be about. A
deal of people, Miss, are for trusting all to Providence; but I say
Providence will not dispense with the means, though He often blesses
them when they are used discreetly.' And here she closed her harangue:
a long one for her, and uttered with the demureness of a Quakeress.
   I still stood absolutely dumfoundered at what appeared to me her
miraculous self-possession, and most inscrutable hypocrisy, when the
cook entered.
   'Mrs. Poole,' said she, addressing Grace, 'the servants' dinner
will soon be ready: will you come down?'
   'No; just put my pint of porter and bit of pudding on a tray, and
I'll carry it upstairs.'
   'You'll have some meat?'
   'Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that's all.'
   'And the sago?'
   'Never mind it at present: I shall be coming down before
tea-time: I'll make it myself.'
   The cook here turned to me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting
for me: so I departed.
   I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax's account of the curtain
conflagration during dinner, so much was I occupied in puzzling my
brains over the enigmatical character of Grace Poole, and still more
in pondering the problem of her position at Thornfield and questioning
why she had not been given into custody that morning, or, at the
very least, dismissed from her master's service. He had almost as much
as declared his conviction of her criminality last night: what
mysterious cause withheld him from accusing her? Why had he enjoined
me, too, to secrecy? It was strange: a bold, vindictive, and haughty
gentleman seemed somehow in the power of one of the meanest of his
dependants; so much in her power, that even when she lifted her hand
against his life, he dared not openly charge her with the attempt,
much less punish her for it.
   Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to
think that tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr.
Rochester in her behalf; but, hard-favoured and matronly as she was,
the idea could not be admitted. 'Yet,' I reflected, 'she has been
young once; her youth would be contemporary with her master's: Mrs.
Fairfax told me once, she had lived here many years. I don't think she
can ever have been pretty; but, for aught I know, she may possess
originality and strength of character to compensate for the want of
personal advantages. Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and
eccentric: Grace is eccentric at least. What if a former caprice (a
freak very possible to a nature so sudden and headstrong as his) has
delivered him into her power, and she now exercises over his actions a
secret influence, the result of his own indiscretion, which he
cannot shake off, and dare not disregard?' But, having reached this
point of conjecture, Mrs. Poole's square, flat figure, and uncomely,
dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my mind's eye, that I
thought, 'No; impossible! my supposition cannot be correct. Yet,'
suggested the secret voice which talks to us in our own hearts, 'you
are not beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you: at
any rate, you have often felt as if he did; and last night- remember
his words; remember his look; remember his voice!'
   I well remembered all; language, glance, and tone seemed at the
moment vividly renewed. I was now in the schoolroom; Adele was
drawing; I bent over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a
sort of start.
   'Qu'avez-vous, mademoiselle?' said she. 'Vos doigts tremblent comme
la feuille, et vos joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des cerises!'
   'I am hot, Adele, with stooping!' She went on sketching; I went
on thinking.
   I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been
conceiving respecting Grace Poole; it disgusted me. I compared
myself with her, and found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I
was quite a lady; and she spoke truth- I was a lady. And now I
looked much better than I did when Bessie saw me; I had more colour
and more flesh, more life, more vivacity, because I had brighter hopes
and keener enjoyments.
   'Evening approaches,' said I, as I looked towards the window. 'I
have never heard Mr. Rochester's voice or step in the house to-day;
but surely I shall see him before night: I feared the meeting in the
morning; now I desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled
that it is grown impatient.'
   When dusk actually closed, and when Adele left me to go and play in
the nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for
the bell to ring below; I listened for Leah coming up with a
message; I fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester's own tread, and
I turned to the door, expecting it to open and admit him. The door
remained shut; darkness only came in through the window. Still it
was not late; he often sent for me at seven and eight o'clock, and
it was yet but six. Surely I should not be wholly disappointed
to-night, when I had so many things to say to him! I wanted again to
introduce the subject of Grace Poole, and to hear what he would
answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if he really believed it was she
who had made last night's hideous attempt; and if so, why he kept
her wickedness a secret. It little mattered whether my curiosity
irritated him; I knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by
turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always
prevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of provocation I
never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my skill.
Retaining every minute form of respect, every propriety of my station,
I could still meet him in argument without fear or uneasy restraint;
this suited both him and me.
   A tread creaked on the stairs at last. Leah made her appearance;
but it was only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax's room.
Thither I repaired, glad at least to go downstairs; for that brought
me, I imagined, nearer to Mr. Rochester's presence.
   'You must want your tea,' said the good lady, as I joined her; 'you
ate so little at dinner. I am afraid,' she continued, 'you are not
well to-day: you look flushed and feverish.'
   'Oh, quite well! I never felt better.'
   'Then you must prove it by evincing a good appetite; will you
fill the teapot while I knit off this needle?' Having completed her
task, she rose to draw down the blind, which she had hitherto kept up,
by way, I suppose, of making the most of daylight, though dusk was now
fast deepening into total obscurity.
   'It is fair to-night,' said she, as she looked through the panes,
'though not starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a
favourable day for his journey.'
   'Journey!- Is Mr. Rochester gone anywhere? I did not know he was
out.'
   'Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfast! He is gone to the
Leas, Mr. Eshton's place, ten miles on the other side Millcote. I
believe there is quite a party assembled there; Lord Ingram, Sir
George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and others.'
   'Do you expect him back to-night?'
   'No- nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay
a week or more: when these fine, fashionable people get together, they
are so surrounded by elegance and gaiety, so well provided with all
that can please and entertain, they are in no hurry to separate.
Gentlemen especially are often in request on such occasions; and Mr.
Rochester is so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he
is a general favourite: the ladies are very fond of him; though you
would not think his appearance calculated to recommend him
particularly in their eyes: but I suppose his acquirements and
abilities, perhaps his wealth and good blood, make amends for any
little fault of look.'
   'Are there ladies at the Leas?'
   'There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters- very elegant
young ladies indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanche and Mary
Ingram, most beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanche,
six or seven years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came
here to a Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave. You should have
seen the dining-room that day- how richly it was decorated, how
brilliantly lit up! I should think there were fifty ladies and
gentlemen present- all of the first county families; and Miss Ingram
was considered the belle of the evening.'
   'You saw her, you say, Mrs. Fairfax: what was she like?'
   'Yes, I saw her. The dining-room doors were thrown open; and, as it
was Christmas-time, the servants were allowed to assemble in the hall,
to hear some of the ladies sing and play. Mr. Rochester would have
me to come in, and I sat down in a quiet corner and watched them. I
never saw a more splendid scene: the ladies were magnificently
dressed; most of them- at least most of the younger ones- looked
handsome; but Miss Ingram was certainly the queen.'
   'And what was she like?'
   'Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck: olive
complexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr.
Rochester's: large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then
she had such a fine head of hair; raven-black and so becomingly
arranged: a crown of thick plaits behind, and in front the longest,
the glossiest curls I ever saw. She was dressed in pure white; an
amber-coloured scarf was passed over her shoulder and across her
breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below
her knee. She wore an amber-coloured flower, too, in her hair: it
contrasted well with the jetty mass of her curls.'
   'She was greatly admired, of course?'
   'Yes, indeed: and not only for her beauty, but for her
accomplishments. She was one of the ladies who sang: a gentleman
accompanied her on the piano. She and Mr. Rochester sang a duet.'
   'Mr. Rochester? I was not aware he could sing.'
   'Oh! he has a fine bass voice, and an excellent taste for music.'
   'And Miss Ingram: what sort of a voice had she?'
   'A very rich and powerful one: she sang delightfully; it was a
treat to listen to her;- and she played afterwards. I am no judge of
music, but Mr. Rochester is; and I heard him say her execution was
remarkably good.'
   'And this beautiful and accomplished lady, she is not yet married.'
   'It appears not: I fancy neither she nor her sister have very large
fortunes. Old Lord Ingram's estates were chiefly entailed, and the
eldest son came in for everything almost.'
   'But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to
her: Mr. Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he not?'
   'Oh! yes. But you see there is a considerable difference in age:
Mr. Rochester is nearly forty; she is but twenty-five.'
   'What of that? More unequal matches are made every day.'
   'True: yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an
idea of the sort. But you eat nothing: you have scarcely tasted
since you began tea.'
   'No: I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let me have another cup?'
   I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between
Mr. Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but Adele came in, and the
conversation was turned into another channel.
   When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got;
looked into my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and
endeavoured to bring back with a strict hand such as had been straying
through imagination's boundless and trackless waste, into the safe
fold of common sense.
   Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the
hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night- of
the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a
fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own
quiet way, a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the
real, and rabidly devoured the ideal;- I pronounced judgment to this
effect:-
   That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of
life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet
lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.
   'You,' I said, 'a favourite with Mr. Rochester? You gifted with the
power of pleasing him? You of importance to him in any way? Go! your
folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens
of preference- equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a
man of the world to a dependant and a novice. How dared you? Poor
stupid dupe!- Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You
repeated to yourself this morning the brief scene of last night?-
Cover your face and be ashamed! He said something in praise of your
eyes, did he? Blind puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your
own accursed senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered
by her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is
madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which,
if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if
discovered and responded to, must lead, ignis-fatuus-like, into miry
wilds whence there is no extrication.
   'Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: to-morrow, place the
glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully,
without softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no
displeasing irregularity; write under it, "Portrait of a Governess,
disconnected, poor, and plain."
   'Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory- you have one prepared in
your drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, finest,
clearest tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils;
delineate carefully the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in
your softest shades and sweetest hues, according to the description
given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven
ringlets, the oriental eye;- What! you revert to Mr. Rochester as a
model! Order! No snivel!- no sentiment!- no regret! I will endure only
sense and resolution. Recall the august yet harmonious lineaments, the
Grecian neck and bust; let the round and dazzling arm be visible,
and the delicate hand; omit neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet;
portray faithfully the attire, aerial lace and glistening satin,
graceful scarf and golden rose; call it "Blanche, an accomplished lady
of rank."
   'Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester
thinks well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them: say,
"Mr. Rochester might probably win that noble lady's love, if he
chose to strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious
thought on this indigent and insignificant plebeian?"'
   'I'll do it,' I resolved: and having framed this determination, I
grew calm, and fell asleep.
   I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait
in crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory
miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face
enough, and when compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast
was as great as self-control could desire. I derived benefit from
the task: it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given
force and fixedness to the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly
on my heart.
   Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of
wholesome discipline to which I had thus forced my feelings to submit.
Thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a
decent calm, which, had they found me unprepared, I should probably
have been unequal to maintain, even externally.
                         CHAPTER XVII

   A WEEK passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten days,
and still he did not come. Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be
surprised if he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and
thence to the Continent, and not show his face again at Thornfield for
a year to come; he had not unfrequently quitted it in a manner quite
as abrupt and unexpected. When I heard this, I was beginning to feel a
strange chill and failing at the heart. I was actually permitting
myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying
my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my
sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary
blunder- how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester's
movements a matter in which I had any cause to take a vital
interest. Not that I humbled myself by a slavish notion of
inferiority: on the contrary, I just said-
   'You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than
to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protegee, and to
be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do
your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is
the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him; so don't
make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and
so forth. He is not of your order: keep to your caste, and be too
self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and
strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised.'
   I went on with my day's business tranquilly; but ever and anon
vague suggestions kept wandering across my brain of reasons why I
should quit Thornfield; and I kept involuntarily framing
advertisements and pondering conjectures about new situations: these
thoughts I did not think it necessary to check; they might germinate
and bear fruit if they could.
   Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of a fortnight, when the post
brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter.
   'It is from the master,' said she, as she looked at the
direction. 'Now I suppose we shall know whether we are to expect his
return or not.'
   And while she broke the seal and perused the document, I went on
taking my coffee (we were at breakfast): it was hot, and I
attributed to that circumstance a fiery glow which suddenly rose to my
face. Why my hand shook, and why I involuntarily spilt half the
contents of my cup into my saucer, I did not choose to consider.
   'Well, I sometimes think we are too quiet; but we run a chance of
being busy enough now: for a little while at least,' said Mrs.
Fairfax, still holding the note before her spectacles.
   Ere I permitted myself to request an explanation, I tied the string
of Adele's pinafore, which happened to be loose: having helped her
also to another bun and refilled her mug with milk, I said
nonchalantly-
   'Mr. Rochester is not likely to return soon, I suppose?'
   'Indeed he is- in three days, he says: that will be next
Thursday; and not alone either. I don't know how many of the fine
people at the Leas are coming with him: he sends directions for all
the best bedrooms to be prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms
are to be cleaned out; and I am to get more kitchen hands from the
George Inn, at Millcote, and from wherever else I can; and the
ladies will bring their maids and the gentlemen their valets: so we
shall have a full house of it.' And Mrs. Fairfax swallowed her
breakfast and hastened away to commence operations.
   The three days were, as she had foretold, busy enough. I had
thought all the rooms at Thornfield beautifully clean and well
arranged; but it appears I was mistaken. Three women were got to help;
and such scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating
of carpets, such taking down and putting up of pictures, such
polishing of mirrors and lustres, such lighting of fires in
bedrooms, such airing of sheets and feather-beds on hearths, I never
beheld, either before or since. Adele ran quite wild in the midst of
it: the preparations for company and the prospect of their arrival,
seemed to throw her into ecstasies. She would have Sophie to look over
all her 'toilettes,' as she called frocks; to furbish up any that were
'passees,' and to air and arrange the new. For herself, she did
nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump on and off the
bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows
before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys. From school
duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her
service, and I was all day in the storeroom, helping (or hindering)
her and the cook; learning to make custards and cheese-cakes and
French pastry, to truss game and garnish dessert-dishes.
   The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, in time
for dinner at six. During the intervening period I had no time to
nurse chimeras; and I believe I was as active and gay as anybody-
Adele excepted. Still, now and then, I received a damping check to
my cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the
region of doubts and portents, and dark conjectures. This was when I
chanced to see the third-storey staircase door (which of late had
always been kept locked) open slowly, and give passage to the form
of Grace Poole, in prim cap, white apron, and handkerchief; when I
watched her glide along the gallery, her quiet tread muffled in a list
slipper; when I saw her look into the bustling, topsy-turvy bedrooms,-
just say a word, perhaps, to the charwoman about the proper way to
polish a grate, or clean a marble mantelpiece, or take stains from
papered walls, and then pass on. She would thus descend to the kitchen
once a day, eat her dinner, smoke a moderate pipe on the hearth, and
go back, carrying her pot of porter with her, for her private
solace, in her own gloomy, upper haunt. Only one hour in the
twenty-four did she pass with her fellow-servants below; all the
rest of her time was spent in some low-ceiled, oaken chamber of the
second storey: there she sat and sewed- and probably laughed
drearily to herself,- as companionless as a prisoner in his dungeon.
   The strangest thing of all was, that not a soul in the house,
except me, noticed her habits, or seemed to marvel at them: no one
discussed her position or employment; no one pitied her solitude or
isolation. I once, indeed, overheard part of a dialogue between Leah
and one of the charwomen, of which Grace formed the subject. Leah
had been saying something I had not caught, and the charwoman
remarked-
   'She gets good wages, I guess?'
   'Yes,' said Leah; 'I wish I had as good; not that mine are to
complain of,- there's no stinginess at Thornfield; but they're not one
fifth of the sum Mrs. Poole receives. And she is laying by: she goes
every quarter to the bank at Millcote. I should not wonder but she has
saved enough to keep her independent if she liked to leave; but I
suppose she's got used to the place; and then she's not forty yet, and
strong and able for anything. It is too soon for her to give up
business.'
   'She is a good hand, I daresay,' said the charwoman.
   'Ah!- she understands what she has to do,- nobody better,' rejoined
Leah significantly; 'and it is not every one could fill her shoes- not
for all the money she gets.'
   'That it is not!' was the reply. 'I wonder whether the master-'
   The charwoman was going on; but here Leah turned and perceived
me, and she instantly gave her companion a nudge.
   'Doesn't she know?' I heard the woman whisper.
   Leah shook her head, and the conversation was of course dropped.
All I had gathered from it amounted to this,- that there was a mystery
at Thornfield; and that from participation in that mystery I was
purposely excluded.
   Thursday came: all work had been completed the previous evening;
carpets were laid down, bed-hangings festooned, radiant white
counterpanes spread, toilet tables arranged, furniture rubbed, flowers
piled in vases: both chambers and saloons looked as fresh and bright
as hands could make them. The hall, too, was scoured; and the great
carved clock, as well as the steps and banisters of the staircase,
were polished to the brightness of glass; in the dining-room, the
sideboard flashed resplendent with plate; in the drawing-room and
boudoir, vases of exotics bloomed on all sides.
   Afternoon arrived: Mrs. Fairfax assumed her best black satin
gown, her gloves, and her gold watch; for it was her part to receive
the company,- to conduct the ladies to their rooms, etc. Adele, too,
would be dressed: though I thought she had little chance of being
introduced to the party that day at least. However, to please her, I
allowed Sophie to apparel her in one of her short, full muslin frocks.
For myself, I had no need to make any change; I should not be called
upon to quit my sanctum of the schoolroom; for a sanctum it was now
become to me,- 'a very pleasant refuge in time of trouble.'
   It had been a mild, serene spring day- one of those days which,
towards the end of March or the beginning of April, rise shining
over the earth as heralds of summer. It was drawing to an end now; but
the evening was even warm, and I sat at work in the schoolroom with
the window open.
   'It gets late,' said Mrs. Fairfax, entering in rustling state. 'I
am glad I ordered dinner an hour after the time Mr. Rochester
mentioned; for it is past six now. I have sent John down to the
gates to see if there is anything on the road: one can see a long
way from thence in the direction of Millcote.' She went to the window.
'Here he is!' said she. 'Well, John' (leaning out), 'any news?'
   'They're coming, ma'am,' was the answer. 'They'll be here in ten
minutes.'
   Adele flew to the window. I followed, taking care to stand on one
side, so that, screened by the curtain, I could see without being
seen.
   The ten minutes John had given seemed very long, but at last wheels
were heard; four equestrians galloped up the drive, and after them
came two open carriages. Fluttering veils and waving plumes filled the
vehicles; two of the cavaliers were young, dashing-looking
gentlemen; the third was Mr. Rochester, on his black horse, Mesrour,
Pilot bounding before him; at his side rode a lady, and he and she
were the first of the party. Her purple riding-habit almost swept the,
ground, her veil streamed long on the breeze; mingling with its
transparent folds, and gleaming through them, shone rich raven
ringlets.
   'Miss Ingram!' exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax, and away she hurried to
her post below.
   The cavalcade, following the sweep of the drive, quickly turned the
angle of the house, and I lost sight of it. Adele now petitioned to go
down; but I took her on my knee, and gave her to understand that she
must not on any account think of venturing in sight of the ladies,
either now or at any other time, unless expressly sent for: that Mr.
Rochester would be very angry, etc. 'Some natural tears she shed' on
being told this; but as I began to look very grave, she consented at
last to wipe them.
   A joyous stir was now audible in the hall: gentlemen's deep tones
and ladies' silvery accents blent harmoniously together, and
distinguishable above all, though not loud, was the sonorous voice
of the master of Thornfield Hall, welcoming his fair and gallant
guests under its roof. Then light steps ascended the stairs; and there
was a tripping through the gallery, and soft cheerful laughs, and
opening and closing doors, and, for a time, a hush.
   'Elles changent de toilettes,' said Adele; who, listening
attentively, had followed every movement; and she sighed.
   'Chez maman,' said she, 'quand il y avait du monde, je le suivais
partout, au salon et a leurs chambres; souvent je regardais les femmes
de chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et c'etait si amusant: comme
cela on apprend.'
   'Don't you feel hungry, Adele?'
   'Mais oui, mademoiselle: voila cinq ou six heures que nous
n'avons pas mange.'
   'Well now, while the ladies are in their rooms, I will venture down
and get you something to eat.'
   And issuing from my asylum with precaution, I sought a backstairs
which conducted directly to the kitchen. All in that region was fire
and commotion; the soup and fish were in the last stage of projection,
and the cook hung over her crucibles in a frame of mind and body
threatening spontaneous combustion. In the servants' hall two coachmen
and three gentlemen's gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the
abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new
servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about
everywhere. Threading this chaos, I at last reached the larder;
there I took possession of a cold chicken, a roll of bread, some
tarts, a plate or two and a knife and fork: with this booty I made a
hasty retreat. I had regained the gallery, and was just shutting the
back-door behind me, when an accelerated hum warned me that the ladies
were about to issue from their chambers. I could not proceed to the
schoolroom without passing some of their doors, and running the risk
of being surprised with my cargo of victualage; so I stood still at
this end, which, being windowless, was dark: quite dark now, for the
sun was set and twilight gathering.
   Presently the chambers gave up their fair tenants one after
another: each came out gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed
lustrous through the dusk. For a moment they stood grouped together at
the other extremity of the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet
subdued vivacity: they then descended the staircase almost as
noiselessly as a bright mist rolls down a hill. Their collective
appearance had left on me an impression of high-born elegance, such as
I had never before received.
   I found Adele peeping through the schoolroom door, which she held
ajar. 'What beautiful ladies!' cried she in English. 'Oh, I wish I
might go to them! Do you think Mr. Rochester will send for us by and
by, after dinner?'
   'No, indeed, I don't; Mr. Rochester has something else to think
about. Never mind the ladies to-night; perhaps you will see them
to-morrow: here is your dinner.'
   She was really hungry, so the chicken and tarts served to divert
her attention for a time. It was well I secured this forage, or both
she, I, and Sophie, to whom I conveyed a share of our repast, would
have run a chance of getting no dinner at all: every one downstairs
was too much engaged to think of us. The dessert was not carried out
till after nine, and at ten footmen were still running to and fro with
trays and coffee-cups. I allowed Adele to sit up much later than
usual; for she declared she could not possibly go to sleep while the
doors kept opening and shutting below, and people bustling about.
Besides, she added, a message might possibly come from Mr. Rochester
when she was undressed; 'et alors quel dommage!'
   I told her stories as long as she would listen to them; and then
for a change I took her out into the gallery. The hall lamp was now
lit, and it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the
servants passing backwards and forwards. When the evening was far
advanced, a sound of music issued from the drawing-room, whither the
piano had been removed; Adele and I sat down on the top step of the
stairs to listen. Presently a voice blent with the rich tones of the
instrument; it was a lady who sang, and very sweet her notes were. The
solo over, a duet followed, and then a glee: a joyous conversational
murmur filled up the intervals. I listened long: suddenly I discovered
that my ear was wholly intent on analysing the mingled sounds, and
trying to discriminate amidst the confusion of accents those of Mr.
Rochester; and when it caught them, which it soon did, it found a
further task in framing the tones, rendered by distance
inarticulate, into words.
   The clock struck eleven. I looked at Adele, whose head leant
against my shoulder; her eyes were waxing heavy, so I took her up in
my arms and carried her off to bed. It was near one before the
gentlemen and ladies sought their chambers.
   The next day was as fine as its predecessor: it was devoted by
the party to an excursion to some site in the neighbourhood. They
set out early in the forenoon, some on horseback, the rest in
carriages; I witnessed both the departure and the return. Miss Ingram,
as before, was the only lady equestrian; and, as before, Mr. Rochester
galloped at her side; the two rode a little apart from the rest. I
pointed out this circumstance to Mrs. Fairfax, who was standing at the
window with me-
   'You said it was not likely they should think of being married,'
said I, 'but you see Mr. Rochester evidently prefers her to any of the
other ladies.'
   'Yes, I daresay: no doubt he admires her.'
   'And she him,' I added; 'look how she leans her head towards him as
if she were conversing confidentially; I wish I could see her face;
I have never had a glimpse of it yet.'
   'You will see her this evening,' answered Mrs. Fairfax. 'I happened
to remark to Mr. Rochester how much Adele wished to be introduced to
the ladies, and he said: "Oh! let her come into the drawing-room after
dinner; and request Miss Eyre to accompany her."'
   'Yes; he said that from mere politeness: I need not go, I am sure,'
I answered.
   'Well, I observed to him that as you were unused to company, I
did not think you would like appearing before so gay a party- all
strangers; and he replied, in his quick way- "Nonsense! If she
objects, tell her it is my particular wish; and if she resists, say
I shall come and fetch her in case of contumacy."'
   'I will not give him that trouble,' I answered. 'I will go, if no
better may be; but I don't like it. Shall you be there, Mrs. Fairfax?'
   'No; I pleaded off, and he admitted my plea. I'll tell you how to
manage so as to avoid the embarrassment of making a formal entrance,
which is the most disagreeable part of the business. You must go
into the drawing-room while it is empty, before the ladies leave the
dinner-table; choose your seat in any quiet nook you like; you need
not stay long after the gentlemen come in, unless you please: just let
Mr. Rochester see you are there and then slip away- nobody will notice
you.'
   'Will these people remain long, do you think?'
   'Perhaps two or three weeks, certainly not more. After the Easter
recess, Sir George Lynn, who was lately elected member for Millcote,
will have to go up to town and take his seat; I daresay Mr.
Rochester will accompany him: it surprises me that he has already made
so protracted a stay at Thornfield.'
   It was with some trepidation that I perceived the hour approach
when I was to repair with my charge to the drawing-room. Adele had
been in a state of ecstasy all day, after hearing she was to be
presented to the ladies in the evening; and it was not till Sophie
commenced the operation of dressing her that she sobered down. Then
the importance of the process quickly steadied her, and by the time
she had her curls arranged in well-smoothed, drooping clusters, her
pink satin frock put on, her long sash tied, and her lace mittens
adjusted, she looked as grave as any judge. No need to warn her not to
disarrange her attire: when she was dressed, she sat demurely down
in her little chair, taking care previously to lift up the satin skirt
for fear she should crease it, and assured me she would not stir
thence till I was ready. This I quickly was: my best dress (the
silver-grey one, purchased for Miss Temple's wedding, and never worn
since) was soon put on; my hair was soon smoothed; my sole ornament,
the pearl brooch, soon assumed. We descended.
   Fortunately there was another entrance to the drawing-room than
that through the saloon where they were all seated at dinner. We found
the apartment vacant; a large fire burning silently on the marble
hearth, and wax candles shining in bright solitude, amid the exquisite
flowers with which the tables were adorned. The crimson curtain hung
before the arch: slight as was the separation this drapery formed from
the party in the adjoining saloon, they spoke in so low a key that
nothing of their conversation could be distinguished beyond a soothing
murmur.
   Adele, who appeared to be still under the influence of a most
solemnising impression, sat down, without a word, on the footstool I
pointed out to her. I retired to a window-seat, and taking a book from
a table near, endeavoured to read. Adele brought her stool to my feet;
ere long she touched my knee.
   'What is it, Adele?'
   'Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendre une seule de ces fleurs
magnifiques, mademoiselle? Seulement pour completer ma toilette.'
   'You think too much of your "toilette," Adele: but you may have a
flower.' And I took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her sash.
She sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfaction, as if her cup of
happiness were now full. I turned my face away to conceal a smile I
could not suppress: there was something ludicrous as well as painful
in the little Parisienne's earnest and innate devotion to matters of
dress.
   A soft sound of rising now became audible; the curtain was swept
back from the arch; through it appeared the dining-room, with its
lit lustre pouring down light on the silver and glass of a magnificent
dessert-service covering a long table; a band of ladies stood in the
opening; they entered, and the curtain fell behind them.
   There were but eight; yet, somehow, as they flocked in, they gave
the impression of a much larger number. Some of them were very tall;
many were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of
array that seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the
moon. I rose and curtseyed to them: one or two bent their heads in
return, the others only stared at me.
   They dispersed about the room, reminding me, by the lightness and
buoyancy of their movements, of a flock of white plumy birds. Some
of them threw themselves in half-reclining positions on the sofas
and ottomans: some bent over the tables and examined the flowers and
books: the rest gathered in a group round the fire: all talked in a
low but clear tone which seemed habitual to them. I knew their names
afterwards, and may as well mention them now.
   First, there was Mrs. Eshton and two of her daughters. She had
evidently been a handsome woman, and was well preserved still. Of
her daughters, the eldest, Amy, was rather little: naive, and
child-like in face and manner, and piquant in form; her white muslin
dress and blue sash became her well. The second, Louisa, was taller
and more elegant in figure; with a very pretty face, of that order the
French term minois chiffone: both sisters were fair as lilies.
   Lady Lynn was a large and stout personage of about forty, very
erect, very haughty-looking, richly dressed in a satin robe of
changeful sheen: her dark hair shone glossily under the shade of an
azure plume, and within the circlet of a band of gems.
   Mrs. Colonel Dent was less showy; but, I thought, more lady-like.
She had a slight figure, a pale, gentle face, and fair hair. Her black
satin dress, her scarf of rich foreign lace, and her pearl
ornaments, pleased me better than the rainbow radiance of the titled
dame.
   But the three most distinguished- partly, perhaps, because the
tallest figures of the band- were the Dowager Lady Ingram and her
daughters, Blanche and Mary. They were all three of the loftiest
stature of women. The Dowager might be between forty and fifty: her
shape was still fine; her hair (by candlelight at least) still
black; her teeth, too, were still apparently perfect. Most people
would have termed her a splendid woman of her age: and so she was,
no doubt, physically speaking; but then there was an expression of
almost insupportable haughtiness in her bearing and countenance. She
had Roman features and a double chin, disappearing into a throat
like a pillar: these features appeared to me not only inflated and
darkened, but even furrowed with pride; and the chin was sustained
by the same principle, in a position of almost preternatural
erectness. She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye: it reminded
me of Mrs. Reed's; she mouthed her words in speaking; her voice was
deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical,- very
intolerable, in short. A crimson velvet robe, and a shawl turban of
some gold-wrought Indian fabric, invested her (I suppose she
thought) with a truly imperial dignity.
   Blanche and Mary were of equal stature,- straight and tall as
poplars. Mary was too slim for her height, but Blanche was moulded
like a Dian. I regarded her, of course, with special interest.
First, I wished to see whether her appearance accorded with Mrs.
Fairfax's description; secondly, whether it at all resembled the fancy
miniature I had painted of her; and thirdly- it will out!- whether
it were such as I should fancy likely to suit Mr. Rochester's taste.
   As far as person went, she answered point for point, both to my
picture and Mrs. Fairfax's description. The noble bust, the sloping
shoulders, the graceful neck, the dark eyes and black ringlets were
all there;- but her face? Her face was like her mother's; a youthful
unfurrowed likeness: the same low brow, the same high features, the
same pride. It was not, however, so saturnine a pride! she laughed
continually; her laugh was satirical, and so was the habitual
expression of her arched and haughty lip.
   Genius is said to be self-conscious. I cannot tell whether Miss
Ingram was a genius, but she was self-conscious- remarkably
self-conscious indeed. She entered into a discourse on botany with the
gentle Mrs. Dent. It seemed Mrs. Dent had not studied that science:
though, as she said, she liked flowers, 'especially wild ones'; Miss
Ingram had, and she ran over its vocabulary with an air. I presently
perceived she was (what is vernacularly termed) trailing Mrs. Dent;
that is, playing on her ignorance: her trail might be clever, but it
was decidedly not good-natured. She played: her execution was
brilliant; she sang, her voice was fine; she talked French apart to
her mama; and she talked it well, with fluency and with a good accent.
   Mary had a milder and more open countenance than Blanche; softer
features too, and a skin some shades fairer (Miss Ingram was dark as a
Spaniard)- but Mary was deficient in life: her face lacked expression,
her eye lustre; she had nothing to say, and having once taken her
seat, remained fixed like a statue in its niche. The sisters were both
attired in spotless white.
   And did I now think Miss Ingram such a choice as Mr. Rochester
would be likely to make? I could not tell- I did not know his taste in
female beauty. If he liked the majestic, she was the very type of
majesty: then she was accomplished, sprightly. Most gentlemen would
admire her, I thought; and that he did admire her, I already seemed to
have obtained proof: to remove the last shade of doubt, it remained
but to see them together.
   You are not to suppose, reader, that Adele has all this time been
sitting motionless on the stool at my feet: no; when the ladies
entered, she rose, advanced to meet them, made a stately reverence,
and said with gravity-
   'Bon jour, mesdames.'
   And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mocking air, and
exclaimed, 'Oh, what a little puppet!'
   Lady Lynn had remarked, 'It is Mr. Rochester's ward, I suppose- the
little French girl he was speaking of.'
   Mrs. Dent had kindly taken her hand, and given her a kiss. Amy
and Louisa Eshton had cried out simultaneously-
   'What a love of a child!'
   And then they had called her to a sofa, where she now sat,
ensconced between them, chattering alternately in French and broken
English; absorbing not only the young ladies' attention, but that of
Mrs. Eshton and Lady Lynn, and getting spoilt to her heart's content.
   At last coffee is brought in, and the gentlemen are summoned. I sit
in the shade- if any shade there be in this brilliantly-lit apartment;
the window-curtain half hides me. Again the arch yawns; they come. The
collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is
very imposing: they are all costumed in black; most of them are
tall, some young. Henry and Frederick Lynn are very dashing sparks
indeed; and Colonel Dent is a fine soldierly man. Mr. Eshton, the
magistrate of the district, is gentleman-like: his hair is quite
white, his eyebrows and whiskers still dark, which gives him something
of the appearance of a 'pere noble de theatre.' Lord Ingram, like
his sisters, is very tall; like them, also, he is handsome; but he
shares Mary's apathetic and listless look: he seems to have more
length of limb than vivacity of blood or vigour of brain.
   And where is Mr. Rochester?
   He comes in last: I am not looking at the arch, yet I see him
enter. I try to concentrate my attention on those netting-needles,
on the meshes of the purse I am forming- I wish to think only of the
work I have in my hands, to see only the silver beads and silk threads
that lie in my lap; whereas, I distinctly behold his figure, and I
inevitably recall the moment when I last saw it; just after I had
rendered him, what he deemed, an essential service, and he, holding my
hand, and looking down on my face, surveyed me with eyes that revealed
a heart full and eager to overflow; in whose emotions I had a part.
How near had I approached him at that moment! What had occurred since,
calculated to change his and my relative positions? Yet now, how
distant, how far estranged we were! So far estranged, that I did not
expect him to come and speak to me. I did not wonder, when, without
looking at me, he took a seat at the other side of the room, and began
conversing with some of the ladies.
   No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and
that I might gaze without being observed, than my eyes were drawn
involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under
control: they would rise, and the irids would fix on him. I looked,
and had an acute pleasure in looking,- a precious yet poignant
pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like
what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which
he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts
nevertheless.
   Most true is it that 'beauty is in the eye of the gazer.' My
master's colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty
eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth,- all energy,
decision, will,- were not beautiful, according to rule; but they
were more than beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an
influence that quite mastered me,- that took my feelings from my own
power and fettered them in his. I had not intended to love him; the
reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of
love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they
spontaneously arrived, green and strong! He made me love him without
looking at me.
   I compared him with his guests. What was the gallant grace of the
Lynns, the languid elegance of Lord Ingram,- even the military
distinction of Colonel Dent, contrasted with his look of native pith
and genuine power? I had no sympathy in their appearance, their
expression: yet I could imagine that most observers would call them
attractive, handsome, imposing; while they would pronounce Mr.
Rochester at once harsh-featured and melancholy-looking. I saw them
smile, laugh- it was nothing; the light of the candles had as much
soul in it as their smile; the tinkle of the bell as much significance
as their laugh. I saw Mr. Rochester smile:- his stern features
softened; his eye grew both brilliant and gentle, its ray both
searching and sweet. He was talking, at the moment, to Louisa and
Amy Eshton. I wondered to see them receive with calm that look which
seemed to me so penetrating: I expected their eyes to fall, their
colour to rise under it; yet I was glad when I found they were in no
sense moved. 'He is not to them what he is to me,' I thought: 'he is
not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;- I am sure he is- I feel
akin to him- I understand the language of his countenance and
movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in
my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me
mentally to him. Did I say, a few days since, that I had nothing to do
with him but to receive my salary at his hands? Did I forbid myself to
think of him in any other light than as a paymaster? Blasphemy against
nature! Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers
impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must
smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For
when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his
force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I
have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must, then,
repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:- and yet, while I
breathe and think, I must love him.'
   Coffee is handed. The ladies, since the gentlemen entered, have
become lively as larks; conversation waxes brisk and merry. Colonel
Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics; their wives listen. The two
proud dowagers, Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate together. Sir
George- whom, by the bye, I have forgotten to describe,- a very big,
and very fresh-looking country gentleman, stands before their sofa,
coffee-cup in hand, and occasionally puts in a word. Mr. Frederick
Lynn has taken a seat beside Mary Ingram, and is showing her the
engravings of a splendid volume: she looks, smiles now and then, but
apparently says little. The tall and phlegmatic Lord Ingram leans with
folded arms on the chair-back of the little and lively Amy Eshton; she
glances up at him, and chatters like a wren: she likes him better than
she does Mr. Rochester. Henry Lynn has taken possession of an
ottoman at the feet of Louisa: Adele shares it with him: he is
trying to talk French with her, and Louisa laughs at his blunders.
With whom will Blanche Ingram pair? She is standing alone at the
table, bending gracefully over an album. She seems waiting to be
sought; but she will not wait too long: she herself selects a mate.
   Mr. Rochester, having quitted the Eshtons, stands on the hearth
as solitary as she stands by the table: she confronts him, taking
her station on the opposite side of the mantelpiece.
   'Mr. Rochester, I thought you were not fond of children?'
   'Nor am I.'
   'Then, what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as
that?' (pointing to Adele). 'Where did you pick her up?'
   'I did not pick her up; she was left on my hands.'
   'You should have sent her to school.'
   'I could not afford it: schools are so dear.'
   'Why, I suppose you have a governess for her: I saw a person with
her just now- is she gone? Oh, no! there she is still, behind the
window-curtain. You pay her, of course; I should think it quite as
expensive,- more so; for you have them both to keep in addition.'
   I feared- or should I say, hoped?- the allusion to me would make
Mr. Rochester glance my way; and I involuntarily shrank farther into
the shade: but he never turned his eyes.
   'I have not considered the subject,' said he indifferently, looking
straight before him.
   'No, you men never do consider economy and common sense. You should
hear mama on the chapter of governesses: Mary and I have had, I should
think, a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the
rest ridiculous, and all incubi- were they not, mama?'
   'Did you speak, my own?'
   The young lady thus claimed as the dowager's special property,
reiterated her question with an explanation.
   'My dearest, don't mention governesses; the word makes me
nervous. I have suffered a martyrdom from their incompetency and
caprice. I thank Heaven I have now done with them!'
   Mrs. Dent here bent over to the pious lady, and whispered something
in her car; I suppose, from the answer elicited, it was a reminder
that one of the anathematised race was present.
   'Tant pis!' said her ladyship, 'I hope it may do her good!' Then,
in a lower tone, but still loud enough for me to hear, 'I noticed her;
I am a judge of physiognomy, and in hers I see all the faults of her
class.'
   'What are they, madam?' inquired Mr. Rochester aloud.
   'I will tell you in your private ear,' replied she, wagging her
turban three times with portentous significancy.
   'But my curiosity will be past its appetite; it craves food now.'
   'Ask Blanche; she is nearer you than I.'
   'Oh, don't refer him to me, mama! I have just one word to say of
the whole tribe; they are a nuisance. Not that I ever suffered much
from them; I took care to turn the tables. What tricks Theodore and
I used to play on our Miss Wilsons, and Mrs. Greys, and Madame
Jouberts! Mary was always too sleepy to join in a plot with spirit.
The best fun was with Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor sickly
thing, lachrymose and low-spirited, not worth the trouble of
vanquishing, in short; and Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible; no
blow took effect on her. But poor Madame Joubert! I see her yet in her
raging passions, when we had driven her to extremities- spilt our tea,
crumbled our bread and butter, tossed our books up to the ceiling, and
played a charivari with the ruler and desk, the fender and fire-irons.
Theodore, do you remember those merry days?'
   'Yaas, to be sure I do,' drawled Lord Ingram; 'and the poor old
stick used to cry out "Oh you villains childs!"- and then we
sermonised her on the presumption of attempting to teach such clever
blades as we were, when she was herself so ignorant.'
   'We did; and, Tedo, you know, I helped you in prosecuting (or
persecuting) your tutor, whey-faced Mr. Vining- the parson in the pip,
as we used to call him. He and Miss Wilson took the liberty of falling
in love with each other- at least Tedo and I thought so; we
surprised sundry tender glances and sighs which we interpreted as
tokens of "la belle passion," and I promise you the public soon had
the benefit of our discovery; we employed it as a sort of lever to
hoist our dead-weights from the house. Dear mama, there, as soon as
she got an inkling of the business, found out that it was of an
immoral tendency. Did you not, my lady-mother?'
   'Certainly, my best. And I was quite right: depend on that: there
are a thousand reasons why liaisons between governesses and tutors
should never be tolerated a moment in any well-regulated house;
firstly-'
   'Oh, gracious, mama! Spare us the enumeration! Au reste, we all
know them: danger of bad example to innocence of childhood;
distractions and consequent neglect of duty on the part of the
attached- mutual alliance and reliance; confidence thence resulting-
insolence accompanying- mutiny and general blowup. Am I right,
Baroness Ingram, of Ingram Park?'
   'My lily-flower, you are right now, as always.'
   'Then no more need be said: change the subject.'
   Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding this dictum, joined in
with her soft, infantine tone: 'Louisa and I used to quiz our
governess too; but she was such a good creature, she would bear
anything: nothing put her out. She was never cross with us; was she,
Louisa?'
   'No, never: we might do what we pleased; ransack her desk and her
workbox, and turn her drawers inside out; and she was so good-natured,
she would give us anything we asked for.'
   'I suppose, now,' said Miss Ingram, curling her lip
sarcastically, 'we shall have an abstract of the memoirs of all the
governesses extant: in order to avert such a visitation, I again
move the introduction of a new topic. Mr. Rochester, do you second
my motion?'
   'Madam, I support you on this point, as on every other.'
   'Then on me be the onus of bringing it forward. Signior Eduardo,
are you in voice to-night?'
   'Donna Bianca, if you command it, I will be.'
   'Then, signior, I lay on you my sovereign behest to furbish up your
lungs and other vocal organs, as they will be wanted on my royal
service.'
   'Who would not be the Rizzio of so divine a Mary?'
   'A fig for Rizzio!' cried she, tossing her head with all its curls,
as she moved to the piano. 'It is my opinion the fiddler David must
have been an insipid sort of fellow; I like black Bothwell better:
to my mind a man is nothing without a spice of the devil in him; and
history may say what it will of James Hepburn, but I have a notion, he
was just the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have
consented to gift with my hand.'
   'Gentlemen, you hear! Now which of you most resembles Bothwell?'
cried Mr. Rochester.
   'I should say the preference lies with you,' responded Colonel
Dent.
   'On my honour, I am much obliged to you,' was the reply.
   Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the
piano, spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, commenced a
brilliant prelude; talking meantime. She appeared to be on her high
horse to-night; both her words and her air seemed intended to excite
not only the admiration, but the amazement of her auditors: she was
evidently bent on striking them as something very dashing and daring
indeed.
   'Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the present day!' exclaimed
she, rattling away at the instrument. 'Poor, puny things, not fit to
stir a step beyond papa's park gates: nor to go even so far without
mama's permission and guardianship! Creatures so absorbed in care
about their pretty faces, and their white hands, and their small feet;
as if a man had anything to do with beauty! As if loveliness were
not the special prerogative of woman- her legitimate appanage and
heritage! I grant an ugly woman is a blot on the fair face of
creation; but as to the gentlemen, let them be solicitous to possess
only strength and valour: let their motto be:- Hunt, shoot, and fight:
the rest is not worth a fillip. Such should be my device, were I a
man.'
   'Whenever I marry,' she continued after a pause which none
interrupted, 'I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a
foil to me. I will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact
an undivided homage: his devotions shall not be shared between me
and the shape he sees in his mirror. Mr. Rochester, now sing, and I
will play for you.'
   'I am all obedience,' was the response.
   'Here then is a Corsair-song. Know that I doat on Corsairs; and for
that reason, sing it con spirito.'
   'Commands from Miss Ingram's lips would put spirit into a mug of
milk and water.'
   'Take care, then: if you don't please me, I will shame you by
showing how such things should be done.'
   'That is offering a premium on incapacity: I shall now endeavour to
fail.'
   'Gardez-vous en bien! If you err wilfully, I shall devise a
proportionate punishment.'
   'Miss Ingram ought to be clement, for she has it in her power to
inflict a chastisement beyond mortal endurance.'
   'Ha! explain!' commanded the lady.
   'Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must
inform you that one of your frowns would be a sufficient substitute
for capital punishment.'
   'Sing!' said she, and again touching the piano, she commenced an
accompaniment in spirited style.
   'Now is my time to slip away,' thought I: but the tones that then
severed the air arrested me. Mrs. Fairfax had said Mr. Rochester
possessed a fine voice: he did- a mellow, powerful bass, into which he
threw his own feeling, his own force: finding a way through the ear to
the heart, and there waking sensation strangely. I waited till the
last deep and full vibration had expired- till the tide of talk,
checked an instant, had resumed its flow; I then quitted my
sheltered corner and made my exit by the side-door, which was
fortunately near. Thence a narrow passage led into the hall: in
crossing it, I perceived my sandal was loose; I stopped to tie it,
kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of the
staircase. I heard the dining-room door unclose; a gentleman came out;
rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it was Mr. Rochester.
   'How do you do?' he asked.
   'I am very well, sir.'
   'Why did you not come and speak to me in the room?'
   I thought I might have retorted the question on him who put it: but
I would not take that freedom. I answered-
   'I did not wish to disturb you, as you seemed engaged, sir.'
   'What have you been doing during my absence?'
   'Nothing particular; teaching Adele as usual.'
   'And getting a good deal paler than you were- as I saw at first
sight. What is the matter?'
   'Nothing at all, sir.'
   'Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?'
   'Not the least.'
   'Return to the drawing-room: you are deserting too early.'
   'I am tired, sir.'
   He looked at me for a minute.
   'And a little depressed,' he said. 'What about? Tell me.'
   'Nothing- nothing, sir. I am not depressed.'
   'But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words
would bring tears to your eyes- indeed, they are there now, shining
and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to
the flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating
prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well,
to-night I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors
stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it
is my wish; don't neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adele.
Good-night, my-' He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.
                        CHAPTER XVIII

   MERRY days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: how
different from the first three months of stillness, monotony, and
solitude I had passed beneath its roof! All sad feelings seemed now
driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten: there was
life everywhere, movement all day long. You could not now traverse the
gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chambers, once so
tenantless, without encountering a smart lady's-maid or a dandy valet.
   The kitchen, the butler's pantry, the servants' hall, the
entrance hall, were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void
and still when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial
spring weather called their occupants out into the grounds. Even
when that weather was broken, and continuous rain set in for some
days, no damp seemed cast over enjoyment: indoor amusements only
became more lively and varied, in consequence of the stop put to
outdoor gaiety.
   I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change of
entertainment was proposed: they spoke of 'playing charades,' but in
my ignorance I did not understand the term. The servants were called
in, the dining-room tables wheeled away, the lights otherwise
disposed, the chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the arch. While
Mr. Rochester and the other gentlemen directed these alterations,
the ladies were running up and down stairs ringing for their maids.
Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to give information respecting the resources
of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies of any kind; and certain
wardrobes of the third storey were ransacked, and their contents, in
the shape of brocaded and hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black
modes, lace lappets, etc., were brought down in armfuls by the
abigails; then a selection was made, and such things as were chosen
were carried to the boudoir within the drawing-room.
   Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him,
and was selecting certain of their number to be of his party. 'Miss
Ingram is mine, of course,' said he: afterwards he named the two
Misses Eshton, and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I happened to be near
him, as I had been fastening the clasp of Mrs. Dent's bracelet,
which had got loose.
   'Will you play?' he asked. I shook my head. He did not insist,
which I rather feared he would have done; he allowed me to return
quietly to my usual seat.
   He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party,
which was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of
chairs. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to
propose that I should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly
negatived the notion.
   'No,' I heard her say: 'she looks too stupid for any game of the
sort.'
   Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up. Within the
arch, the bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had
likewise chosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, on a
table, lay open a large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton, draped
in Mr. Rochester's cloak, and holding a book in her hand. Somebody,
unseen, rang the bell merrily; then Adele (who had insisted on being
one of her guardian's party), bounded forward, scattering round her
the contents of a basket of flowers she carried on her arm. Then
appeared the magnificent figure of Miss Ingram, clad in white, a
long veil on her head, and a wreath of roses round her brow; by her
side walked Mr. Rochester, and together they drew near the table. They
knelt; while Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton, dressed also in white,
took up their stations behind them. A ceremony followed, in dumb show,
in which it was easy to recognise the pantomime of a marriage. At
its termination, Colonel Dent, and his party consulted in whispers for
two minutes, then the Colonel called out-
   'Bride!' Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell.
   A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its second
rising displayed a more elaborately prepared scene than the last.
The drawing-room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps
above the dining-room, and on the top of the upper step, placed a yard
or two back within the room, appeared a large marble basin, which I
recognised as an ornament of the conservatory- where it usually stood,
surrounded by exotics, and tenanted by gold fish- and whence it must
have been transported with some trouble, on account of its size and
weight.
   Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr.
Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head. His dark
eyes and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the costume
exactly: he looked the very model of an Eastern emir, an agent or a
victim of the bowstring. Presently advanced into view Miss Ingram.
She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied
sash-like round the waist; an embroidered handkerchief knotted about
her temples; her beautifully moulded arms bare, one of them upraised
in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head.
Both her cast of form and feature, her complexion and her general air,
suggested the idea of some Israelitish princess of the patriarchal
days; and such was doubtless the character she intended to represent.
   She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her
pitcher; she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the
well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request:- 'She
hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink.' From
the bosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it and
showed magnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment
and admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet;
incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures;
the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her
ears. It was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were wanting.
   The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they
could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated.
Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded 'the tableau of the whole';
whereupon the curtain again descended.
   On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was
disclosed; the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort
of dark and coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place
stood a deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible
by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles
being all extinguished.
   Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands resting
on his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr. Rochester;
though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging loose
from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back in a
scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance the rough,
bristling hair might well have disguised him. As he moved, a chain
clanked; to his wrists were attached fetters.
   'Bridewell!' exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved.
   A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume
their ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room. Mr. Rochester
led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting.
   'Do you know,' said she, 'that, of the three characters, I liked
you in the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier,
what a gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!'
   'Is all the soot washed from my face?' he asked, turning it towards
her.
   'Alas! yes: the more's the pity! Nothing could be more becoming
to your complexion than that ruffian's rouge.'
   'You would like a hero of the road then?'
   'An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an
Italian bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine
pirate.'
   'Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married
an hour since, in the presence of all these witnesses.' She giggled,
and her colour rose.
   'Now, Dent,' continued Mr. Rochester, 'it is your turn.' And as the
other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats. Miss
Ingram placed herself at her leader's right hand; the other diviners
filled the chairs on each side of him and her. I did not now watch the
actors; I no longer waited with interest for the curtain to rise; my
attention was absorbed by the spectators; my eyes, erewhile fixed on
the arch, were now irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs.
What charade Colonel Dent and his party played, what word they
chose, how they acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I
still see the consultation which followed each scene: I see Mr.
Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her
incline her head towards him, till the jetty curls almost touch his
shoulder and wave against his cheek; I hear their mutual
whisperings; I recall their interchanged glances; and something even
of the feeling roused by the spectacle returns in memory at this
moment.
   I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I
could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to
notice me- because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would
never once turn his eyes in my direction- because I saw all his
attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me
with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and
imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as
from an object too mean to merit observation. I could not unlove
him, because I felt sure he would soon marry this very lady- because I
read daily in her a proud security in his intentions respecting her-
because I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship which, if
careless and choosing rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in
its very carelessness, captivating, and in its very pride,
irresistible.
   There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances,
though much to create despair. Much too, you will think, reader, to
engender jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume to be
jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram's. But I was not jealous: or very
rarely;- the nature of the pain I suffered could not be explained by
that word. Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she was too
inferior to excite the feeling. Pardon the seeming paradox; I mean
what I say. She was very showy, but she was not genuine: she had a
fine person, many brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her
heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no
unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness. She was not good;
she was not original: she used to repeat sounding phrases from
books: she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own. She
advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did not know the
sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were not in her.
Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a
spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adele: pushing her
away with some contumelious epithet if she happened to approach her;
sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her with
coldness and acrimony. Other eyes besides mine watched these
manifestations of character- watched them closely, keenly, shrewdly.
Yes; the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over
his intended a ceaseless surveillance; and it was from this
sagacity- this guardedness of his- this perfect, clear consciousness
of his fair one's defects- this obvious absence of passion in his
sentiments towards her, that my ever-torturing pain arose.
   I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political
reasons, because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had
not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted
to win from him that treasure. This was the point- this was where
the nerve was touched and teased- this was where the fever was
sustained and fed: she could not charm him.
   If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and
sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face,
turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss
Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour,
kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two tigers-
jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I should
have admired her- acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for
the rest of my days: and the more absolute her superiority, the deeper
would have been my admiration- the more truly tranquil my
quiescence. But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram's
efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeated
failure- herself unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying
that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming
herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelled
further and further what she wished to allure- to witness this, was to
be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.
   Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded.
Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and
fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand,
have quivered keen in his proud heart- have called love into his stern
eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without
weapons a silent conquest might have been won.
   'Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw
so near to him?' I asked myself. 'Surely she cannot truly like him, or
not like him with true affection! If she did, she need not coin her
smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture
airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seems to me that she
might, by merely sitting quietly at his side, saying little and
looking less, get nigher his heart. I have seen in his face a far
different expression from that which hardens it now while she is so
vivaciously accosting him; but then it came of itself: it was not
elicited by meretricious arts and calculated manoeuvres; and one had
but to accept it- to answer what he asked without pretension, to
address him when needful without grimace- and it increased and grew
kinder and more genial, and warmed one like a fostering sunbeam. How
will she manage to please him when they are married? I do not think
she will manage it; and yet it might be managed; and his wife might, I
verily believe, be the very happiest woman the sun shines on.'
   I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester's
project of marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when
I first discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a
man unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his
choice of a wife; but the longer I considered the position, education,
etc., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming
either him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and
principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood. All
their class held these principles: I supposed, then, they had
reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom. It seemed to me
that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom only
such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of the
advantages to the husband's own happiness offered by this plan
convinced me that there must be arguments against its general adoption
of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all the world
would act as I wished to act.
   But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to
my master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once
kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study
all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from
the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no
bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me
once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their
presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively
insipid. And as for the vague something- was it a sinister or a
sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression?- that opened upon a
careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before
one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something
which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering
amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground
quiver and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld
still; and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves.
Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare- to divine it; and I
thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might look into the
abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets and analyse their nature.
   Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride-
saw only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only their
movements of importance- the rest of the party were occupied with
their own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn and Ingram
continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they nodded their
two turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in confronting
gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according to the theme on
which their gossip ran, like a pair of magnified puppets. Mild Mrs.
Dent talked with good-natured Mrs. Eshton; and the two sometimes
bestowed a courteous word or smile on me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel
Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed politics, or county affairs, or justice
business. Lord Ingram flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and
sang to and with one of the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened
languidly to the gallant speeches of the other. Sometimes all, as with
one consent, suspended their by-play to observe and listen to the
principal actors: for, after all, Mr. Rochester and- because closely
connected with him- Miss Ingram were the life and soul of the party.
If he was absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed
to steal over the spirits of his guests; and his re-entrance was
sure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation.
   The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly
felt one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and
was not likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk
the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched
on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of the
gentlemen were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together with
the younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room. The
dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards.
Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity,
some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into
conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and
airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the
library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and
prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of
absence. The room and the house were silent: only now and then the
merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above.
   It was verging on dusk, and the dock had already given warning of
the hour to dress for dinner, when little Adele, who knelt by me in
the drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed-
   'Voila Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!'
   I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the
others, too, looked up from their several occupations; for at the same
time a crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs became
audible on the wet gravel. A post-chaise was approaching.
   'What can possess him to come home in that style?' said Miss
Ingram. 'He rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went
out? and Pilot was with him:- what has he done with the animals?'
   As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments
so near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the
breaking of my spine: in her eagerness she did not observe me at
first, but when she did, she curled her lip and moved to another
casement. The post-chaise stopped; the driver rang the door-bell,
and a gentleman alighted attired in travelling garb; but it was not
Mr. Rochester; it was a tall, fashionable-looking man, a stranger.
   'How provoking!' exclaimed Miss Ingram: 'you tiresome monkey!'
(apostrophising Adele), 'who perched you up in the window to give
false intelligence?' and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I
were in fault.
   Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the newcomer
entered. He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady
present.
   'It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam,' said he, 'when
my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very
long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate
acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns.'
   His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as
being somewhat unusual,- not precisely foreign, but still not
altogether English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester's,- between
thirty and forty; his complexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he
was a fine-looking man, at first sight especially. On closer
examination, you detected something in his face that displeased, or
rather that failed to please. His features were regular, but too
relaxed: his eye was large and well cut, but the life looking out of
it was a tame, vacant life- at least so I thought.
   The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party. It was not till
after dinner that I saw him again: he then seemed quite at his ease.
But I liked his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as
being at the same time unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered,
and had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look, such
as I never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not an
unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly: there was no
power in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape: no firmness in
that aquiline nose and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the
low, even forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye.
   As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of
the girandoles on the mantelpiece beaming full over him- for he
occupied an arm-chair drawn close to the fire and kept shrinking still
nearer, as if he were cold- I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think
(with deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater
between a sleek gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek sheep and
the rough-coated keen-eyed dog, its guardian.
   He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious
friendship theirs must have been: a pointed illustration, indeed, of
the old adage that 'extremes meet.'
   Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times
scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I could not
make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton
and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary
sentences that reached me at intervals. These last were discussing the
stranger; they both called him 'a beautiful man.' Louisa said he was
'a love of a creature,' and she 'adored him'; and Mary instanced his
'pretty little mouth, and nice nose,' as her ideal of the charming.
   'And what a sweet-tempered forehead he hast' cried Louisa,- 'so
smooth- none of those frowning irregularities I dislike so much; and
such a placid eye and smile!'
   And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry Lynn summoned them to the
other side of the room, to settle some point about the deferred
excursion to Hay Common.
   I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the
fire, and I presently gathered that the newcomer was called Mr. Mason;
then I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he
came from some hot country: which was the reason, doubtless, his
face was so sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a
surtout in the house. Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish
Town, indicated the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no
little surprise I gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen and
become acquainted with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend's dislike
of the burning heats, the hurricanes, and rainy seasons of that
region. I knew Mr. Rochester had been a traveller: Mrs. Fairfax had
said so; but I thought the continent of Europe had bounded his
wanderings; till now I had never heard a hint given of visits to
more distant shores.
   I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat
unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shivering
as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on
the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder
still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going
out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a
low voice, of which I heard only the words, 'old woman,'- 'quite
troublesome.'
   'Tell her she shall be put in the stocks if she does not take
herself off,' replied the magistrate.
   'No- stop!' interrupted Colonel Dent. 'Don't send her away, Eshton;
we might turn the thing to account; better consult the ladies.' And
speaking aloud, he continued- 'Ladies, you talked of going to Hay
Common to visit the gipsy camp; Sam here says that one of the old
Mother Bunches is in the servants' hall at this moment, and insists
upon being brought in before "the quality," to tell them their
fortunes. Would you like to see her?'
   'Surely, colonel,' cried Lady Ingram, 'you would not encourage such
a low impostor? Dismiss her, by all means, at once!'
   'But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady,' said the
footman; 'nor can any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax is with her just
now, entreating her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the
chimney-corner, and says nothing shall stir her from it till she
gets leave to come in here.'
   'What does she want?' asked Mrs. Eshton.
   '"To tell the gentry their fortunes," she says, ma'am; and she
swears she must and will do it.'
   'What is she like?' inquired the Misses Eshton, in a breath.
   'A shockingly ugly old creature, miss; almost as black as a crock.'
   'Why, she's a real sorceress!' cried Frederick Lynn. 'Let us have
her in, of course.'
   'To be sure,' rejoined his brother; 'it would be a thousand
pities to throw away such a chance of fun.'
   'My dear boys, what are you thinking about?' exclaimed Mrs. Lynn.
   'I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding,'
chimed in the Dowager Ingram.
   'Indeed, mama, but you can- and will,' pronounced the haughty voice
of Blanche, as she turned round on the piano-stool; where till now she
had sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music. 'I have a
curiosity to hear my fortune told: therefore, Sam, order the beldame
forward.'
   'My darling Blanche! recollect-'
   'I do- I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will-
quick, Sam!'
   'Yes- yes- yes!' cried all the juveniles, both ladies and
gentlemen. 'Let her come- it will be excellent sport!'
   The footman still lingered. 'She looks such a rough one,' said he.
   'Go!' ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went.
   Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of
raillery and jests was proceeding when Sam returned.
   'She won't come now,' said he. 'She says it's not her mission to
appear before the "vulgar herd" (them's her words). I must show her
into a room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go
to her one by one.'
   'You see now, my queenly Blanche,' began Lady Ingram, 'she
encroaches. Be advised, my angel girl- and-'
   'Show her into the library, of course,' cut in the 'angel girl,'
'It is not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd
either: I mean to have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the
library?'
   'Yes, ma'am- but she looks such a tinkler.'
   'Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding.'
   Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to
full flow once more.
   'She's ready now,' said the footman, as he reappeared. 'She
wishes to know who will be her first visitor.'
   'I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the
ladies go,' said Colonel Dent.
   'Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming.'
   Sam went and returned.
   'She says, sir, that she'll have no gentlemen; they need not
trouble themselves to come near her; nor,' he added, with difficulty
suppressing a titter, 'any ladies either, except the young and
single.'
   'By Jove, she has taste!' exclaimed Henry Lynn.
   Miss Ingram rose solemnly: 'I go first,' she said, in a tone
which might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a
breach in the van of his men.
   'Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause- reflect!' was her mama's
cry; but she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the
door which Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library.
   A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it 'le cas' to
wring her hands: which she did accordingly. Miss Mary declared she
felt, for her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton
tittered under their breath, and looked a little frightened.
   The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the
library-door again opened. Miss Ingram returned to us through the
arch.
   Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her with
a glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff
and coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked
stiffly to her seat, and took it in silence.
   'Well, Blanche?' said Lord Ingram.
   'What did she say, sister?' asked Mary.
   'What did you think? How do you feel? Is she a real
fortune-teller?' demanded the Misses Eshton.
   'Now, now, good people,' returned Miss Ingram, 'don't press upon
me. Really your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited: you
seem, by the importance you all- my good mama included- ascribe to
this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the
house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman. I have seen
a gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science
of palmistry and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is
gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in
the stocks to-morrow morning, as he threatened.'
   Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined
further conversation. I watched her for nearly half an hour: during
all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently
darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of
disappointment. She had obviously not heard anything to her advantage:
and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and
taciturnity, that she herself, notwithstanding her professed
indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had
been made her.
   Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared
not go alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was
opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much
pacing to and fro, till, I think, the said Sam's calves must have
ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great
difficulty, extorted from the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait
upon her in a body.
   Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram's had been: we heard
hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library;
and at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and
came running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of their
wits.
   'I am sure she is something not right!' they cried, one and all.
'She told us such things! She knows all about us!' and they sank
breathless into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring
them.
   Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of
things they had said and done when they were mere children;
described books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home:
keepsakes that different relations had presented to them. They
affirmed that she had even divined their thoughts, and had whispered
in the ear of each the name of the person she liked best in the world,
and informed them of what they most wished for.
   Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be
further enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got
only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for
their importunity. The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and
wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their
concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder
gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the
agitated fair ones.
   In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully
engaged in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I
turned, and saw Sam.
   'If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another
young single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she
swears she will not go till she has seen all. I thought it must be
you: there is no one else for it. What shall I tell her?'
   'Oh, I will go by all means,' I answered: and I was glad of the
unexpected opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity. I slipped
out of the room, unobserved by any eye- for the company were
gathered in one mass about the trembling trio just returned- and I
closed the door quietly behind me.
   'If you like, miss,' said Sam, 'I'll wait in the hall for you;
and if she frightens you, just call and I'll come in.'
   'No, Sam, return to the kitchen: I am not in the least afraid.' Nor
was I; but I was a good deal interested and excited.
                         CHAPTER XIX

   THE library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the
Sibyl- if Sibyl she were- was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at
the chimney-corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or
rather, a broad-brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped
handkerchief under her chin. An extinguished candle stood on the
table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little
black book, like a prayer-book, by the light of the blaze: she
muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she read;
she did not desist immediately on my entrance: it appeared she
wished to finish a paragraph.
   I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with
sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now as
composed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the
gipsy's appearance to trouble one's calm. She shut her book and slowly
looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as
she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and
black: elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed
under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye
confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze.
   'Well, and you want your fortune told?' she said, in a voice as
decided as her glance, as harsh as her features.
   'I don't care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I
ought to warn you, I have no faith.'
   'It's like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I
heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold.'
   'Did you? You've a quick ear.'
   'I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain.'
   'You need them all in your trade.'
   'I do; especially when I've customers like you to deal with. Why
don't you tremble?'
   'I'm not cold.'
   'Why don't you turn pale?'
   'I am not sick.'
   'Why don't you consult my art?'
   'I'm not silly.'
   The old crone 'nichered' a laugh under her bonnet and bandage;
she then drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to
smoke. Having indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent
body, took the pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the
fire, said very deliberately-
   'You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly.'
   'Prove it,' I rejoined.
   'I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no
contact strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick;
because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to
man, keeps far away from you. You are silly, because, suffer as you
may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to
meet it where it waits you.'
   She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her
smoking with vigour.
   'You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a
solitary dependant in a great house.'
   'I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost
any one?'
   'In my circumstances.'
   'Yes; just so, in your circumstances: but find me another precisely
placed as you are.'
   'It would be easy to find you thousands.'
   'You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly
situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it. The
materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine
them. Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and
bliss results.'
   'I don't understand enigmas. I never could guess a riddle in my
life.'
   'If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm.'
   'And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?'
   'To be sure.'
   I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot which
she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned
it, she told me to hold out my hand. I did. She approached her face to
the palm, and pored over it without touching it.
   'It is too fine,' said she. 'I can make nothing of such a hand as
that; almost without lines: besides, what is in a palm? Destiny is not
written there.'
   'I believe you,' said I.
   'No,' she continued, 'it is in the face: on the forehead, about the
eyes, in the eyes themselves, in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and
lift up your head.'
   'Ah! now you are coming to reality,' I said, as I obeyed her. 'I
shall begin to put some faith in you presently.'
   I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that
a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare, however,
as she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine, it
illumined.
   'I wonder with what feelings you came to me to-night,' she said,
when she had examined me a while. 'I wonder what thoughts are busy
in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the
fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic-lantern: just
as little sympathetic communion passing between you and them as if
they were really mere shadows of human forms, and not the actual
substance.'
   'I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes, but seldom sad.'
   'Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you
with whispers of the future?'
   'Not I. The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my
earnings to set up a school some day in a little house rented by
myself.'
   'A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that
window-seat (you see I know your habits)-'
   'You have learned them from the servants.'
   'Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak
truth, I have an acquaintance with one of them, Mrs. Poole-'
   I started to my feet when I heard the name.
   'You have- have you?' thought I; 'there is diablerie in the
business after all, then!'
   'Don't be alarmed,' continued the strange being; 'she's a safe hand
 is Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one may repose confidence in her.
But, as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of
nothing but your future school? Have you no present interest in any of
the company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you? Is there not
one face you study? one figure whose movements you follow with at
least curiosity?'
   'I like to observe all the faces and all the figures.'
   'But do you never single one from the rest-or it may be, two?'
   'I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling
a tale: it amuses me to watch them.'
   'What tale do you like best to hear?'
   'Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same
theme- courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe-
marriage.'
   'And do you like that monotonous theme?'
   'Positively, I don't care about it: it is nothing to me.'
   'Nothing to you? When a lady, young and full of life and health,
charming with beauty and endowed with the gifts of rank and fortune,
sits and smiles in the eyes of a gentleman you-'
   'I what?'
   'You know- and perhaps think well of.'
   'I don't know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged a
syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I consider
some respectable, and stately, and middle-aged, and others young,
dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at liberty
to be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my feeling
disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me.'
   'You don't know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a
syllable with one of them? Will you say that of the master of the
house!'
   'He is not at home.'
   'A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote
this morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that
circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance- blot him,
as it were, out of existence?'
   'No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the
theme you had introduced.'
   'I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of
late so many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester's eyes that they
overflow like two cups filled above the brim: have you never
remarked that?'
   'Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests.'
   'No question about his right: but have you never observed that,
of all the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been
favoured with the most lively and the most continuous?'
   'The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.'
I said this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk,
voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One
unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got
involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit
had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings and
taking record of every pulse.
   'Eagerness of a listener!' repeated she: 'yes; Mr. Rochester has
sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took
such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was
so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given
him; you have noticed this?'
   'Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face.'
   'Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if
not gratitude?'
   I said nothing.
   'You have seen love: have you not?- and, looking forward, you
have seen him married, and beheld his bride happy?'
   'Humph! Not exactly. Your witch's skill is rather at fault
sometimes.'
   'What the devil have you seen, then?'
   'Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known
that Mr. Rochester is to be married?'
   'Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram.'
   'Shortly?'
   'Appearances would warrant that conclusion: and, no doubt
(though, with an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem
to question it), they will be a superlatively happy pair. He must love
such a handsome, noble, witty, accomplished lady; and probably she
loves him, or, if not his person, at least his purse. I know she
considers the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; though
(God pardon me!) I told her something on that point about an hour
ago which made her look wondrous grave: the corners of her mouth
fell half an inch. I would advise her black-aviced suitor to look out:
if another comes, with a longer or clearer rent-roll,- he's dished-'
   'But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester's fortune: I
came to hear my own; and you have told me nothing of it.'
   'Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait
contradicted another. Chance has meted you a measure of happiness:
that I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has laid
it carefully on one side for you. I saw her do it. It depends on
yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether you
will do so, is the problem I study. Kneel again on the rug.'
   'Don't keep me long; the fire scorches me.'
   I knelt. She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back
in her chair. She began muttering,-
   'The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks
soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon; it is susceptible;
impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it
ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the
lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness. It turns
from me; it will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a
mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made,-
to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and
reserve only confirm me in my opinion. The eye is favourable.
   'As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is
disposed to impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it
would be silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it
was never intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of
solitude; it is a mouth which should speak much and smile often, and
have human affection for its interlocutor. That feature too is
propitious.
   'I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow
professes to say,- "I can live alone, if self-respect and
circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy
bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive
if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a
price I cannot afford to give." The forehead declares, "Reason sits
firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away
and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like
true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of
vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every
argument, and the casting vote in every decision. Strong wind,
earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding
of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of
conscience."
   'Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have
formed my plans- right plans I deem them- and in them I have
attended to the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I know
how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss
offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were
detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution- such is
not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight- to earn gratitude,
not to wring tears of blood- no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in
smiles, in endearments, in sweet- That will do. I think I rave in a
kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish now to protract this
moment ad infinitum; but I dare not. So far I have governed myself
thoroughly. I have acted as I inwardly swore I would act; but
further might try me beyond my strength. Rise, Miss Eyre: leave me;
"the play is played out."'
   Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I
dream still? The old woman's voice had changed: her accent, her
gesture, and all were familiar to me as my own face in a glass- as the
speech of my own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred
the fire, and I looked again: but she drew her bonnet and her
bandage closer about her face, and again beckoned me to depart. The
flame illuminated her hand stretched out: roused now, and on the alert
for discoveries, I at once noticed that hand. It was no more the
withered limb of eld than my own; it was a rounded supple member, with
smooth fingers, symmetrically turned; a broad ring flashed on the
little finger, and stooping forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I
had seen a hundred times before. Again I looked at the face; which was
no longer turned from me- on the contrary, the bonnet was doffed,
the bandage displaced, the head advanced.
   'Well, Jane, do you know me?' asked the familiar voice.
   'Only take off the red cloak, sir, and then-'
   'But the string is in a knot- help me.'
   'Break it, sir.'
   'There, then- "Off, ye lendings!"' And Mr. Rochester stepped out of
his disguise.
   'Now, sir, what a strange idea!'
   'But well carried out, eh? Don't you think so?'
   'With the ladies you must have managed well.'
   'But not with you?'
   'You did not act the character of a gipsy with me.'
   'What character did I act? My own?'
   'No; some unaccountable one. In short, I believe you have been
trying to draw me out- or in; you have been talking nonsense to make
me talk nonsense. It is scarcely fair, sir.'
   'Do you forgive me, Jane?'
   'I cannot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on
reflection, I find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall
try to forgive you; but it was not right.'
   'Oh, you have been very correct- very careful, very sensible.'
   I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had. It was a comfort;
but, indeed, I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the
interview. Something of masquerade I suspected. I knew gipsies and
fortune-tellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman
had expressed herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her
anxiety to conceal her features. But my mind had been running on Grace
Poole- that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I
considered her. I had never thought of Mr. Rochester.
   'Well,' said he, 'what are you musing about? What does that grave
smile signify?'
   'Wonder and self-congratulation, sir. I have your permission to
retire now, I suppose?'
   'No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawing-room
yonder are doing.'
   'Discussing the gipsy, I daresay.'
   'Sit down!- Let me hear what they said about me.'
   'I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o'clock.
Oh, are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here
since you left this morning?'
   'A stranger!- no; who can it be? I expected no one; is he gone?'
   'No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the
liberty of installing himself here till you returned.'
   'The devil he did! Did he give his name?'
   'His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from
Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think.'
   Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if
to lead me to a chair. As I spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive
grip; the smile on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his
breath.
   'Mason!- the West Indies!' he said, in the tone one might fancy a
speaking automaton to enounce its single words; 'Mason!- the West
Indies!' he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three times,
growing, in the intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes: he hardly
seemed to know what he was doing.
   'Do you feel ill, sir?' I inquired.
   'Jane, I've got a blow; I've got a blow, Jane!' He staggered.
   'Oh, lean on me, sir.'
   'Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it
now.'
   'Yes, sir, yes; and my arm.'
   He sat down, and made me sit beside him. Holding my hand in both
his own, he chafed it; gazing on me, at the same time, with the most
troubled and dreary look.
   'My little friend!' said he, 'I wish I were in a quiet island
with only you; and trouble, and danger, and hideous recollections
removed from me.'
   'Can I help you, sir?- I'd give my life to serve you.'
   'Jane, if aid is wanted, I'll seek it at your hands; I promise
you that.'
   'Thank you, sir. Tell me what to do,- I'll try, at least, to do
it.'
   'Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from the dining-room: they
will be at supper there; and tell me if Mason is with them, and what
he is doing.'
   I went. I found all the party in the dining-room at supper, as
Mr. Rochester had said; they were not seated at table,- the supper was
arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he chose, and they
stood about here and there in groups, their plates and glasses in
their hands. Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and
conversation were general and animated. Mr. Mason stood near the fire,
talking to Colonel and Mrs. Dent, and appeared as merry as any of
them. I filled a wine-glass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me frowningly
as I did so: she thought I was taking a liberty, I daresay), and I
returned to the library.
   Mr. Rochester's extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked
once more firm and stern. He took the glass from my hand.
   'Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!' he said. He
swallowed the contents and returned it to me. 'What are they doing,
Jane?'
   'Laughing and talking, sir.'
   'They don't look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard
something strange?'
   'Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety.'
   'And Mason?'
   'He was laughing too.'
   'If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would
you do, Jane?'
   'Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could.'
   He half smiled. 'But if I were to go to them, and they only
looked at me coldly, and whispered sneeringly amongst each other,
and then dropped off and left me one by one, what then? Would you go
with them?'
   'I rather think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying
with you.'
   'To comfort me?'
   'Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could.'
   'And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?'
   'I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did,
I should care nothing about it.'
   'Then, you could dare censure for my sake?'
   'I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my
adherence; as you, I am sure, do.'
   'Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper
in his ear that Mr. Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show
him in here and then leave me.'
   'Yes, sir.'
   I did his behest. The company all stared at me as I passed straight
among them. I sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded
him from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went
upstairs.
   At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the
visitors repair to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester's
voice, and heard him say, 'This way, Mason; this is your room.'
   He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease. I was soon
asleep.
                          CHAPTER XX

   I HAD forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also
to let down my window-blind. The consequence was, that when the
moon, which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in
her course to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked
in at me through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me.
Awaking in the dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disk-
silver-white and crystal clear. It was beautiful, but too solemn: I
half rose, and stretched my arm to draw the curtain.
   Good God! What a cry!
   The night- its silence- its rest, was rent in twain by a savage,
a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.
   My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was
paralysed. The cry died, and was not renewed. Indeed, whatever being
uttered that fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the
widest-winged condor on the Andes could, twice in succession, send out
such a yell from the cloud shrouding his eyrie. The thing delivering
such utterance must rest ere it could repeat the effort.
   It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And
overhead- yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling- I now
heard a struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a
half-smothered voice shouted-
   'Help! help! help!' three times rapidly.
   'Will no one come?' it cried; and then, while the staggering and
stamping went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:-
   'Rochester! Rochester! for God's sake, come!'
   A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the
gallery. Another step stamped on the flooring above and something
fell; and there was silence.
   I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I
issued from my apartment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations,
terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one
looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and
ladies alike had quitted their beds; and 'Oh! what is it?'- 'Who is
hurt?'- 'What has happened?'- 'Fetch a light!'- 'Is it fire?'- 'Are
there robbers?'- 'Where shall we run?' was demanded confusedly on
all hands. But for the moon-light they would have been in complete
darkness. They ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed,
some stumbled: the confusion was inextricable.
   'Where the devil is Rochester?' cried Colonel Dent. 'I cannot
find him in his bed.'
   'Here! here!' was shouted in return. 'Be composed, all of you:
I'm coming.'
   And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester
advanced with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey.
One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss
Ingram.
   'What awful event has taken place?' said she. 'Speak! let us know
the worst at once!'
   'But don't pull me down or strangle me,' he replied: for the Misses
Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast
white wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail.
   'All's right!- all's right!' he cried. 'It's a mere rehearsal of
Much Ado about Nothing. Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous.'
   And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming
himself by an effort, he added-
   'A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She's an
excitable, nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition,
or something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with
fright. Now, then, I must see you all back into your rooms; for,
till the house is settled, she cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have
the goodness to set the ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you
will not fail in evincing superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa,
return to your nests like a pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames' (to
the dowagers), 'you will take cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in
this chill gallery any longer.'
   And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived
to get them all once more enclosed in their separate dormitories. I
did not wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated unnoticed, as
unnoticed I had left it.
   Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed
myself carefully. The sounds I had heard after the scream, and the
words that had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for
they had proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me
that it was not a servant's dream which had thus struck horror through
the house; and that the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely
an invention framed to pacify his guests. I dressed, then, to be ready
for emergencies. When dressed, I sat a long time by the window looking
out over the silent grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew
not what. It seemed to me that some event must follow the strange cry,
struggle, and call.
   No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased
gradually, and in about an hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as
a desert. It seemed that sleep and night had resumed their empire.
Meantime the moon declined: she was about to set. Not liking to sit in
the cold and darkness, I thought I would lie down on my bed, dressed
as I was. I left the window, and moved with little noise across the
carpet; as I stooped to take off my shoes, a cautious hand tapped
low at the door.
   'Am I wanted?' I asked.
   'Are you up?' asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my
master's.
   'Yes, sir.'
   'And dressed?'
   'Yes.'
   'Come out, then, quietly.'
   I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.
   'I want you,' he said: 'come this way: take your time, and make
no noise.'
   My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a
cat. He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the
dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and
stood at his side.
   'Have you a sponge in your room?' he asked in a whisper.
   'Yes, sir.'
   'Have you any salts- volatile salts?'
   'Yes.'
   'Go back and fetch both.'
   I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my
drawer, and once more retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a
key in his hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put
it in the lock; he paused, and addressed me again.
   'You don't turn sick at the sight of blood?'
   'I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.'
   I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no
faintness.
   'Just give me your hand,' he said: 'it will not do to risk a
fainting fit.'
   I put my fingers into his. 'Warm and steady,' was his remark: he
turned the key and opened the door.
   I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax
showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the
tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent,
which had then been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out
of the room within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost
like a dog quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said
to me, 'Wait a minute,' and he went forward to the inner apartment.
A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and
terminating in Grace Poole's own goblin ha! ha! She then was there. He
made some sort of arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low
voice address him: he came out and closed the door behind him.
   'Here, Jane!' he said; and I walked round to the other side of a
large bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable
portion of the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat
in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his
head leant back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle
over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face- the
stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side and one arm, was
almost soaked in blood.
   'Hold the candle,' said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched
a basin of water from the washstand: 'Hold that,' said he. I obeyed.
He took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like
face; he asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils.
Mr. Mason shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester
opened the shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were
bandaged: he sponged away blood, trickling fast down.
   'Is there immediate danger?' murmured Mr. Mason.
   'Pooh! No- a mere scratch. Don't be so overcome, man: bear up! I'll
fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you'll be able to be removed by
morning, I hope. Jane,' he continued.
   'Sir?'
   'I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an
hour, or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when
it returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that
stand to his lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to
him on any pretext- and- Richard, it will be at the peril of your life
if you speak to her: open your lips- agitate yourself- and I'll not
answer for the consequences.'
   Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move;
fear, either of death or of something else, appeared almost to
paralyse him. Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand,
and I proceeded to use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then
saying, 'Remember!- No conversation,' he left the room. I
experienced a strange feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the
sound of his retreating step ceased to be heard.
   Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its
mystic cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my
eyes and hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door:
yes- that was appalling- the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the
thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me.
   I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly
countenance- these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose- these eyes
now shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on
me, and ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand
again and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the
trickling gore. I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on
my employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry
round me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old bed, and
quiver strangely over the doors of a great cabinet opposite- whose
front, divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads
of the twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in a
frame; while above them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a dying
Christ.
   According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered
here or glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that
bent his brow; now St. John's long hair that waved; and anon the
devilish face of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed
gathering life and threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor- of
Satan himself- in his subordinate's form.
   Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for
the movements of the wild beast or the fiend in yonder side den. But
since Mr. Rochester's visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I
heard but three sounds at three long intervals,- a step creak, a
momentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human
groan.
   Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this, that lived
incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled
nor subdued by the owner?- what mystery, that broke out now in fire
and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it,
that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice,
now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?
   And this man I bent over- this commonplace, quiet stranger- how had
he become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at
him? What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely
season, when he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr.
Rochester assign him an apartment below- what brought him here? And
why, now, was he so tame under the violence or treachery done him? Why
did he so quietly submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced?
Why did Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment? His guest had been
outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted
against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in
oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester;
that the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway over the
inertness of the former: the few words which had passed between them
assured me of this. It was evident that in their former intercourse,
the passive disposition of the one had been habitually influenced by
the active energy of the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Rochester's
dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason's arrival? Why had the mere name
of this unresisting individual- whom his word now sufficed to
control like a child- fallen on him, a few hours since, as a
thunderbolt might fall on an oak?
   Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered:
'Jane, I have got a blow- I have got a blow, Jane.' I could not forget
how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no
light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the
vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester.
   'When will he come? When will he come?' I cried inwardly, as the
night lingered and lingered- as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned,
sickened: and neither day nor aid arrived. I had, again and again,
held the water to Mason's white lips; again and again offered him
the stimulating salts: my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or
mental suffering, or loss of blood, or all three combined, were fast
prostrating his strength. He moaned so, and looked so weak, wild,
and lost, I feared he was dying; and I might not even speak to him.
   The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived
streaks of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then
approaching. Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his
distant kennel in the courtyard: hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted:
in five minutes more the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me
my watch was relieved. It could not have lasted more than two hours:
many a week has seemed shorter.
   Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to
fetch.
   'Now, Carter, be on the alert,' he said to this last: 'I give you
but half an hour for dressing the wound, fastening the bandages,
getting the patient downstairs and all.'
   'But is he fit to move, sir?'
   'No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his
spirits must be kept up. Come, set to work.'
   Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland
blind, let in all the daylight he could; and I was surprised and
cheered to see how far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were
beginning to brighten the east. Then he approached Mason, whom the
surgeon was already handling.
   'Now, my good fellow, how are you?' he asked.
   'She's done for me, I fear,' was the faint reply.
   'Not a whit!- courage! This day fortnight you'll hardly be a pin
the worse of it: you've lost a little blood; that's all. Carter,
assure him there's no danger.'
   'I can do that conscientiously,' said Carter, who had now undone
the bandages; 'only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would
not have bled so much- but how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is
torn as well as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there
have been teeth here!'
   'She bit me,' he murmured. 'She worried me like a tigress, when
Rochester got the knife from her.'
   'You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her
at once,' said Mr. Rochester.
   'But under such circumstances, what could one do?' returned
Mason. 'Oh, it was frightful!' he added, shuddering. 'And I did not
expect it: she looked so quiet at first.'
   'I warned you,' was his friend's answer; 'I said- be on your
guard when you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till
to-morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the
interview to-night, and alone.'
   'I thought I could have done some good.'
   'You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear
you: but, however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer
enough for not taking my advice; so I'll say no more. Carter-
hurry!- hurry! The sun will soon rise, and I must have him off.'
   'Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to
this other wound in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think.'
   'She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart,' said Mason.
   I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of
disgust, horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to
distortion, but he only said-
   'Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don't
repeat it.'
   'I wish I could forget it,' was the answer.
   'You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to
Spanish Town, you may think of her as dead and buried- or rather,
you need not think of her at all.'
   'Impossible to forget this night!'
   'It is not impossible: have some energy, man. You thought you
were as dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive and
talking now. There!- Carter has done with you or nearly so; I'll
make you decent in a trice. Jane' (he turned to me for the first
time since his re-entrance), 'take this key: go down into my
bedroom, and walk straight forward into my dressing-room: open the top
drawer of the wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and
neck-handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble.'
   I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the
articles named, and returned with them.
   'Now,' said he, 'go to the other side of the bed while I order
his toilet; but don't leave the room: you may be wanted again.'
   I retired as directed.
   'Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?' inquired Mr.
Rochester presently.
   'No, sir; all was very still.'
   'We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both
for your sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have
striven long to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at
last. Here, Carter, help him on with his waistcoat. Where did you
leave your furred cloak? You can't travel a mile without that, I know,
in this damned cold climate. In your room?- Jane, run down to Mr.
Mason's room,- the one next mine,- and fetch a cloak you will see
there.'
   Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined
and edged with fur.
   'Now, I've another errand for you,' said my untiring master; you
must away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet,
Jane!- a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You
must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little
phial and a little glass you will find there,- quick!'
   I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.
   'That's well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of
administering a dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this
cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan- a fellow you would have
kicked, Carter. It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately, but
it is good upon occasion: as now, for instance. Jane, a little water.'
   He held out the tiny glass, and I half-filled it from the
water-bottle on the washstand.
   'That will do;- now wet the lip of the phial.'
   I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and
presented it to Mason.
   'Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour
or so.'
   'But will it hurt me?- is it inflammatory?'
   'Drink! drink! drink!'
   Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He
was dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and
sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had
swallowed the liquid; he then took his arm-
   'Now I am sure you can get on your feet,' he said- 'try.'
   The patient rose.
   'Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer,
Richard; step out- that's it!'
   'I do feel better,' remarked Mr. Mason.
   'I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the
backstairs; unbolt the side-passage door, and tell the driver of the
post-chaise you will see in the yard- or just outside, for I told
him not to drive his rattling wheels over the pavement- to be ready;
we are coming: and, Jane, if any one is about, come to the foot of the
stairs and hem.'
   It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of
rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent. The
side-passage door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as
possible: all the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and
there was a post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver
seated on the box, stationed outside. I approached him, and said the
gentlemen were coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully round and
listened. The stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere; the
curtains were yet drawn over the servants' chamber windows; little
birds were just twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees,
whose boughs drooped like white garlands over the wall enclosing one
side of the yard; the carriage horses stamped from time to time in
their closed stables: all else was still.
   The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and
the surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him
into the chaise; Carter followed.
   'Take care of him,' said Mr. Rochester to the latter, 'and keep him
at your house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a day or two
to see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you?'
   'The fresh air revives me, Fairfax.'
   'Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind-
good-bye, Dick.'
   'Fairfax-'
   'Well, what is it?'
   'Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may
be: let her- ' he stopped and burst into tears.
   'I do my best; and have done it, and will do it,' was the answer:
he shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.
   'Yet would to God there was an end of all this!' added Mr.
Rochester, as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates.
   This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a
door in the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done
with me, prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard
him call 'Jane!' He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for
me.
   'Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments,' he said;
'that house is a mere dungeon: don't you feel it so?'
   'It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.'
   'The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,' he answered;
'and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that
the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble
is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly
bark. Now here' (he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered)
'all is real, sweet, and pure.'
   He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear
trees, and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of
all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses,
pansies, mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various
fragrant herbs. They were fresh now as a succession of April showers
and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them:
the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumined
the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks
under them.
   'Jane, will you have a flower?'
   He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered
it to me.
   'Thank you, sir.'
   'Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light
clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm- this
placid and balmy atmosphere?'
   'I do, very much.'
   'You have passed a strange night, Jane.'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'And it has made you look pale- were you afraid when I left you
alone with Mason?'
   'I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room.'
   'But I had fastened the door- I had the key in my pocket: I
should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb- my pet
lamb- so near a wolf's den, unguarded: you were safe.'
   'Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?'
   'Oh yes! don't trouble your head about her- put the thing out of
your thoughts.'
   'Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays.'
   'Never fear- I will take care of myself.'
   'Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?'
   'I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even
then. To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may
crack and spue fire any day.'
   'But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is
evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or
wilfully injure you.'
   'Oh no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me-
but, unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word,
deprive me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness.'
   'Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and show
him how to avert the danger.'
   He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw
it from him.
   'If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be?
Annihilated in a moment. Ever since I have known Mason, I have only
had to say to him "Do that," and the thing has been done. But I cannot
give him orders in this case: I cannot say "Beware of harming me,
Richard"; for it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that
harm to me is possible. Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you
further. You are my little friend, are you not?'
   'I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right.'
   'Precisely: I see you do. I see genuine contentment in your gait
and mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing
me- working for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically say,
"all that is right": for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, there
would be no light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no lively
glance and animated complexion. My friend would then turn to me, quiet
and pale, and would say, "No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot do it,
because it is wrong"; and would become immutable as a fixed star.
Well, you too have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare not
show you where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you
are, you should transfix me at once.'
   'If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from
me, sir, you are very safe.'
   'God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down.'
   The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained
a rustic seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me:
but I stood before him.
   'Sit,' he said; 'the bench is long enough for two. You don't
hesitate to take a place at my side, do you? Is that wrong, Jane?'
   I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been
unwise.
   'Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew- while all the
flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their
young ones' breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do
their first spell of work- I'll put a case to you, which you must
endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me
you are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or
that you err in staying.'
   'No, sir; I am content.'
   'Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:- suppose you were no
longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged
from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land;
conceive that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what
nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences must follow
you through life and taint all your existence. Mind, I don't say a
crime; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act,
which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is
error. The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly
insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures,
but neither unlawful nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope
has quitted you on the very confines of life: your sun at noon darkens
in an eclipse, which you feel will not leave it till the time of
setting. Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of
your memory: you wander here and there, seeking rest in exile:
happiness in pleasure- I mean in heartless, sensual pleasure- such
as dulls intellect and blights feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered,
you come home after years of voluntary banishment: you make a new
acquaintance- how or where no matter: you find in this stranger much
of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty
years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh,
healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives,
regenerates: you feel better days come back-higher wishes, purer
feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what
remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To
attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of
custom-a mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience
sanctifies nor your judgment approves?'
   He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good
spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain
aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle
Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the
tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate.
   Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query:
   'Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant,
man justified in daring the world's opinion, in order to attach to him
for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing
his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?'
   'Sir,' I answered, 'a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation
should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die;
philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any
one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his
equals for strength to amend and solace to heal.'
   'But the instrument- the instrument! God, who does the work,
ordains the instrument. I have myself- I tell it you without
parable- been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I
have found the instrument for my cure in-'
   He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly
rustling. I almost wondered they did not check their songs and
whispers to catch the suspended revelation; but they would have had to
wait many minutes- so long was the silence protracted. At last I
looked up at the tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me.
   'Little friend,' said he, in quite a changed tone- while his face
changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh
and sarcastic- 'you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram:
don't you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a
vengeance?'
   He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and
when he came back he was humming a tune.
   'Jane, Jane,' said he, stopping before me, 'you are quite pale with
your vigils: don't you curse me for disturbing your rest?'
   'Curse you? No, sir.'
   'Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers! They
were warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the
mysterious chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?'
   'Whenever I can be useful, sir.'
   'For instance, the night before I am married! I am sure I shall not
be able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me
company? To you I can talk of my lovely one: for now you have seen her
and know her.'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'She's a rare one, is she not, Jane?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'A strapper- a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom; with
hair just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me!
there's Dent and Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery,
through that wicket.'
   As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard,
saying cheerfully-
   'Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before
sunrise: I rose at four to see him off.'
                         CHAPTER XXI

   PRESENTIMENTS are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are
signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has
not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life,
because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe,
exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly
estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the
unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose workings
baffle mortal comprehension. And signs, for aught we know, may be
but the sympathies of Nature with man.
   When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard
Bessie Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a
little child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of
trouble, either to one's self or one's kin. The saying might have worn
out of my memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed which
served indelibly to fix it there. The next day Bessie was sent for
home to the deathbed of her little sister.
   Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for
during the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that
had not brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed
in my arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing
with daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its hands in running water.
It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it
nestled close to me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the
apparition evinced, whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven
successive nights to meet me the moment I entered the land of slumber.
   I did not like this iteration of one idea- this strange
recurrence of one image, and I grew nervous as bedtime approached
and the hour of the vision drew near. It was from companionship with
this baby-phantom I had been roused on that moonlight night when I
heard the cry; and it was on the afternoon of the day following I
was summoned downstairs by a message that some one wanted me in Mrs.
Fairfax's room. On repairing thither, I found a man waiting for me,
having the appearance of a gentleman's servant: he was dressed in deep
mourning, and the hat he held in his hand was surrounded with a
crape band.
   'I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss,' he said, rising as I
entered; 'but my name is Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed
when you were at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live
there still.'
   'Oh, Robert! how do you do? I remember you very well: you used to
give me a ride sometimes on Miss Georgiana's bay pony. And how is
Bessie? You are married to Bessie?'
   'Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me
another little one about two months since- we have three now- and both
mother and child are thriving.'
   'And are the family well at the house, Robert?'
   'I am sorry I can't give you better news of them, Miss: they are
very badly at present- in great trouble.'
   'I hope no one is dead,' I said, glancing at his black dress. He
too looked down at the crape round his hat and replied-
   'Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London.'
   'Mr. John?'
   'Yes.'
   'And how does his mother bear it?'
   'Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life has
been very wild: these last three years he gave himself up to strange
ways, and his death was shocking.'
   'I heard from Bessie he was not doing well.'
   'Doing well! He could not do worse: he ruined his health and his
estate amongst the worst men and the worst women. He got into debt and
into jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free
he returned to his old companions and habits. His head was not strong:
the knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond anything I ever heard.
He came down to Gateshead about three weeks ago and wanted missis to
give up all to him. Missis refused: her means have long been much
reduced by his extravagance; so he went back again, and the next
news was that he was dead. How he died, God knows!- they say he killed
himself.'
   I was silent: the tidings were frightful. Robert Leaven resumed-
   'Missis had been out of health herself for some time: she had got
very stout, but was not strong with it; and the loss of money and fear
of poverty were quite breaking her down. The information about Mr.
John's death and the manner of it came too suddenly: it brought on a
stroke. She was three days without speaking; but last Tuesday she
seemed rather better: she appeared as if she wanted to say
something, and kept making signs to my wife and mumbling. It was
only yesterday morning, however, that Bessie understood she was
pronouncing your name; and at last she made out the words, "Bring
Jane- fetch Jane Eyre: I want to speak to her." Bessie is not sure
whether she is in her right mind, or means anything by the words;
but she told Miss Reed and Miss Georgiana, and advised them to send
for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but their mother grew
so restless, and said, "Jane, Jane," so many times, that at last
they consented. I left Gateshead yesterday: and if you can get
ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with me early to-morrow
morning.'
   'Yes, Robert, I shall be ready: it seems to me that I ought to go.'
   'I think so too, Miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not
refuse: but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can get
off?'
   'Yes; and I will do it now'; and having directed him to the
servants' hall, and recommended him to the care of John's wife, and
the attentions of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester.
   He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the
stables, or the grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him;-
yes: she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram. To the
billiard-room I hastened: the click of balls and the hum of voices
resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton,
and their admirers, were all busied in the game. It required some
courage to disturb so interesting a party; my errand, however, was one
I could not defer, so I approached the master where he stood at Miss
Ingram's side. She turned as I drew near, and looked at me
haughtily: her eyes seemed to demand, 'What can the creeping
creature want now?' and when I said, in a low voice, 'Mr.
Rochester,' she made a movement as if tempted to order me away. I
remember her appearance at the moment- it was very graceful and very
striking: she wore a morning robe of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure
scarf was twisted in her hair. She had been all animation with the
game, and irritated pride did not lower the expression of her
haughty lineaments.
   'Does that person want you?' she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr.
Rochester turned to see who the 'person' was. He made a curious
grimace- one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations- threw down
his cue and followed me from the room.
   'Well, Jane?' he said, as he rested his back against the
school-room door, which he had shut.
   'If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two.'
   'What to do?- where to go?'
   'To see a sick lady who has sent for me.'
   'What sick lady?- where does she live?'
for people to see her that distance?'
   'Her name is Reed sir- Mrs. Reed.'
   'Reed of Gateshead? There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate.'
   'It is his widow, sir.'
   'And what have you to do with her? How do you know her?'
   'Mr. Reed was my uncle- my mother's brother.'
   'The deuce he was! You never told me that before: you always said
you had no relations.'
   'None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast
me off.'
   'Why?'
   'Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me.'
   'But Reed left children?- you must have cousins? Sir George Lynn
was talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said, was one of
the veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana
Reed of the same place, who was much admired for her beauty a season
or two ago in London.'
   'John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and half-ruined his
family, and is supposed to have committed suicide. The news so shocked
his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack.'
   'And what good can you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never
think of running a hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps,
be dead before you reach her: besides, you say she cast you off.'
   'Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were
very different: I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now.'
   'How long will you stay?'
   'As short a time as possible, sir.'
   'Promise me only to stay a week-'
   'I had better not pass my word: I might be obliged to break it.'
   'At all events you will come back: you will not be induced under
any pretext to take up a permanent residence with her?'
   'Oh, no! I shall certainly return if all be well.'
   'And who goes with you? You don't travel a hundred miles alone.'
   'No, sir, she has sent her coachman.'
   'A person to be trusted?'
   'Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the family.'
   Mr. Rochester meditated. 'When do you wish to go?'
   'Early to-morrow morning, sir.'
   'Well, you must have some money; you can't travel without money,
and I daresay you have not much: I have given you no salary yet. How
much have you in the world, Jane?' he asked, smiling.
   I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. 'Five shillings,
sir.' He took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and
chuckled over it as if its scantiness amused him. Soon he produced his
pocket-book: 'Here,' said he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds,
and he owed me but fifteen. I told him I had no change.
   'I don't want change; you know that. Take your wages.'
   I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first;
then, as if recollecting something, he said-
   'Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps,
stay away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten; is it
not plenty?'
   'Yes, sir, but now you owe me five.'
   'Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds.'
   'Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to
you while I have the opportunity.'
   'Matter of business? I am curious to hear it.'
   'You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly
to be married?'
   'Yes; what then?'
   'In that case, sir, Adele ought to go to school: I am sure you will
perceive the necessity of it.'
   'To get her out of my bride's way, who might otherwise walk over
her rather too emphatically? There's sense in the suggestion; not a
doubt of it. Adele, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course,
must march straight to- the devil?'
   'I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere.'
   'In course!' he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion
of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some
minutes.
   'And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be
solicited by you to seek a place, I suppose?'
   'No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify
me in asking favours of them- but I shall advertise.'
   'You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!' he growled. 'At your
peril you advertise! I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead
of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I've a use for it.'
   'And so have I, sir,' I returned, putting my hands and my purse
behind me. 'I could not spare the money on any account.'
   'Little niggard!' said he, 'refusing me a pecuniary request! Give
me five pounds, Jane.'
   'Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence.'
   'Just let me look at the cash.'
   'No, sir; you are not to be trusted.'
   'Jane!'
   'Sir?'
   'Promise me one thing.'
   'I'll promise you anything, sir, that I think I am likely to
perform.'
   'Not to advertise: and to trust this quest of a situation to me.
I'll find you one in time.'
   'I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will
promise that I and Adele shall be both safe out of the house before
your bride enters it.'
   'Very well! very well! I'll pledge my word on it. You go to-morrow,
then?'
   'Yes, sir; early.'
   'Shall you come down to the drawing-room after dinner?'
   'No, sir, I must prepare for the journey.'
   'Then you and I must bid good-bye for a little while?'
   'I suppose so, sir.'
   'And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach
me; I'm not quite up to it.'
   'They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer.'
   'Then say it.'
   'Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present.'
   'What must I say?'
   'The same, if you like, sir.'
   'Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?'
   'Yes.'
   'It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I
should like something else: a little addition to the rite. If one
shook hands, for instance; but no- that would not content me either.
So you'll do no more than say Farewell, Jane?'
   'It is enough, sir: as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty
word as in many.'
   'Very likely; but it is blank and cool- "Farewell."'
   'How long is he going to stand with his back against that door?'
I asked myself; 'I want to commence my packing.' The dinner-bell rang,
and suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable: I saw him no
more during the day, and was off before he had risen in the morning.
   I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o'clock in the
afternoon of the first of May: I stepped in there before going up to
the hall. It was very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were hung
with little white curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and
fire-irons were burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear. Bessie sat
on the hearth, nursing her last-born, and Robert and his sister played
quietly in a corner.
   'Bless you!- I knew you would come!' exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as I
entered.
   'Yes, Bessie,' said I, after I had kissed her; 'and I trust I am
not too late. How is Mrs. Reed?- Alive still, I hope.'
   'Yes, she is alive; and more sensible and collected than she was.
The doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly thinks
she will finally recover.'
   'Has she mentioned me lately?'
   'She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would
come: but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was up
at the house. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the
afternoon, and wakes up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself
here an hour, Miss, and then I will go up with you?'
   Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the
cradle and went to welcome him: afterwards she insisted on my taking
off my bonnet and having some tea; for she said I looked pale and
tired. I was glad to accept her hospitality; and I submitted to be
relieved of my travelling garb just as passively as I used to let
her undress me when a child.
   Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling
about- setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and
butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert
or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in
former days. Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light
foot and good looks.
   Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to
sit still, quite in her old peremptory tones. I must be served at
the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round
stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to
accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery
chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.
   She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort
of a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a
master, whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I told
her he was rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he
treated me kindly, and I was content. Then I went on to describe to
her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house; and
to these details Bessie listened with interest: they were precisely of
the kind she relished.
   In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me
my bonnet, etc., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for
the hall. It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years
ago, walked down the path I was now ascending. On a dark, misty, raw
morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and
embittered heart- a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation- to
seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and
unexplored. The same hostile roof now again rose before me: my
prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart. I still
felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced
firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread
of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite
healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.
   'You shall go into the breakfast-room first,' said Bessie, as she
preceded me through the hall; 'the young ladies will be there.'
   In another moment I was within that apartment. There was every
article of furniture looking just as it did on the morning I was first
introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon still
covered the hearth. Glancing at the bookcases, I thought I could
distinguish the two volumes of Bewick's British Birds occupying
their old place on the third shelf, and Gulliver's Travels and the
Arabian Nights ranged just above. The inanimate objects were not
changed; but the living things had altered past recognition.
   Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall, almost as
tall as Miss Ingram- very thin too, with a sallow face and severe
mien. There was something ascetic in her look, was augmented by the
extreme plainness of a straight-skirted, black, stuff dress, a
starched linen collar, hair combed away from the temples, and the
nun-like ornament of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix. This I
felt sure was Eliza, though I could trace little resemblance to her
former self in that elongated and colourless visage.
   The other was as certainly Georgiana: but not the Georgiana I
remembered- the slim and fairy-like girl of eleven. This was a
full-blown, very plump damsel, fair as waxwork, with handsome and
regular features, languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair.
The hue of her dress was black too; but its fashion was so different
from her sister's- so much more flowing and becoming- it looked as
stylish as the other's looked puritanical.
   In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother- and
only one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent's
Cairngorm eye: the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour
of jaw and chin- perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an
indescribable hardness to the countenance, otherwise so voluptuous and
buxom.
   Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both
addressed me by the name of 'Miss Eyre.' Eliza's greeting was
delivered in a short, abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she
sat down again, fixed her eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me.
Georgiana added to her 'How d 'ye do?' several commonplaces about my
journey, the weather, and so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone:
and accompanied by sundry side-glances that measured me from head to
foot-now traversing the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now
lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young ladies
have a remarkable way of letting you know that they think you a 'quiz'
without actually saying the words. A certain superciliousness of look,
coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their
sentiments on the point, without committing them by any positive
rudeness in word or deed.
   A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that
power over me it once possessed: as I sat between my cousins, I was
surprised to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one
and the semi-sarcastic attentions of the other- Eliza did not mortify,
nor Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had other things to think
about; within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so
much more potent than any they could raise- pains and pleasures so
much more acute and exquisite had been excited than any it was in
their power to inflict or bestow- that their airs gave me no concern
either for good or bad.
   'How is Mrs. Reed?' I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana,
who thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an
unexpected liberty.
   'Mrs. Reed? Ah, mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt if
you can see her to-night.'
   'If,' said I, 'you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come,
I should be much obliged to you.'
   Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and
wide. 'I know she had a particular wish to see me,' I added, 'and I
would not defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely
necessary.'
   'Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening,' remarked Eliza. I
soon rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and
said I would just step out to Bessie- who was, I dared say, in the
kitchen- and ask her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to
receive me or not to-night. I went, and having found Bessie and
despatched her on my errand, I proceeded to take further measures.
It had heretofore been my habit always to shrink from arrogance:
received as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago, have resolved
to quit Gateshead the very next morning; now, it was disclosed to me
all at once that that would be a foolish plan. I had taken a journey
of a hundred miles to see my aunt, and I must stay with her till she
was better- or dead: as to her daughters' pride or folly, I must put
it on one side, make myself independent of it. So I addressed the
housekeeper; asked her to show me a room, told her I should probably
be a visitor here for a week or two, had my trunk conveyed to my
chamber, and followed it thither myself: I met Bessie on the landing.
   'Missis is awake,' said she; 'I have told her you are here: come
and let us see if she will know you.'
   I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I
had so often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former
days. I hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded
light stood on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the
great four-post bed with amber hangings as of old; there the
toilet-table, the arm-chair, and the footstool, at which I had a
hundred times been sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by
me uncommitted. I looked into a certain corner near, half expecting to
see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk
there, waiting to leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or
shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened the curtains and
leant over the high-piled pillows.
   Well did I remember Mrs. Reed's face, and I eagerly sought the
familiar image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of
vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had left
this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with
no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a
strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries- to be reconciled
and clasp hands in amity.
   The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever- there was
that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised,
imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace and
hate! and how the recollection of childhood's terrors and sorrows
revived as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped down and
kissed her: she looked at me.
   'Is this Jane Eyre?' she said.
   'Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?'
   I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I
thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had
fastened on her hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine
kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But
unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural
antipathies so readily eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away,
and, turning her face rather from me, she remarked that the night
was warm. Again she regarded me so icily, I felt at once that her
opinion of me- her feeling towards me- was unchanged and unchangeable.
I knew by her stony eye- opaque to tenderness, indissoluble to
tears- that she was resolved to consider me bad to the last; because
to believe me good would give her no generous pleasure: only a sense
of mortification.
   I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination
to subdue her- to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and
her will. My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them
back to their source. I brought a chair to the bed-head: I sat down
and leaned over the pillow.
   'You sent for me,' I said, 'and I am here; and it is my intention
to stay till I see how you get on.'
   'Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?'
   'Yes.'
   'Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some
things over with you I have on my mind: to-night it is too late, and I
have a difficulty in recalling them. But there was something I
wished to say- let me see-'
   The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had
taken place in her once vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew
the bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the
quilt, fixed it down: she was at once irritated.
   'Sit up!' said she; 'don't annoy me with holding the clothes
fast. Are you Jane Eyre?'
   'I am Jane Eyre.'
   'I have had more trouble with that child than any one would
believe. Such a burden to be left on my hands- and so much annoyance
as she caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible
disposition, and her sudden starts of temper, and her continual,
unnatural watchings of one's movements! I declare she talked to me
once like something mad, or like a fiend- no child ever spoke or
looked as she did; I was glad to get her away from the house. What did
they do with her at Lowood? The fever broke out there, and many of the
pupils died. She, however, did not die: but I said she did- I wish she
had died!'
   'A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?'
   'I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband's
only sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family's
disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of
her death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby;
though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its
maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it- a
sickly, whining, pining thing! It would wail in its cradle all night
long- not screaming heartily like any other child, but whimpering
and moaning. Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and notice it
as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than he ever noticed his
own at that age. He would try to make my children friendly to the
little beggar: the darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with
them when they showed their dislike. In his last illness, he had it
brought continually to his bedside; and but an hour before he died, he
bound me by vow to keep the creature. I would as soon have been
charged with a pauper brat out of a workhouse: but he was weak,
naturally weak. John does not at all resemble his father, and I am
glad of it: John is like me and like my brothers- he is quite a
Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease tormenting me with letters for
money! I have no more money to give him: we are getting poor. I must
send away half the servants and shut up part of the house; or let it
off. I can never submit to do that- yet how are we to get on?
Two-thirds of my income goes in paying the interest of mortgages. John
gambles dreadfully, and always loses- poor boy! He is beset by
sharpers: John is sunk and degraded- his look is frightful- I feel
ashamed for him when I see him.'
   She was getting much excited. 'I think I had better leave her now,'
said I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed.
   'Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards
night- in the morning she is calmer.'
   I rose. 'Stop!' exclaimed Mrs. Reed, 'there is another thing I
wished to say. He threatens me- he continually threatens me with his
own death, or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid out with
a great wound in his throat, or with a swollen and blackened face. I
am come to a strange pass: I have heavy troubles. What is to be
done? How is the money to be had?'
   Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative
draught: she succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew
more composed, and sank into a dozing state. I then left her.
   More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with
her. She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor
forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I got
on as well as I could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very cold,
indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing, reading, or
writing, and scarcely utter a word either to me or her sister.
Georgiana would chatter nonsense to her canary bird by the hour, and
take no notice of me. But I was determined not to seem at a loss for
occupation or amusement: I had brought my drawing materials with me,
and they served me for both.
   Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used
to take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in
sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened
momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of
imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon,
and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and
a naiad's head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an elf
sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-bloom.
   One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it
was to be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it
a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad
and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that
contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it
with features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced
under that brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined nose, with a
straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-looking mouth, by no
means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided cleft down the middle
of it: of course, some black whiskers were wanted, and some jetty
hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above the forehead. Now for the
eyes: I had left them to the last, because they required the most
careful working. I drew them large; I shaped them well: the
eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the irids lustrous and large.
'Good! but not quite the thing,' I thought, as I surveyed the
effect: 'they want more force and spirit'; and I wrought the shades
blacker, that the lights might flash more brilliantly- a happy touch
or two secured success. There, I had a friend's face under my gaze;
and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs
on me? I looked at it; I smiled at the speaking likeness: I was
absorbed and content.
   'Is that a portrait of some one you know?' asked Eliza, who had
approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy
head, and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied: it
was, in fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester. But
what was that to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana also
advanced to look. The other drawings pleased her much, but she
called that 'an ugly man.' They both seemed surprised at my skill. I
offered to sketch their portraits; and each, in turn, sat for a pencil
outline. Then Georgiana produced her album. I promised to contribute a
water-colour drawing: this put her at once into good humour. She
proposed a walk in the grounds. Before we had been out two hours, we
were deep in a confidential conversation: she had favoured me with a
description of the brilliant winter she had spent in London two
seasons ago- of the admiration she had there excited- the attention
she had received; and I even got hints of the titled conquest she
had made. In the course of the afternoon and evening these hints
were enlarged on: various soft conversations were reported, and
sentimental scenes represented; and, in short, a volume of a novel
of fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my benefit. The
communications were renewed from day to day: they always ran on the
same theme- herself, her loves, and woes. It was strange she never
once adverted either to her mother's illness, or her brother's
death, or the present gloomy state of the family prospects. Her mind
seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety, and
aspirations after dissipations to come. She passed about five
minutes each day in her mother's sick-room, and no more.
   Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk. I
never saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was
difficult to say what she did: or rather, to discover any result of
her diligence. She had an alarm to call her up early. I know not how
she occupied herself before breakfast, but after that meal she divided
her time into regular portions, and each hour had its allotted task.
Three times a day she studied a little book, which I found, on
inspection, was a Common Prayer Book. I asked her once what was the
great attraction of that volume, and she said, 'the Rubric.' Three
hours she gave to stitching, with gold thread, the border of a
square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a carpet. In answer to
my inquiries after the use of this article, she informed me it was a
covering for the altar of a new church lately erected near
Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her diary; two to working by
herself in the kitchen-garden; and one to the regulation of her
accounts. She seemed to want no company; no conversation. I believe
she was happy in her way: this routine sufficed for her; and nothing
annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident which forced her
to vary its clockwork regularity.
   She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative
than usual, that John's conduct, and the threatened ruin of the
family, had been a source of profound affliction to her: but she had
now, she said, settled her mind, and formed her resolution. Her own
fortune she had taken care to secure; and when her mother died- and it
was wholly improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should either
recover or linger long- she would execute a long-cherished project:
seek a retirement where punctual habits would be permanently secured
from disturbance, and place safe barriers between herself and a
frivolous world. I asked if Georgiana would accompany her.
   'Of course not. Georgiana and she had nothing in common: they never
had had. She would not be burdened with her society for any
consideration. Georgiana should take her own course; and she, Eliza,
would take hers.'
   Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of
her time in lying on the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the
house, and wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send
her an invitation up to town. 'It would be so much better,' she
said, 'if she could only get out of the way for a month or two, till
all was over.' I did not ask what she meant by 'all being over,' but I
suppose she referred to the expected decease of her mother and the
gloomy sequel of funeral rites. Eliza generally took no more notice of
her sister's indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring,
lounging object had been before her. One day, however, as she put away
her account-book and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up
thus-
   'Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly
never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born, for
you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself,
as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness
on some other person's strength: if no one can be found willing to
burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you
cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too,
existence for you must be a scene of continual change and
excitement, or else the world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you
must be courted, you must be flattered- you must have music,
dancing, and society- or you languish, you die away. Have you no sense
to devise a system which will make you independent of all efforts, and
all wills, but your own? Take one day; share it into sections; to each
section apportion its task: leave no stray unemployed quarters of an
hour, ten minutes, five minutes- include all; do each piece of
business in its turn with method, with rigid regularity. The day
will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are
indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment:
you have had to seek no one's company, conversation, sympathy
forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought
to do. Take this advice: the first and last I shall offer you; then
you will not want me or any one else, happen what may. Neglect it-
go on as heretofore, craving, whining, and idling- and suffer the
results of your idiocy, however bad and insufferable they may be. I
tell you this plainly; and listen: for though I shall no more repeat
what I am now about to say, I shall steadily act on it. After my
mother's death, I wash my hands of you: from the day her coffin is
carried to the vault in Gateshead Church, you and I will be as
separate as if we had never known each other. You need not think
that because we chanced to be born of the same parents, I shall suffer
you to fasten me down by even the feeblest claim: I can tell you this-
if the whole human race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, and we
two stood alone on the earth, I would leave you in the old world,
and betake myself to the new.'
   She closed her lips.
   'You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that
tirade,' answered Georgiana. 'Everybody knows you are the most
selfish, heartless creature in existence: and I know your spiteful
hatred towards me: I have had a specimen of it before in the trick you
played me about Lord Edwin Vere: you could not bear me to be raised
above you, to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare
not show your face, and so you acted the spy and informer, and
ruined my prospects for ever.' Georgiana took out her handkerchief and
blew her nose for an hour afterwards; Eliza sat cold, impassible,
and assiduously industrious.
   True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here
were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other
despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment
is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too
bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.
   It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on
the sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a
saint's-day service at the new church- for in matters of religion
she was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual
discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or
foul, she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on
week-days as there were prayers.
   I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped,
who lay there almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a
remittent attention: the hired nurse, being little looked after, would
slip out of the room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful; but
she had her own family to mind, and could only come occasionally to
the hall. I found the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected: no nurse
was there; the patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid
face sunk in the pillows: the fire was dying in the grate. I renewed
the fuel, re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could
not now gaze on me, and then I moved away to the window.
   The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew
tempestuously: 'One lies there,' I thought, 'who will soon be beyond
the war of earthly elements. Whither will that spirit- now
struggling to quit its material tenement- flit when at length
released?'
   In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns,
recalled her dying words- her faith- her doctrine of the equality of
disembodied souls. I was still listening in thought to her
well-remembered tones- still picturing her pale and spiritual
aspect, her wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid
deathbed, and whispered her longing to be restored to her divine
Father's bosom- when a feeble voice murmured from the couch behind:
'Who is that?'
   I knew Mrs. Reed had not spoken for days: was she reviving? I
went up to her.
   'It is I, Aunt Reed.'
   'Who- I?' was her answer. 'Who are you?' looking at me with
surprise and a sort of alarm, but still not wildly. 'You are quite a
stranger to me- where is Bessie?'
   'She is at the lodge, aunt.'
   'Aunt,' she repeated. 'Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the
Gibsons; and yet I know you- that face, and the eyes and forehead, are
quite familiar to me: you are like- why, you are like Jane Eyre!'
   I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring
my identity.
   'Yet,' said she, 'I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts
deceive me. I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where
none exists: besides, in eight years she must be so changed.' I now
gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me
to be: and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were
quite collected, I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to
fetch me from Thornfield.
   'I am very ill, I know,' she said ere long. 'I was trying to turn
myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as
well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in
health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the
nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?'
   I assured her we were alone.
   'Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in
breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own
child; the other-' she stopped. 'After all, it is of no great
importance, perhaps,' she murmured to herself: 'and then I may get
better; and to humble myself so to her is painful.'
   She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face
changed; she seemed to experience some inward sensation- the
precursor, perhaps, of the last pang.
   'Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me: I had better tell
her.- Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you
will see there.'
   I obeyed her directions. 'Read the letter,' she said.
   It was short, and thus conceived:-

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

   It was dated three years back.
   'Why did I never hear of this?' I asked.
   'Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a
hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct
to me, Jane- the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in
which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the
world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the
very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated
you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations
when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt
fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me
with human eyes and cursed me in a man's voice.- Bring me some
water! Oh, make haste!'
   'Dear Mrs. Reed,' said I, as I offered her the draught she
required, 'think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind.
Forgive me for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight, nine
years have passed since that day.'
   She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the
water and drawn breath, she went on thus-
   'I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge: for you
to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and
comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was
sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died
of typhus fever at Lowood. Now act as you please: write and contradict
my assertion- expose my falsehood as soon as you like. You were
born, I think, to be my torment: my last hour is racked by the
recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been
tempted to commit.'
   'If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to
regard me with kindness and forgiveness-'
   'You have a very bad disposition,' said she, 'and one to this day I
feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be
patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break
out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend.'
   'My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but
not vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been
glad to love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to
be reconciled to you now: kiss me, aunt.'
   I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She said
I oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded water.
As I laid her down- for I raised her and supported her on my arm while
she drank- I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine: the
feeble fingers shrank from my touch- the glazing eyes shunned my gaze.
   'Love me, then, or hate me, as you will,' I said at last, 'you have
my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God's, and be at peace.'
   Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the
effort to change her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever
hated me- dying, she must hate me still.
   The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half
an hour longer, hoping to see some sign of amity: but she gave none.
She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally: at
twelve o'clock that night she died. I was not present to close her
eyes, nor were either of her daughters. They came to tell us the
next morning that all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza
and I went to look at her: Georgiana, who had burst out into loud
weeping, said she dared not go. There was stretched Sarah Reed's
once robust and active frame, rigid and still: her eye of flint was
covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore yet the
impress of her inexorable soul. A strange and solemn object was that
corpse to me. I gazed on it with gloom and pain: nothing soft, nothing
sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or subduing did it inspire; only a
grating anguish for her woes- not my loss- and a sombre tearless
dismay at the fearfulness of death in such a form.
   Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes
she observed-
   'With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her
life was shortened by trouble.' And then a spasm constricted her mouth
for an instant: as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so
did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear.
                         CHAPTER XXII

   MR. ROCHESTER had given me but one week's leave of absence: yet a
month elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave
immediately after the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till
she could get off to London, whither she was now at last invited by
her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down to direct his sister's
interment and settle the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded
being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in
her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I
bore with her feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as
well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and packing her
dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would idle; and I
thought to myself, 'If you and I were destined to live always
together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing.
I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I
should assign you your share of labour, and compel you to accomplish
it, or else it should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your
keeping some of those drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in
your own breast. It is only because our connection happens to be
very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I
consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on my part.'
   At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza's turn to request
me to stay another week. Her plans required all her time and
attention, she said; she was about to depart for some unknown
bourne; and all day long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted
within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, and
holding no communication with any one. She wished me to look after the
house, to see callers, and answer notes of condolence.
   One morning she told me I was at liberty. 'And,' she added, 'I am
obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct!
There is some difference between living with such an one as you and
with Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no one.
To-morrow,' she continued, 'I set out for the Continent. I shall
take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle- a nunnery you
would call it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote
myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and
to a careful study of the workings of their system: if I find it to
be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the
doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the
tenets of Rome and probably take the veil.'
   I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to
dissuade her from it. 'The vocation will fit you to a hair,' I
thought: 'much good may it do you!'
   When we parted, she said: 'Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you
well: you have some sense.'
   I then returned: 'You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what
you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a
French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I
don't much care.'
   'You are in the right,' said she; and with these words we each went
our separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to
her or her sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana
made an advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and
that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of
the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and which
she endowed with her fortune.
   How people feel when they are returning home from an absence,
long or short, I did not know: I had never experienced the
sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a
child after a long walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and
later, what it was to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a
plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either.
Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no
magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of
attraction the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be
tried.
   My journey seemed tedious- very tedious: fifty miles one day, a
night spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first
twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her
disfigured and discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered
voice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black
train of tenants and servants- few was the number of relatives- the
gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service. Then I thought of
Eliza and Georgiana; I beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the
other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on and analysed
their separate peculiarities of person and character. The evening
gave them quite another turn: laid down on my traveller's bed, I
left reminiscence for anticipation.
   I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there?
Not long; of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the
interim of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr.
Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was then
expected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was
gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of
purchasing a new carriage: she said the idea of his marrying Miss
Ingram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said,
and from what she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the
event would shortly take place. 'You would be strangely incredulous if
you did doubt it,' was my mental comment. 'I don't doubt it.'
   The question followed, 'Where was I to go?' I dreamt of Miss Ingram
all the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of
Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr.
Rochester looked on with his arms folded- smiling sardonically, as
it seemed, at both her and me.
   I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return;
for I did not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I
proposed to walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly,
after leaving my box in the ostler's care, did I slip away from the
George Inn, about six o'clock of a June evening, and take the old road
to Thornfield: a road which lay chiefly through fields, and was now
little frequented.
   It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and
soft: the haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky,
though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future:
its blue- where blue was visible- was mild and settled, and its
cloud strata high and thin. The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam
chilled it- it seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burning
behind its screen of marbled vapour, and out of apertures shone a
golden redness.
   I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped
once to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it
was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to
a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival.
'Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure,' said I; 'and
little Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know
very well you are thinking of another than they, and that he is not
thinking of you.'
   But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as
inexperience? These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the
privilege of again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me
or not; and they added- 'Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may:
but a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him for
ever!' And then I strangled a new-born agony- a deformed thing which I
could not persuade myself to own and rear- and ran on.
   They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the
labourers are just quitting their work, and returning home with
their rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have
but a field or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and
reach the gates. How full the hedges are of roses! But I have no
time to gather any; I want to be at the house. I passed a tall
briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path; I see
the narrow stile with stone steps; and I see- Mr. Rochester sitting
there, a book and a pencil in his hand; he is writing.
   Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for
a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not
think I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or
the power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can
stir: I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I know another way
to the house. It does not signify if I knew twenty ways; for he has
seen me.
   'Hillo!' he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. 'There
you are! Come on, if you please.'
   I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; being
scarcely cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear
calm; and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face- which
I feel rebel insolently against my will, and struggle to express
what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a veil- it is down: I may
make shift yet to behave with decent composure.
   'And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on
foot? Yes- just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and
come clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to
steal into the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if
you were a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with
yourself this last month?'
   'I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.'
   'A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard. She comes from the
other world- from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so
when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch
you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!- but I'd as
soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh.
Truant! truant!' he added, when he had paused an instant. 'Absent from
me a whole month, and forgetting me quite, I'll be sworn!'
   I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even
though broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my
master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there
was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the
power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he
scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast
genially. His last words were balm: they seemed to imply that it
imported something to him whether I forgot him or not. And he had
spoken of Thornfield as my home- would that it were my home!
   He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I
inquired soon if he had not been to London.
   'Yes; I suppose you found that out by second-sight.'
   'Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter.'
   'And did she inform you what I went to do?'
   'Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand.'
   'You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don't think it
will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won't look like
Queen Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish,
Jane, I were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally.
Tell me now, fairy as you are- can't you give me a charm, or a
philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?'
   'It would be past the power of magic, sir'; and, in thought, I
added, 'A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome
enough; or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty.'
   Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an
acumen to me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no
notice of my abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain
smile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He
seemed to think it too good for common purposes: it was the real
sunshine of feeling- he shed it over me now.
   'Pass, Janet,' said he, making room for me to cross the stile:
'go up home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend's
threshold.'
   All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to
colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant
to leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast- a force turned me round.
I said- or something in me said for me, and in spite of me-
   'Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am
strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my
home- my only home.'
   I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had
he tried. Little Adele was half wild with delight when she saw me.
Mrs. Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah
smiled, and even Sophie bid me 'bon soir' with glee. This was very
pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by your
fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to
their comfort.
   I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I
stopped my ears against the voice that kept warning me of near
separation and coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had
taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and
Adele, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense
of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace,
I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but
when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and
looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group
so amicable- when he said he supposed the old lady was all right now
that she had got her adopted daughter back again, and added that he
saw Adele was 'prete a croquer sa petite maman Anglaise'- I half
ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage, keep us
together somewhere under the shelter of his protection, and not
quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.
   A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall.
Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparation
going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if
she had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the
negative. Once she said she had actually put the question to Mr.
Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but he
had answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she
could not tell what to make of him.
   One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no
journeyings backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be sure
it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; but what
was that distance to an ardent lover? To so practised and
indefatigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but a morning's
ride. I began to cherish hopes I had no right to conceive: that the
match was broken off; that rumour had been mistaken; that one or
both parties had changed their minds. I used to look at my master's
face to see if it were sad or fierce; but I could not remember the
time when it had been so uniformly clear of clouds or evil feelings.
If, in the moments I and my pupil spent with him, I lacked spirits and
sank into inevitable dejection, he became even gay. Never had he
called me more frequently to his presence; never been kinder to me
when there- and, alas! never had I loved him so well.
                        CHAPTER XXIII

   A SPLENDID Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so
radiant as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour even
singly, our wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had
come from the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and
lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got
in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads
white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime; hedge and wood,
full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of
the cleared meadows between.
   On Midsummer-eve, Adele, weary with gathering wild strawberries
in Hay Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched
her drop asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden.
   It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:- 'Day its fervid
fires had wasted,' and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched
summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple state- pure of the
pomp of clouds- spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of
red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and
extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven.
The east had its own charm of fine deep blue, and its own modest
gem, a rising and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she
was yet beneath the horizon.
   I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent-
that of a cigar- stole from some window; I saw the library casement
open a hand-breadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart
into the orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more
Eden-like; it was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very
high wall shut it out from the court, on one side; on the other, a
beech avenue screened it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk
fence; its sole separation from lonely fields: a winding walk,
bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horse-chestnut,
circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here one could
wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such silence reigned, such
gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever; but
in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the
enclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising moon cast on this
more open quarter, my step is stayed-not by sound, not by sight, but
once more by a warning fragrance.
   Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long
been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is
neither of shrub nor flower; it is- I know it well- it is Mr.
Rochester's cigar. I look round and I listen. I see trees laden with
ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile
off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but that
perfume increases: I must flee. I make for the wicket leading to the
shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy
recess; he will not stay long: he will soon return whence he came, and
if I sit still he will never see me.
   But no- eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique
garden as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the
gooseberry-tree branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with
which they are laden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now
stooping towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance
or to admire the dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes
humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester's foot: he
sees it, and bends to examine it.
   'Now, he has his back towards me,' thought I, 'and he is occupied
too; perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed.'
   I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly
gravel might not betray me: he was standing among the beds at a yard
or two distant from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged
him. 'I shall get by very well,' I meditated. As I crossed his shadow,
thrown long over the garden by the moon, not yet risen high, he said
quietly, without turning-
   'Jane, come and look at this fellow.'
   I had made no noise: he had not eyes behind- could his shadow feel?
I started at first, and then I approached him.
   'Look at his wings,' said he, 'he reminds me rather of a West
Indian insect; one does not often see so large and gay a night-rover
in England; there! he is flown.'
   The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also; but Mr.
Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said-
   'Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house;
and surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at
meeting with moonrise.'
   It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt
enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing
an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile
word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful
embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this hour alone with Mr.
Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not find a reason to
allege for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and thoughts
busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself
looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling
any confusion: the evil- if evil existent or prospective there was-
seemed to lie with me only; his mind was unconscious and quiet.
   'Jane,' he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly
strayed down in the direction of the sunk fence and the
horse-chestnut, 'Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'You must have become in some degree attached to the house,- you,
who have an eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the organ
of Adhesiveness?'
   'I am attached to it, indeed.'
   'And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have
acquired a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adele,
too; and even for simple dame Fairfax?'
   'Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affection for both.'
   'And would be sorry to part with them?'
   'Yes.'
   'Pity!' he said, and sighed and paused. 'It is always the way of
events in this life,' he continued presently: 'no sooner have you
got settled in a pleasant resting-place, than a voice calls out to you
to rise and move on, for the hour of repose is expired.'
   'Must I move on, sir?' I asked. 'Must I leave Thornfield?'
   'I believe you must, Jane. I am sorry, Janet, but I believe
indeed you must.'
   This was a blow: but I did not let it prostrate me.
   'Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes.'
   'It is come now- I must give it to-night.'
   'Then you are going to be married, sir?'
   'Ex-act-ly- pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit
the nail straight on the head.'
   'Soon, sir?'
   'Very soon, my- that is, Miss Eyre: and you'll remember, Jane,
the first time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my
intention to put my old bachelor's neck into the sacred noose, to
enter into the holy estate of matrimony- to take Miss Ingram to my
bosom, in short (she's an extensive armful: but that's not to the
point- one can't have too much of such a very excellent thing as my
beautiful Blanche): well, as I was saying- listen to me, Jane!
You're not turning your head to look after more moths, are you? That
was only a lady-clock, child, "flying away home." I wish to remind you
that it was you who first said to me, with that discretion I respect
in you- with that foresight, prudence, and humility which befit your
responsible and dependent position- that in case I married Miss
Ingram, both you and little Adele had better trot forthwith. I pass
over the sort of slur conveyed in this suggestion on the character
of my beloved; indeed, when you are far away, Janet, I'll try to
forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom; which is such that I have
made it my law of action. Adele must go to school; and you, Miss Eyre,
must get a new situation.'
   'Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I
suppose-' I was going to say, 'I suppose I may stay here, till I
find another shelter to betake myself to': but I stopped, feeling it
would not do to risk a long sentence, for my voice was not quite under
command.
   'In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom,' continued Mr.
Rochester; 'and in the interim, I shall myself look out for employment
and an asylum for you.'
   'Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give-'
   'Oh, no need to apologise! I consider that when a dependant does
her duty as well as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim
upon her employer for any little assistance he can conveniently render
her; indeed I have already, through my future mother-in-law, heard
of a place that I think will suit: it is to undertake the education of
the five daughters of Mrs. Dionysius O'Gall of Bitternutt Lodge,
Connaught, Ireland. You'll like Ireland, I think: they're such
warmhearted people there, they say.'
   'It is a long way off, sir.'
   'No matter- a girl of your sense will not object to the voyage or
the distance.'
   'Not the voyage, but the distance: and then the sea is a barrier-'
   'From what, Jane?'
   'From England and from Thornfield: and-'
   'Well?'
   'From you, sir.'
   I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of
free will, my tears gushed out. I did not cry so as to be heard,
however; I avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O'Gall and
Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to my heart; and colder the thought of
all the brine and foam, destined, as it seemed, to rush between me and
the master at whose side I now walked, and coldest the remembrance
of the wider ocean- wealth, caste, custom intervened between me and
what I naturally and inevitably loved.
   'It is a long way,' I again said.
   'It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge,
Connaught, Ireland, I shall never see you again, Jane: that's
morally certain. I never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of
a fancy for the country. We have been good friends, Jane; have we
not?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to
spend the little time that remains to them close to each other.
Come! we'll talk over the voyage and the parting quietly half an
hour or so, while the stars enter into their shining life up in heaven
yonder: here is the chestnut tree: here is the bench at its old roots.
Come, we will sit there in peace to-night, though we should never more
be destined to sit there together.' He seated me and himself.
   'It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my
little friend on such weary travels: but if I can't do better, how
is it to be helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?'
   I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.
   'Because,' he said, 'I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard
to you- especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a
string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably
knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of
your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel and two hundred
miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of
communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should
take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,- you'd forget me.'
   'That I never should, sir: you know-' Impossible to proceed.
   'Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!'
   In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I
endured no longer; I was obliged to yield, and I was shaken from
head to foot with acute distress. When I did speak, it was only to
express an impetuous wish that I had never been born, or never come to
Thornfield.
   'Because you are sorry to leave it?'
   The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me,
was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a
right to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last:
yes,- and to speak.
   'I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:- I love it,
because I have lived in it a full and delightful life,- momentarily at
least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I
have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every
glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high. I
have talked, face to face, with what I reverence, with what I
delight in,- with an original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have
known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to
feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the
necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of
death.'
   'Where do you see the necessity?' he asked suddenly.
   'Where? You, sir, have placed it before me.'
   'In what shape?'
   'In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman,- your
bride.'
   'My bride! What bride? I have no bride!'
   'But you will have.'
   'Yes;- I will!'- I will!' He set his teeth.
   'Then I must go:- you have said it yourself.'
   'No: you must stay! I swear it- and the oath shall be kept.'
   'I tell you I must go!' I retorted, roused to something like
passion. 'Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you
think I am an automaton?- a machine without feelings? and can bear
to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of
living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor,
obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think
wrong!- I have as much soul as you,- and full as much heart! And if
God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made
it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am
not talking to you now through the medium of custom,
conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;- it is my spirit that
addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave,
and we stood at God's feet, equal,- as we are!'
   'As we are!' repeated Mr. Rochester- 'so,' he added, enclosing me
in his arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips:
'so, Jane!'
   'Yes, so, sir,' I rejoined: 'and yet not so; for you are a
married man- or as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to
you- to one with whom you have no sympathy- whom I do not believe
you truly love; for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would
scorn such a union: therefore I am better than you- let me go!'
   'Where, Jane? To Ireland?'
   'Yes- to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now.'
   'Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that
is rending its own plumage in its desperation.'
   'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with
an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.'
   Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him.
   'And your will shall decide your destiny,' he said: 'I offer you my
hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.'
   'You play a farce, which I merely laugh at.'
   'I ask you to pass through life at my side- to be my second self,
and best earthly companion.'
   'For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by
it.'
   'Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be
still too.'
   A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk and trembled
through the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away- away- to an
indefinite distance- it died. The nightingale's song was then the only
voice of the hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat
quiet, looking at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before
he spoke; he at last said-
   'Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one
another.'
   'I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and
cannot return.'
   'But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to
marry.'
   I was silent: I thought he mocked me.
   'Come, Jane- come hither.'
   'Your bride stands between us.'
   He rose, and with a stride reached me.
   'My bride is here,' he said, again drawing me to him, 'because my
equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?'
   Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his
grasp: for I was still incredulous.
   'Do you doubt me, Jane?'
   'Entirely.'
   'You have no faith in me?'
   'Not a whit.'
   'Am I a liar in your eyes?' he asked passionately. 'Little sceptic,
you shall be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and
that you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains
to prove: I caused a rumour to reach her that my fortune was not a
third of what was supposed, and after that I presented myself to see
the result; it was coldness both from her and her mother. I would not-
I could not- marry Miss Ingram. You- you strange, you almost unearthly
thing!- I love as my own flesh. You- poor and obscure, and small and
plain as you are- I entreat to accept me as a husband.'
   'What, me!' I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness- and
especially in his incivility- to credit his sincerity: 'me who have
not a friend in the world but you- if you are my friend: not a
shilling but what you have given me?'
   'You, Jane, I must have you for my own- entirely my own. Will you
be mine? Say yes, quickly.'
   'Mr. Rochester, let me look at your face: turn to the moonlight.'
   'Why?'
   'Because I want to read your countenance- turn!'
   'There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled,
scratched page. Read on: only make haste, for I suffer.'
   His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there
were strong workings in the features, and strange gleams in the eyes.
   'Oh, Jane, you torture me!' he exclaimed. 'With that searching
and yet faithful and generous look, you torture me!'
   'How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only
feelings to you must be gratitude and devotion- they cannot torture.'
   'Gratitude!' he ejaculated; and added wildly- 'Jane, accept me
quickly. Say, Edward- give me my name- Edward- I will marry you.'
   'Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me
to be your wife?'
   'I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it.'
   'Then, sir, I will marry you.'
   'Edward- my little wife!'
   'Dear Edward!'
   'Come to me- come to me entirely now,' said he; and added, in his
deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine,
'Make my happiness- I will make yours.'
   'God pardon me!' he subjoined ere long; 'and man meddle not with
me: I have her, and will hold her.'
   'There is no one to meddle, sir. I have no kindred to interfere.'
   'No- that is the best of it,' he said. And if I had loved him
less I should have thought his accent and look of exultation savage;
but, sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of parting- called to
the paradise of union- I thought only of the bliss given me to drink
in so abundant a flow. Again and again he said, 'Are you happy, Jane?'
And again and again I answered, 'Yes,' After which he murmured, 'It
will atone- it will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and
cold, and comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace
her? Is there not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves? It
will expiate at God's tribunal. I know my Maker sanctions what I do.
For the world's judgment- I wash my hands thereof. For man's
opinion- I defy it.'
   But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we
were all in shadow: I could scarcely see my master's face, near as I
was. And what ailed the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned; while
wind roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us.
   'We must go in,' said Mr. Rochester: 'the weather changes. I
could have sat with thee till morning, Jane.'
   'And so,' thought I, 'could I with you.' I should have said so,
perhaps, but a livid, vivid spark leapt out of a cloud at which I
was looking, and there was a crack, a crash, and a close rattling
peal; and I thought only of hiding my dazzled eyes against Mr.
Rochester's shoulder.
   The rain rushed down. He hurried me up the walk, through the
grounds, and into the house; but we were quite wet before we could
pass the threshold. He was taking off my shawl in the hall, and
shaking the water out of my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax emerged
from her room. I did not observe her at first, nor did Mr.
Rochester. The lamp was lit. The dock was on the stroke of twelve.
   'Hasten to take off your wet things,' said he; 'and before you
go, good-night- good-night, my darling!'
   He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked up, on leaving his arms,
there stood the widow, pale, grave, and amazed. I only smiled at
her, and ran upstairs. 'Explanation will do for another time,' thought
I. Still, when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she
should even temporarily misconstrue what she had seen. But joy soon
effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and
deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning
gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours'
duration, I experienced no fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came
thrice to my door in the course of it, to ask if I was safe and
tranquil: and that was comfort, that was strength for anything.
   Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adele came running in
to tell me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the
orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it
split away.
                         CHAPTER XXIV

   AS I rose and dressed, I thought over what had happened, and
wondered if it were a dream. I could not be certain of the reality
till I had seen Mr. Rochester again, and heard him renew his words
of love and promise.
   While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt
it was no longer plain: there was hope in its aspect and life in its
colour; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of
fruition, and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often
been unwilling to look at my master, because I feared he could not
be pleased at my look; but I was sure I might lift my face to his now,
and not cool his affection by its expression. I took a plain but clean
and light summer dress from my drawer and put it on: it seemed no
attire had ever so well become me, because none had I ever worn in
so blissful a mood.
   I was not surprised, when I ran down into the hall, to see that a
brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the night;
and to feel, through the open glass door, the breathing of a fresh and
fragrant breeze. Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy. A
beggar-woman and her little boy- pale, ragged objects both- were
coming up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all the money I
happened to have in my purse- some three or four shillings: good or
bad, they must partake of my jubilee. The rooks cawed, and blither
birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing
heart.
   Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out of the window with a sad
countenance, and saying gravely- 'Miss Eyre, will you come to
breakfast?' During the meal she was quiet and cool: but I could not
undeceive her then. I must wait for my master to give explanations;
and so must she. I ate what I could, and then I hastened upstairs. I
met Adele leaving the schoolroom.
   'Where are you going? It is time for lessons.'
   'Mr. Rochester has sent me away to the nursery.'
   'Where is he?'
   'In there,' pointing to the apartment she had left; and I went
in, and there he stood.
   'Come and bid me good-morning,' said he. I gladly advanced; and
it was not merely a cold word now, or even a shake of the hand that
I received, but an embrace and a kiss. It seemed natural: it seemed
genial to be so well loved, so caressed by him.
   'Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty,' said he: 'truly
pretty this morning. Is this my pale, little elf? Is this my
mustard-seed? This little sunny-faced girl with the dimpled cheek
and rosy lips; the satin-smooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel
eyes?' (I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake: for
him they were new-dyed, I suppose.)
   'It is Jane Eyre, sir.'
   'Soon to be Jane Rochester,' he added: 'in four weeks, Janet; not a
day more. Do you hear that?'
   I did, and I could not quite comprehend it: it made me giddy. The
feeling, the announcement sent through me, was something stronger than
was consistent with joy- something that smote and stunned: it was, I
think, almost fear.
   'You blushed, and now you are white, Jane: what is that for?'
   'Because you gave me a new name- Jane Rochester; and it seems so
strange.'
   'Yes, Mrs. Rochester,' said he; 'young Mrs. Rochester- Fairfax
Rochester's girl-bride.'
   'It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely. Human beings never
enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different
destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling
me is a fairy tale- a day-dream.'
   'Which I can and will realise. I shall begin to-day. This morning I
wrote to my banker in London to send me certain jewels he has in his
keeping,- heirlooms for the ladies of Thornfield. In a day or two I
hope to pour them into your lap: for every privilege, every
attention shall be yours that I would accord a peer's daughter, if
about to marry her.'
   'Oh, sir!- never mind jewels! I don't like to hear them spoken
of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would
rather not have them.'
   'I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the
circlet on your forehead,- which it will become: for nature, at least,
has stamped her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I will
clasp the bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-like
fingers with rings.'
   'No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things,
and in another strain. Don't address me as if I were a beauty; I am
your plain, Quakerish governess.'
   'You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of
my heart,- delicate and aerial.'
   'Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir,- or you
are sneering. For God's sake, don't be ironical!'
   'I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too,' he went
on, while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted, because
I felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. 'I
will attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her
hair; and I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil.'
   'And then you won't know me, sir; and I shall not be your Jane Eyre
any longer, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket- a jay in borrowed
plumes. I would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in
stage-trappings, as myself clad in a court-lady's robe; and I don't
call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too
dearly to flatter you. Don't flatter me.'
   He pursued his theme, however, without noticing my deprecation.
'This very day I shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and you
must choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we shall be
married in four weeks. The wedding is to take place quietly, in the
church down below yonder; and then I shall waft you away at once to
town. After a brief stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions
nearer the sun: to French vineyards and Italian plains; and she
shall see whatever is famous in old story and in modern record: she
shall taste, too, of the life of cities; and she shall learn to
value herself by just comparison with others.'
   'Shall I travel?- and with you, sir?'
   'You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice,
and Vienna: all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden by
you: wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot shall step also.
Ten years since, I flew through Europe half mad; with disgust, hate,
and rage as my companions: now I shall revisit it healed and
cleaned, with a very angel as my comforter.'
   I laughed at him as he said this. 'I am not an angel,' I
asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr.
Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me-
for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which
I do not at all anticipate.'
   'What do you anticipate of me?'
   'For a little while you will perhaps be as you are now,- a very
little while; and then you will turn cool; and then you will be
capricious; and then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to
please you: but when you get well used to me, you will perhaps like me
again,- like me, I say, not love me. I suppose your love will
effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by
men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband's
ardour extends. Yet, after all, as a friend and companion, I hope
never to become quite distasteful to my dear master.'
   'Distasteful! and like you again! I think I shall like you again,
and yet again: and I will make you confess I do not only like, but
love you- with truth, fervour, constancy.'
   'Yet are you not capricious, sir?'
   'To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil
when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts- when they open
to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility,
coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent
tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but
does not break- at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent- I
am ever tender and true.'
   'Had you ever experience of such a character, sir? Did you ever
love such an one?'
   'I love it now.'
   'But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your
difficult standard?'
   'I never met your likeness. Jane, you please me, and you master me-
you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and
while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends
a thrill up my arm to my heart. I am influenced- conquered; and the
influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo
has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile, Jane?
What does that inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance mean?'
   'I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was
involuntary), I was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their
charmers-'
   'You were, you little elfish-'
   'Hush, sir! You don't talk very wisely just now; any more than
those gentlemen acted very wisely. However, had they been married,
they would no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for
their softness as suitors; and so will you, I fear. I wonder how you
will answer me a year hence, should I ask a favour it does not suit
your convenience or pleasure to grant.'
   'Ask me something now, Janet- the least thing: I desire to be
entreated-'
   'Indeed I will sir; I have my petition all ready.'
   'Speak! But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall
swear concession before I know to what, and that will make a fool of
me.'
   'Not at all, sir; I ask only this: don't send for the jewels, and
don't crown me with roses: you might as well put a border of gold lace
round that plain pocket-handkerchief you have there.'
   'I might as well "gild refined gold." I know it: your request is
granted then- for the time. I will remand the order I despatched to my
banker. But you have not yet asked for anything; you have prayed a
gift to be withdrawn: try again.'
   'Well, then, sir, have the goodness to gratify my curiosity,
which is much piqued on one point.'
   He looked disturbed. 'What? what?' he said hastily. 'Curiosity is a
dangerous petition: it is well I have not taken a vow to accord
every request-'
   'But there can be no danger in complying with this, sir.'
   'Utter it, Jane: but I wish that instead of a mere inquiry into,
perhaps, a secret, it was a wish for half my estate.'
   'Now, King Ahasuerus! What do I want with half your estate? Do
you think I am a Jew-usurer, seeking good investment in land? I
would much rather have all your confidence. You will not exclude me
from your confidence if you admit me to your heart?'
   'You are welcome to all my confidence that is worth having, Jane;
but for God's sake, don't desire a useless burden! Don't long for
poison- don't turn out a downright Eve on my hands!'
   'Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you liked
to be conquered, and how pleasant over-persuasion is to you. Don't you
think I had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and
coax and entreat- even cry and be sulky if necessary- for the sake
of a mere essay of my power?'
   'I dare you to any such experiment. Encroach, presume, and the game
is up.'
   'Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern you look now! Your
eyebrows have become as thick as my finger, and your forehead
resembles what, in some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled, "a
blue-piled thunderloft." That will be your married look, sir, I
suppose?'
   'If that will be your married look, I, as a Christian, will soon
give up the notion of consorting with a mere sprite or salamander. But
what had you to ask, thing,- out with it?'
   'There, you are less than civil now; and I like rudeness a great
deal better than flattery. I had rather be a thing than an angel. This
is what I have to ask,- Why did you take such pains to make me believe
you wished to marry Miss Ingram?'
   'Is that all? Thank God it is no worse!' And now he unknit his
black brows; looked down, smiling at me, and stroked my hair, as if
well pleased at seeing a danger averted. 'I think I may confess,' he
continued, 'even although I should make you a little indignant,
Jane- and I have seen what a fire-spirit you can be when you are
indignant. You glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you
mutinied against fate, and claimed your rank as my equal. Janet, by
the bye, it was you who made me the offer.'
   'Of course I did. But to the point if you please, sir- Miss
Ingram?'
   'Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to
render you as madly in love with me as I was with you; and I knew
jealousy would be the best ally I could call in for the furtherance of
that end.'
   'Excellent! Now you are small- not one whit bigger than the end
of my little finger. It was a burning shame and a scandalous
disgrace to act in that way. Did you think nothing of Miss Ingram's
feelings, sir?'
   'Her feelings are concentrated in one- pride; and that needs
humbling. Were you jealous, Jane?'
   'Never mind, Mr. Rochester: it is in no way interesting to you to
know that. Answer me truly once more. Do you think Miss Ingram will
not suffer from your dishonest coquetry? Won't she feel forsaken and
deserted?'
   'Impossible!- when I told you how she, on the contrary, deserted
me: the idea of my insolvency cooled, or rather extinguished, her
flame in a moment.'
   'You have a curious, designing mind, Mr. Rochester. I am afraid
your principles on some points are eccentric.'
   'My principles were never trained, Jane: they may have grown a
little awry for want of attention.'
   'Once again, seriously; may I enjoy the great good that has been
vouchsafed to me, without fearing that any one else is suffering the
bitter pain I myself felt a while ago?'
   'That you may, my good little girl: there is not another being in
the world has the same pure love for me as yourself- for I lay that
pleasant unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in your affection.'
   I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my shoulder. I loved him
very much- more than I could trust myself to say- more than words
had power to express.
   'Ask something more,' he said presently; 'it is my delight to be
entreated, and to yield.'
   I was again ready with my request. 'Communicate your intentions
to Mrs. Fairfax, sir: she saw me with you last night in the hall,
and she was shocked. Give her some explanation before I see her again.
It pains me to be misjudged by so good a woman.'
   'Go to your room, and put on your bonnet,' he replied. 'I mean
you to accompany me to Millcote this morning; and while you prepare
for the drive, I will enlighten the old lady's understanding. Did
she think, Janet, you had given the world for love, and considered
it well lost?'
   'I believe she thought I had forgotten my station, and yours, sir.'
   'Station! station!- your station is in my heart, and on the necks
of those who would insult you, now or hereafter.- Go.'
   I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs.
Fairfax's parlour, I hurried down to it. The old lady had been reading
her morning portion of Scripture- the Lesson for the day; her Bible
lay open before her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her
occupation, suspended by Mr. Rochester's announcement, seemed now
forgotten: her eyes, fixed on the blank wall opposite, expressed the
surprise of a quiet mind stirred by unwonted tidings. Seeing me, she
roused herself: she made a sort of effort to smile, and framed a few
words of congratulation; but the smile expired, and the sentence was
abandoned unfinished. She put up her spectacles, shut the Bible, and
pushed her chair back from the table.
   'I feel so astonished,' she began, 'I hardly know what to say to
you, Miss Eyre. I have surely not been dreaming, have I? Sometimes I
half fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that have
never happened. It has seemed to me more than once when I have been in
a doze, that my dear husband, who died fifteen years since, has come
in and sat down beside me; and that I have even heard him call me by
my name, Alice, as he used to do. Now, can you tell me whether it is
actually true that Mr. Rochester has asked you to marry him? Don't
laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here five minutes ago,
and said that in a month you would be his wife.'
   'He has said the same thing to me,' I replied.
   'He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?'
   'Yes.'
   She looked at me bewildered.
   'I could never have thought it. He is a proud man: all the
Rochesters were proud: and his father, at least, liked money. He, too,
has always been called careful. He means to marry you?'
   'He tells me so.'
   She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had
there found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma.
   'It passes me!' she continued; 'but no doubt it is true since you
say so. How it will answer, I cannot tell: I really don't know.
Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and
there are twenty years of difference in your ages. He might almost
be your father.'
   'No, indeed, Mrs. Fairfax!' exclaimed I, nettled; 'he is nothing
like my father! No one, who saw us together, would suppose it for an
instant. Mr. Rochester looks as young, and is as young, as some men at
five-and-twenty.'
   'Is it really for love he is going to marry you?' she asked.
   I was so hurt by her coldness and scepticism, that the tears rose
to my eyes.
   'I am sorry to grieve you,' pursued the widow; 'but you are so
young, and so little acquainted with men, I wished to put you on
your guard. It is an old saying that "all is not gold that
glitters"; and in this case I do fear there will be something found to
be different to what either you or I expect.'
   'Why?- am I a monster?' I said: 'is it impossible that Mr.
Rochester should have a sincere affection for me?'
   'No: you are very well; and much improved of late; and Mr.
Rochester, I daresay, is fond of you. I have always noticed that you
were a sort of pet of his. There are times when, for your sake, I have
been a little uneasy at his marked preference, and have wished to
put you on your guard: but I did not like to suggest even the
possibility of wrong. I knew such an idea would shock, perhaps
offend you; and you were so discreet, and so thoroughly modest and
sensible, I hoped you might be trusted to protect yourself. Last night
I cannot tell you what I suffered when I sought all over the house,
and could find you nowhere, nor the master either; and then, at twelve
o'clock, saw you come in with him.'
   'Well, never mind that now,' I interrupted impatiently; 'it is
enough that all was right.'
   'I hope all will be right in the end,' she said: 'but believe me,
you cannot be too careful. Try and keep Mr. Rochester at a distance:
distrust yourself as well as him. Gentlemen in his station are not
accustomed to marry their governesses.'
   I was growing truly irritated: happily, Adele ran in.
   'Let me go,- let me go to Millcote too!' she cried. 'Mr.
Rochester won't: though there is so much room in the new carriage. Beg
him to let me go, mademoiselle.'
   'That I will, Adele'; and I hastened away with her, glad to quit my
gloomy monitress. The carriage was ready: they were bringing it
round to the front, and my master was pacing the pavement, Pilot
following him backwards and forwards.
   'Adele may accompany us, may she not, sir?'
   'I told her no. I'll have no brats!- I'll have only you.'
   'Do let her go, Mr. Rochester, if you please: it would be better.'
   'Not it: she will be a restraint.'
   He was quite peremptory, both in look and voice. The chill of
Mrs. Fairfax's warnings, and the damp of her doubts were upon me:
something of unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes. I
half lost the sense of power over him. I was about mechanically to
obey him, without further remonstrance; but as he helped me into the
carriage, he looked at my face.
   'What is the matter?' he asked; 'all the sunshine is gone. Do you
really wish the bairn to go? Will it annoy you if she is left behind?'
   'I would far rather she went, sir.'
   'Then off for your bonnet, and back like a flash of lightning!'
cried he to Adele.
   She obeyed him with what speed she might.
   'After all, a single morning's interruption will not matter
much,' said he, 'when I mean shortly to claim you- your thoughts,
conversation, and company- for life.'
   Adele, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing
her gratitude for my intercession: she was instantly stowed away
into a corner on the other side of him. She then peeped round to where
I sat; so stern a neighbour was too restrictive; to him, in his
present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask
of him any information.
   'Let her come to me,' I entreated: 'she will, perhaps, trouble you,
sir: there is plenty of room on this side.'
   He handed her over as if she had been a lapdog. 'I'll send her to
school yet,' he said, but now he was smiling.
   Adele heard him, and asked if she was to go to school 'sans
mademoiselle?'
   'Yes,' he replied, 'absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to
take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of
the white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall
live with me there, and only me.'
   'She will have nothing to eat: you will starve her,' observed
Adele.
   'I shall gather manna for her morning and night: the plains and
hillsides in the moon are bleached with manna, Adele.'
   'She will want to warm herself: what will she do for a fire?'
   'Fire rises out of the lunar mountains: when she is cold, I'll
carry her up to a peak, and lay her down on the edge of a crater.'
   'Oh, qu'elle y sera mal- peu comfortable! And her clothes, they
will wear out: how can she get new ones?'
   Mr. Rochester professed to be puzzled. 'Hem!' said he. 'What
would you do, Adele? Cudgel your brains for an expedient. How would
a white or a pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could
cut a pretty enough scarf out of a rainbow.'
   'She is far better as she is,' concluded Adele, after musing some
time: 'besides, she would get tired of living with only you in the
moon. If I were mademoiselle, I would never consent to go with you.'
   'She has consented: she has pledged her word.'
   'But you can't get her there; there is no road to the moon: it is
all air; and neither you nor she can fly.'
   'Adele, look at that field.' We were now outside Thornfield
gates, and bowling lightly along the smooth road to Millcote, where
the dust was well laid by the thunderstorm, and where the low hedges
and lofty timber trees on each side glistened green and
rain-refreshed.
   'In that field, Adele, I was walking late one evening about a
fortnight since- the evening of the day you helped me to make hay in
the orchard meadows; and as I was tired with raking swaths, I sat down
to rest me on a stile; and there I took out a little book and a
pencil, and began to write about a misfortune that befell me long ago,
and a wish I had for happy days to come: I was writing away very fast,
though daylight was fading from the leaf, when something came up the
path and stopped two yards off me. I looked at it. It was a little
thing with a veil of gossamer on its head. I beckoned it to come
near me; it stood soon at my knee. I never spoke to it, and it never
spoke to me, in words; but I read its eyes, and it read mine; and
our speechless colloquy was to this effect-
   'It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said; and its errand
was to make me happy: I must go with it out of the common world to a
lonely place- such as the moon, for instance- and it nodded its head
towards her horn, rising over Hayhill: it told me of the alabaster
cave and silver vale where we might live. I said I should like to
go; but reminded it, as you did me, that I had no wings to fly.
   '"Oh," returned the fairy, "that does not signify! Here is a
talisman will remove all difficulties"; and she held out a pretty gold
ring. "Put it," she said, "on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I
am yours, and you are mine; and we shall leave earth, and make our own
heaven yonder." She nodded again at the moon. The ring, Adele, is in
my breeches-pocket, under the disguise of a sovereign: but I mean soon
to change it to a ring again.'
   'But what has mademoiselle to do with it? I don't care for the
fairy: you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon?'
   'Mademoiselle is a fairy,' he said, whispering mysteriously.
Whereupon I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part,
evinced a fund of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr.
Rochester 'un vrai menteur,' and assuring him that she made no account
whatever of his 'contes de fee,' and that 'du reste, il n'y avait
pas de fees, et quand meme il y en avait': she was sure they would
never appear to him, nor ever give him rings, or offer to live with
him in the moon.
   The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me.
Mr. Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse: there I
was ordered to choose half a dozen dresses. I hated the business, I
begged leave to defer it: no- it should be gone through with now. By
dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I reduced the
half-dozen to two: these, however, he vowed he would select himself.
With anxiety I watched his eye rove over the gay stores: he fixed on a
rich silk of the most brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink satin.
I told him in a new series of whispers, that he might as well buy me a
gold gown and a silver bonnet at once: I should certainly never
venture to wear his choice. With infinite difficulty, for he was
stubborn as a stone, I persuaded him to make an exchange in favour
of a sober black satin and pearl-grey silk. 'It might pass for the
present,' he said; 'but he would yet see me glittering like a
parterre.'
   Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of
a jeweller's shop: the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned
with a sense of annoyance and degradation. As we re-entered the
carriage, and I sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered what, in
the hurry of events, dark and bright, I had wholly forgotten- the
letter of my uncle, John Eyre, to Mrs. Reed: his intention to adopt me
and make me his legatee. 'It would, indeed, be a relief,' I thought,
'if I had ever so small an independency; I never can bear being
dressed like a doll by Mr. Rochester, or sitting like a second Danae
with the golden shower falling daily round me. I will write to Madeira
the moment I get home, and tell my uncle John I am going to be
married, and to whom: if I had but a prospect of one day bringing
Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I could better endure to be
kept by him now.' And somewhat relieved by this idea (which I failed
not to execute that day), I ventured once more to meet my master's and
lover's eye, which most pertinaciously sought mine, though I averted
both face and gaze. He smiled; and I thought his smile was such as a
sultan might, in a blissful and fond moment, bestow on a slave his
gold and gems had enriched: I crushed his hand, which was ever hunting
mine, vigorously, and thrust it back to him red with the passionate
pressure.
   'You need not look in that way,' I said; 'if you do, I'll wear
nothing but my old Lowood frocks to the end of the chapter. I'll be
married in this lilac gingham: you may make a dressing-gown for
yourself out of the pearl-grey silk, and an infinite series of
waistcoats out of the black satin.'
   He chuckled; he rubbed his hands. 'Oh, it is rich to see and hear
her!' he exclaimed. 'Is she original? Is she piquant? I would not
exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk's whole
seraglio, gazelle-eyes, houri forms, and all!'
   The Eastern allusion bit me again. 'I'll not stand you an inch in
the stead of a seraglio,' I said; 'so don't consider me an
equivalent for one. If you have a fancy for anything in that line,
away with you, sir, to the bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and
lay out in extensive slave-purchases some of that spare cash you
seem at a loss to spend satisfactorily here.'
   'And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many
tons of flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?'
   'I'll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach
liberty to them that are enslaved- your harem inmates amongst the
rest. I'll get admitted there, and I'll stir up mutiny; and you,
three-tailed bashaw as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself
fettered amongst our hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your
bonds till you have signed a charter, the most liberal that despot
ever yet conferred.'
   'I would consent to be at your mercy, Jane.'
   'I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if you supplicated for it
with an eye like that. While you looked so, I should be certain that
whatever charter you might grant under coercion, your first act,
when released, would be to violate its conditions.'
   'Why, Jane, what would you have? I fear you will compel me to go
through a private marriage ceremony, besides that performed at the
altar. You will stipulate, I see, for peculiar terms- what will they
be?'
   'I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations.
Do you remember what you said of Celine Varens?- of the diamonds,
the cashmeres you gave her? I will not be your English Celine
Varens. I shall continue to act as Adele's governess; by that I
shall earn my board and lodging, and thirty pounds a year besides.
I'll furnish my own wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give
me nothing but-'
   'Well, but what?'
   'Your regard; and if I give you mine in return, that debt will be
quit.'
   'Well, for cool native impudence and pure innate pride, you haven't
your equal,' said he. We were now approaching Thornfield. 'Will it
please you to dine with me to-day?' he asked, as we re-entered the
gates.
   'No, thank you, sir.'
   'And what for, "no, thank you?" if one may inquire.'
   'I never have dined with you, sir: and I see no reason why I should
now: till-'
   'Till what? You delight in half-phrases.'
   'Till I can't help it.'
   'Do you suppose I eat like an ogre or a ghoul, that you dread being
the companion of my repast?'
   'I have formed no supposition on the subject, sir; but I want to go
on as usual for another month.'
   'You will give up your governessing slavery at once.'
   'Indeed, begging your pardon, sir, I shall not. I shall just go
on with it as usual. I shall keep out of your way all day, as I have
been accustomed to do: you may send for me in the evening, when you
feel disposed to see me, and I'll come then; but at no other time.'
   'I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff, to comfort me under all
this, "pour me donner une contenance," as Adele would say; and
unfortunately I have neither my cigar-case nor my snuff-box. But
listen- whisper. It is your time now, little tyrant, but it will be
mine presently; and when once I have fairly seized you, to have and to
hold, I'll just- figuratively speaking- attach you to a chain like
this' (touching his watch-guard). 'Yes, bonny wee thing, I'll wear you
in my bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne.'
   He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage, and while
he afterwards lifted out Adele, I entered the house, and made good
my retreat upstairs.
   He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had
prepared an occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend
the whole time in a tete-a-tete conversation. I remembered his fine
voice; I knew he liked to sing- good singers generally do. I was no
vocalist myself, and, in his fastidious judgment, no musician, either;
but I delighted in listening when the performance was good. No
sooner had twilight, that hour of romance, began to lower her blue and
starry banner over the lattice, than I rose, opened the piano, and
entreated him, for the love of heaven, to give me a song. He said I
was a capricious witch, and that he would rather sing another time;
but I averred that no time was like the present.
   'Did I like his voice?' he asked.
   'Very much.' I was not fond of pampering that susceptible vanity of
his; but for once, and from motives of expediency, I would e'en soothe
and stimulate it.
   'Then, Jane, you must play the accompaniment.'
   'Very well, sir, I will try.'
   I did try, but was presently swept off the stool and denominated 'a
little bungler.' Being pushed unceremoniously to one side- which was
precisely what I wished- he usurped my place, and proceeded to
accompany himself: for he could play as well as sing. I hied me to the
window-recess. And while I sat there and looked out on the still trees
and dim lawn, to a sweet air was sung in mellow tones the following
strain:-

                'The truest love that ever heart
                  Felt at its kindled core,
                Did through each vein, in quickened start,
                  The tide of being pour.

                Her coming was my hope each day,
                  Her parting was my pain;
                The chance that did her steps delay
                  Was ice in every vein.

                I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,
                  As I loved, loved to be;
                And to this object did I press
                  As blind as eagerly.

                But wide as pathless was the space
                  That lay our lives between,
                And dangerous as the foamy race
                  Of ocean-surges green.

                And haunted as a robber-path
                  Through wilderness or wood;
                For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,
                  Between our spirits stood.

                I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned;
                  I omens did defy:
                Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,
                  I passed impetuous by.

                On sped my rainbow, fast as light;
                  I flew as in a dream;
                For glorious rose upon my sight
                  That child of Shower and Gleam.

                Still bright on clouds of suffering dim
                  Shines that soft, solemn joy;
                Nor care I now, how dense and grim
                  Disasters gather nigh.

                I care not in this moment sweet,
                  Though all I have rushed o'er
                Should come on pinion, strong and fleet,
                  Proclaiming vengeance sore:

                Though haughty Hate should strike me down,
                  Right, bar approach to me,
                And grinding Might, with furious frown,
                  Swear endless enmity.

                My love has placed her little hand
                  With noble faith in mine,
                And vowed that wedlock's sacred band
                  Our nature shall entwine.

                My love has sworn, with sealing kiss,
                  With me to live- to die;
                I have at last my nameless bliss:
                  As I love- loved am I!'

   He rose and came towards me, and I saw his face all kindled, and
his full falcon-eye flashing, and tenderness and passion in every
lineament. I quailed momentarily- then I rallied. Soft scene, daring
demonstration, I would not have; and I stood in peril of both: a
weapon of defence must be prepared- I whetted my tongue: as he reached
me, I asked with asperity, 'whom he was going to marry now?'
   'That was a strange question to be put by his darling Jane.'
   'Indeed! I considered it a very natural and necessary one: he had
talked of his future wife dying with him. What did he mean by such a
pagan idea? I had no intention of dying with him- he might depend on
that.'
   'Oh, all he longed, all he prayed for, was that I might live with
him! Death was not for such as I.'
   'Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as
he had: but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a
suttee.'
   'Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a
reconciling kiss?'
   'No: I would rather be excused.'
   Here I heard myself apostrophised as a 'hard little thing'; and
it was added, 'any other woman would have been melted to marrow at
hearing such stanzas crooned in her praise.'
   I assured him I was naturally hard- very flinty, and that he
would often find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show
him divers rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks
elapsed: he should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made,
while there was yet time to rescind it.
   'Would I be quiet and talk rationally?'
   'I would be quiet if he liked, and as to talking rationally, I
flattered myself I was doing that now.'
   He fretted, pished, and pshawed. 'Very good,' I thought; 'you may
fume and fidget as you please: but this is the best plan to pursue
with you, I am certain. I like you more than I can say; but I'll not
sink into a bathos of sentiment: and with this needle of repartee I'll
keep you from the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover, maintain by its
pungent aid that distance between you and myself most conducive to our
real mutual advantage.'
   From less to more, I worked him up to considerable irritation;
then, after he had retired, in dudgeon, quite to the other end of
the room, I got up, and saying, 'I wish you good-night, sir,' in my
natural and wonted respectful manner, I slipped out by the side-door
and got away.
   The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of
probation; and with the best success. He was kept, to be sure,
rather cross and crusty; but on the whole I could see he was
excellently entertained, and that a lamb-like submission and
turtle-dove sensibility, while fostering his despotism more, would
have pleased his judgment, satisfied his common sense, and even suited
his taste less.
   In other people's presence I was, as formerly, deferential and
quiet; any other line of conduct being uncalled for: it was only in
the evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him. He
continued to send for me punctually the moment the clock struck seven;
though when I appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as
'love' and 'darling' on his lips: the best words at my service were
'provoking puppet,' 'malicious elf,' 'sprite,' 'changeling,' etc.
For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a
pinch on the arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the
ear. It was all right: at present I decidedly preferred these fierce
favours to anything more tender. Mrs. Fairfax, I saw, approved me: her
anxiety on my account vanished; therefore I was certain I did well.
Meantime, Mr. Rochester affirmed I was wearing him to skin and bone,
and threatened awful vengeance for my present conduct at some period
fast coming. I laughed in my sleeve at his menaces. 'I can keep you in
reasonable check now,' I reflected; 'and I don't doubt to be able to
do it hereafter: if one expedient loses its virtue, another must be
devised.'
   Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather
have pleased than teased him. My future husband was becoming to me
my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven.
He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse
intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those
days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.
                         CHAPTER XXV

   THE month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being
numbered. There was no putting off the day that advanced- the bridal
day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. I, at
least, had nothing more to do: there were my trunks, packed, locked,
corded, ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber;
to-morrow, at this time, they would be far on their road to London:
and so should I (D.V.),- or rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a
person whom as yet I knew not. The cards of address alone remained
to nail on: they lay, four little squares, in the drawer. Mr.
Rochester had himself written the direction, 'Mrs. Rochester,-
Hotel, London,' on each: I could not persuade myself to affix them, or
to have them affixed. Mrs. Rochester! She did not exist: she would not
be born till to-morrow, some time after eight o'clock A.M.; and I
would wait to be assured she had come into the world alive before I
assigned to her all that property. It was enough that in yonder
closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had
already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for
not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the pearl-coloured
robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped portmanteau. I shut
the closet to conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained;
which, at this evening hour- nine o'clock- gave out certainly a most
ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment. 'I will leave
you by yourself, white dream,' I said. 'I am feverish: I hear the wind
blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it.'
   It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not
only the anticipation of the great change- the new life which was to
commence to-morrow: both these circumstances had their share,
doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me
forth at this late hour into the darkening grounds: but a third
cause influenced my mind more than they.
   I had at heart a strange and anxious thought. Something had
happened which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen
the event but myself: it had taken place the preceding night. Mr.
Rochester that night was absent from home; nor was he yet returned:
business had called him to a small estate of two or three farms he
possessed thirty miles off- business it was requisite he should settle
in person, previous to his meditated departure from England. I
waited now his return; eager to disburthen my mind, and to seek of him
the solution of the enigma that perplexed me. Stay till he comes,
reader: and, when I disclose my secret to him, you shall share the
confidence.
   I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which
all day had blown strong and full from the south, without, however,
bringing a speck of rain. Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it
seemed to augment its rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew
steadfastly one way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back
their boughs once in an hour; so continuous was the strain bending
their branchy heads northward- the clouds drifted from pole to pole,
fast following, mass on mass: no glimpse of blue sky had been
visible that July day.
   It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind,
delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent
thundering through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the
wreck of the chestnut-tree; it stood up black and riven: the trunk,
split down the centre, gaped ghastly. The cloven halves were not
broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them
unsundered below; though community of vitality was destroyed- the
sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead, and
next winter's tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth:
as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree- a ruin, but an
entire ruin.
   'You did right to hold fast to each other,' I said: as if the
monster-splinters were living things, and could hear me. 'I think,
scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a
little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the
faithful, honest roots: you will never have green leaves more- never
more see birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time
of pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate:
each of you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay.' As I
looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the
sky which filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half
overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and
buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind
fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and
water, poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and
I ran off again.
   Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathered up the
apples with which the grass round the tree roots was thickly strewn;
then I employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe; I carried
them into the house and put them away in the storeroom. Then I
repaired to the library to ascertain whether the fire was lit, for,
though summer, I knew on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would
like to see a cheerful hearth when he came in: yes, the fire had
been kindled some time, and burnt well. I placed his arm-chair by
the chimney-corner: I wheeled the table near it: I let down the
curtain, and had the candles brought in ready for lighting. More
restless than ever, when I had completed these arrangements I could
not sit still, nor even remain in the house: a little timepiece in the
room and the old clock in the hall simultaneously struck ten.
   'How late it grows!' I said. 'I will run down to the gates: it is
moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on the road. He may be
coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense.'
   The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the
gates; but the road as far as I could see, to the right hand and the
left, was all still and solitary: save for the shadows of clouds
crossing it at intervals as the moon looked out, it was a long pale
line, unvaried by one moving speck.
   A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked- a tear of
disappointment and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away. I
lingered; the moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew
close her curtain of dense cloud: the night grew dark; rain came
driving fast on the gale.
   'I wish he would come! I wish he would come!' I exclaimed, seized
with hypochondriac foreboding. I had expected his arrival before
tea; now it was dark: what could keep him? Had an accident happened?
The event of last night again recurred to me. I interpreted it as a
warning of disaster. I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised;
and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune
had passed its meridian, and must now decline.
   'Well, I cannot return to the house,' I thought; 'I cannot sit by
the fireside, while he is abroad in inclement weather: better tire
my limbs than strain my heart; I will go forward and meet him.'
   I set out; I walked fast, but not far: ere I had measured a quarter
of a mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs; a horseman came on, full
gallop; a dog ran by his side. Away with evil presentiment! It was he:
here he was, mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot. He saw me; for the
moon had opened a blue field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright:
he took his hat off, and waved it round his head. I now ran to meet
him.
   'There!' he exclaimed, as he stretched out his hand and bent from
the saddle: 'you can't do without me, that is evident. Step on my
boot-toe; give me both hands: mount!'
   I obeyed: joy made me agile: I sprang up before him. A hearty
kissing I got for a welcome, and some boastful triumph, which I
swallowed as well as I could. He checked himself in his exultation
to demand, 'But is there anything the matter, Janet, that you come
to meet me at such an hour? Is there anything wrong?'
   'No, but I thought you would never come. I could not bear to wait
in the house for you, especially with this rain and wind.'
   'Rain and wind, indeed! Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid;
pull my cloak round you: but I think you are feverish, Jane: both your
cheek and hand are burning hot. I ask again, is there anything the
matter?'
   'Nothing now; I am neither afraid nor unhappy.'
   'Then you have been both?'
   'Rather: but I'll tell you all about it by and by, sir; and I
daresay you will only laugh at me for my pains.'
   'I'll laugh at you heartily when to-morrow is past; till then I
dare not: my prize is not certain. This is you, who have been as
slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose? I
could not lay a finger anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to
have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms. You wandered out of the fold
to seek your shepherd, did you, Jane?'
   'I wanted you: but don't boast. Here we are at Thornfield: now
let me get down.'
   He landed me on the pavement. As John took his horse, and he
followed me into the hall, he told me to make haste and put
something dry on, and then return to him in the library; and he
stopped me, as I made for the staircase, to extort a promise that I
would not be long: nor was I long; in five minutes I rejoined him. I
found him at supper.
   'Take a seat and bear me company, Jane: please God, it is the
last meal but one you will eat at Thornfield Hall for a long time.'
   I sat down near him, but told him I could not eat.
   'Is it because you have the prospect of a journey before you, Jane?
Is it the thoughts of going to London that takes away your appetite?'
   'I cannot see my prospects clearly to-night, sir; and I hardly know
what thoughts I have in my head. Everything in life seems unreal.'
   'Except me: I am substantial enough- touch me.'
   'You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream.'
   He held out his hand, laughing. 'Is that a dream?' said he, placing
it close to my eyes. He had a rounded, muscular, and vigorous hand, as
well as a long, strong arm.
   'Yes; though I touch it, it is a dream,' said I, as I put it down
from before my face. 'Sir, have you finished supper?'
   'Yes, Jane.'
   I rang the bell and ordered away the tray. When we were again
alone, I stirred the fire, and then took a low seat at my master's
knee.
   'It is near midnight,' I said.
   'Yes: but remember, Jane, you promised to wake with me the night
before my wedding.'
   'I did; and I will keep my promise, for an hour or two at least:
I have no wish to go to bed.'
   'Are all your arrangements complete?'
   'All, sir.'
   'And on my part likewise,' he returned, 'I have settled everything;
and we shall leave Thornfield to-morrow, within half an hour after our
return from church.'
   'Very well, sir.'
   'With what an extraordinary smile you uttered that word- "very
well," Jane! What a bright spot of colour you have on each cheek!
and how strangely your eyes glitter! Are you well?'
   'I believe I am.'
   'Believe! What is the matter? Tell me what you feel.'
   'I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this
present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next day
may come charged?'
   'This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over-excited, or
over-fatigued.'
   'Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?'
   'Calm?- no: but happy- to the heart's core.'
   I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was
ardent and flushed.
   'Give me your confidence, Jane,' he said: 'relieve your mind of any
weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear?-
that I shall not prove a good husband?'
   'It is the idea farthest from my thoughts.'
   'Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?- of
the new life into which you are passing?'
   'No.'
   'You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity
perplex and pain me. I want an explanation.'
   'Then, sir, listen. You were from home last night?'
   'I was: I know that; and you hinted a while ago at something
which had happened in my absence:- nothing, probably, of
consequence; but, in short, it has disturbed you. Let me hear it. Mrs.
Fairfax has said something, perhaps? or you have overheard the
servants talk?- your sensitive self-respect has been wounded?'
   'No, sir.' It struck twelve- I waited till the timepiece had
concluded its silver chime, and the clock its hoarse, vibrating
stroke, and then I proceeded.
   'All day yesterday I was very busy, and very happy in my
ceaseless bustle; for I am not, as you seem to think, troubled by
any haunting fears about the new sphere, et cetera: I think it a
glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, because I love
you. No, sir, don't caress me now- let me talk undisturbed.
Yesterday I trusted well in Providence, and believed that events
were working together for your good and mine: it was a fine day, if
you recollect- the calmness of the air and sky forbade apprehensions
respecting your safety or comfort on your journey. I walked a little
while on the pavement after tea, thinking of you; and I beheld you
in imagination so near me, I scarcely missed your actual presence. I
thought of the life that lay before me- your life, sir- an existence
more expansive and stirring than my own: as much more so as the depths
of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows of its own
strait channel. I wondered why moralists call this world a dreary
wilderness: for me it blossomed like a rose. Just at sunset, the air
turned cold and the sky cloudy: I went in, Sophie called me upstairs
to look at my wedding-dress, which they had just brought; and under it
in the box I found your present- the veil which, in your princely
extravagance, you sent for from London: resolved, I suppose, since I
would not have jewels, to cheat me into accepting something as costly.
I smiled as I unfolded it, and devised how I would tease you about
your aristocratic tastes, and your efforts to masque your plebeian
bride in the attributes of a peeress. I thought how I would carry down
to you the square of unembroidered blond I had myself prepared as a
covering for my low-born head, and ask if that was not good enough for
a woman who could bring her husband neither fortune, beauty, nor
connections. I saw plainly how you would look; and heard your
impetuous republican answers, and your haughty disavowal of any
necessity on your part to augment your wealth, or elevate your
standing, by marrying either a purse or a coronet.'
   'How well you read me, you witch!' interposed Mr. Rochester: 'but
what did you find in the veil besides its embroidery? Did you find
poison, or a dagger, that you look so mournful now?'
   'No, no, sir; besides the delicacy and richness of the fabric, I
found nothing save Fairfax Rochester's pride; and that did not scare
me, because I am used to the sight of the demon. But, sir, as it
grew dark, the wind rose: it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows
now- wild and high- but "with a sullen, moaning sound" far more eerie.
I wished you were at home. I came into this room, and the sight of the
empty chair and fireless hearth chilled me. For some time after I went
to bed, I could not sleep- a sense of anxious excitement distressed
me. The gale still rising, seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful
under-sound; whether in the house or abroad I could not at first tell,
but it recurred, doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made
out it must be some dog howling at a distance. I was glad when it
ceased. On sleeping, I continued in dreams the idea of a dark and
gusty night. I continued also the wish to be with you, and experienced
a strange, regretful consciousness of some barrier dividing us. During
all my first sleep, I was following the windings of an unknown road;
total obscurity environed me; rain pelted me; I was burdened with
the charge of a little child: a very small creature, too young and
feeble to walk, and which shivered in my cold arms, and wailed
piteously in my ear. I thought, sir, that you were on the road a
long way before me; and I strained every nerve to overtake you, and
made effort on effort to utter your name and entreat you to stop-
but my movements were fettered, and my voice still died away
inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew farther and farther every
moment.'
   'And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am
close to you? Little nervous subject! Forget visionary woe, and
think only of real happiness! You say you love me, Janet: yes- I
will not forget that; and you cannot deny it. Those words did not
die inarticulate on your lips. I heard them clear and soft: a
thought too solemn perhaps, but sweet as music- "I think it is a
glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, Edward, because
I love you." Do you love me, Jane?- repeat it.'
   'I do, sir- I do, with my whole heart.'
   'Well,' he said, after some minutes' silence, 'it is strange; but
that sentence has penetrated my breast painfully. Why? I think because
you said it with such an earnest, religious energy, and because your
upward gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and
devotion: it is too much as if some spirit were near me. Look
wicked, Jane: as you know well how to look: coin one of your wild,
shy, provoking smiles, tell me you hate me- tease me, vex me; do
anything but move me: I would rather be incensed than saddened.'
   'I will tease you and vex you to your heart's content, when I
have finished my tale: but hear me to the end.'
   'I thought, Jane, you had told me all. I thought I had found the
source of your melancholy in a dream.'
   I shook my head. 'What! is there more? But I will not believe it to
be anything important. I warn you of incredulity beforehand. Go on.'
   The disquietude of his air, the somewhat apprehensive impatience of
his manner, surprised me: but I proceeded.
   'I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary
ruin, the retreat of bats and owls. I thought that of all the
stately front nothing remained but a shell-like wall, very high and
very fragile-looking. I wandered, on a moonlight night, through the
grass-grown enclosure within: here I stumbled over a marble hearth,
and there over a fallen fragment of cornice. Wrapped up in a shawl,
I still carried the unknown little child: I might not lay it down
anywhere, however tired were my arms- however much its weight
impeded my progress, I must retain it. I heard the gallop of a horse
at a distance on the road; I was sure it was you; and you were
departing for many years and for a distant country. I climbed the thin
wall with frantic perilous haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you
from the top: the stones rolled from under my feet, the ivy branches I
grasped gave way, the child clung round my neck in terror, and
almost strangled me; at last I gained the summit. I saw you like a
speck on a white track, lessening every moment. The blast blew so
strong I could not stand. I sat down on the narrow ledge; I hushed the
scared infant in my lap: you turned an angle of the road: I bent
forward to take a last look; the wall crumbled; I was shaken; the
child rolled from my knee, I lost my balance, fell, and woke.'
   'Now, Jane, that is all.'
   'All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come. On waking, a
gleam dazzled my eyes; I thought- Oh, it is daylight! But I was
mistaken; it was only candlelight. Sophie, I supposed, had come in.
There was a light in the dressing-table, and the door of the closet,
where, before going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil,
stood open; I heard a rustling there. I asked, "Sophie, what are you
doing?" No one answered; but a form emerged from the closet; it took
the light, held it aloft, and surveyed the garments pendent from the
portmanteau. "Sophie! Sophie!" I again cried: and still it was silent.
I had risen up in bed, I bent forward: first surprise, then
bewilderment, came over me; and then my blood crept cold through my
veins. Mr. Rochester, this was not Sophie, it was not Leah, it was not
Mrs. Fairfax: it was not- no, I was sure of it, and am still- it was
not even that strange woman, Grace Poole.'
   'It must have been one of them,' interrupted my master.
   'No, sir, I solemnly assure you to the contrary. The shape standing
before me had never crossed my eyes within the precincts of Thornfield
Hall before; the height, the contour were new to me.'
   'Describe it, Jane.'
   'It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark
hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on:
it was white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I
cannot tell.'
   'Did you see her face?'
   'Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place; she
held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head,
and turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the
visage and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass.'
   'And how were they?'
   'Fearful and ghastly to me- oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It
was a discoloured face- it was a savage face. I wish I could forget
the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the
lineaments!'
   'Ghosts are usually pale, Jane.'
   'This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow
furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes.
Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?'
   'You may.'
   'Of the foul German spectre- the Vampyre.'
   'Ah!- what did it do?'
   'Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts,
and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them.'
   'Afterwards?'
   'It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw
dawn approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door.
Just at my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon me-
she thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under
my eyes. I was aware her lurid visage flamed over mine, and I lost
consciousness: for the second time in my life- only the second time- I
became insensible from terror.'
   'Who was with you when you revived?'
   'No one, sir, but the broad day. I rose, bathed my head and face in
water, drank a long draught; felt that though enfeebled I was not ill,
and determined that to none but you would I impart this vision. Now
sir, tell me who and what that woman was?'
   'The creature of an over-stimulated brain; that is certain. I
must be careful of you, my treasure: nerves like yours were not made
for rough handling.'
   'Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in fault; the thing was
real: the transaction actually took place.'
   'And your previous dreams, were they real too? Is Thornfield Hall a
ruin? Am I severed from you by insuperable obstacles? Am I leaving you
without a tear- without a kiss- without a word?'
   'Not yet.'
   'Am I about to do it? Why, the day is already commenced which is to
bind us indissolubly; and when we are once united, there shall be no
recurrence of these mental terrors: I guarantee that.'
   'Mental terrors, sir! I wish I could believe them to be only
such: I wish it more now than ever; since even you cannot explain to
me the mystery of that awful visitant.'
   'And since I cannot do it, Jane, it must have been unreal.'
   'But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and
when I looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the
cheerful aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there- on
the carpet- I saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis,- the
veil, torn from top to bottom in two halves!'
   I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder; he hastily flung his arms
round me. 'Thank God!' he exclaimed, 'that if anything malignant did
come near you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed. Oh, to
think what might have happened!'
   He drew his breath short, and strained me so close to him, I
could scarcely pant. After some minutes' silence, he continued,
cheerily-
   'Now, Janet, I'll explain to you all about it. It was half dream,
half reality. A woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that
woman was- must have been- Grace Poole. You call her a strange being
yourself: from all you know, you have reason so to call her- what
did she do to me? what to Mason? In a state between sleeping and
waking, you noticed her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost
delirious as you were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance
different from her own: the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black
face, the exaggerated stature, were figments of imagination; results
of nightmare: the spiteful tearing of the veil was real: and it is
like her. I see you would ask why I keep such a woman in my house:
when we have been married a year and a day, I will tell you; but not
now. Are you satisfied, Jane? Do you accept my solution of the
mystery?'
   I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me the only possible
one: satisfied I was not, but to please him I endeavoured to appear
so- relieved, I certainly did feel; so I answered him with a contented
smile. And now, as it was long past one, I prepared to leave him.
   'Does not Sophie sleep with Adele in the nursery?' he asked, as I
lit my candle.
   'Yes, sir.'
   'And there is room enough in Adele's little bed for you. You must
share it with her to-night, Jane: it is no wonder that the incident
you have related should make you nervous, and I would rather you did
not sleep alone: promise me to go to the nursery.'
   'I shall be very glad to do so, sir.'
   'And fasten the door securely on the inside. Wake Sophie when you
go upstairs, under pretence of requesting her to rouse you in good
time to-morrow; for you must be dressed and have finished breakfast
before eight. And now, no more sombre thoughts: chase dull care
away, Janet. Don't you hear to what soft whispers the wind has fallen?
and there is no more beating of rain against the window-panes: look
here' (he lifted up the curtain)- 'it is a lovely night!'
   It was. Half heaven was pure and stainless: the clouds, now
trooping before the wind, which had shifted to the west, were filing
off eastward in long, silvered columns. The moon shone peacefully.
   'Well,' said Mr. Rochester, gazing inquiringly into my eyes, 'how
is my Janet now?'
   'The night is serene, sir; and so am I.'
   'And you will not dream of separation and sorrow to-night; but of
happy love and blissful union.'
   This prediction was but half fulfilled: I did not indeed dream of
sorrow, but as little did I dream of joy; for I never slept at all.
With little Adele in my arms, I watched the slumber of childhood- so
tranquil, so passionless, so innocent- and waited for the coming
day: all my life was awake and astir in my frame: and as soon as the
sun rose I rose too. I remember Adele clung to me as I left her: I
remember I kissed her as I loosened her little hands from my neck; and
I cried over her with strange emotion, and quitted her because I
feared my sobs would break her still sound repose. She seemed the
emblem of my past life; and he I was now to array myself to meet,
the dread, but adored, type of my unknown future day.
                         CHAPTER XXVI

   SOPHIE came at seven to dress me: she was very long indeed in
accomplishing her task; so long that Mr. Rochester, grown, I
suppose, impatient of my delay, sent up to ask why I did not come. She
was just fastening my veil (the plain square of blond after all) to my
hair with a brooch; I hurried from under her hands as soon as I could.
   'Stop!' she cried in French. 'Look at yourself in the mirror: you
have not taken one peep.'
   So I turned at the door: I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike
my usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger. 'Jane!'
called a voice, and I hastened down. I was received at the foot of the
stairs by Mr. Rochester.
   'Lingerer!' he said, 'my brain is on fire with impatience, and
you tarry so long!'
   He took me into the dining-room, surveyed me keenly all over,
pronounced me 'fair as a lily, and not only the pride of his life, but
the desire of his eyes,' and then telling me he would give me but
ten minutes to eat some breakfast, he rang the bell. One of his lately
hired servants, a footman, answered it.
   'Is John getting the carriage ready?'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'Is the luggage brought down?'
   'They are bringing it down, sir.'
   'Go you to the church: see if Mr. Wood (the clergyman) and the
clerk are there: return and tell me.'
   The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates; the
footman soon returned.
   'Mr. Wood is in the vestry, sir, putting on his surplice.'
   'And the carriage?'
   'The horses are harnessing.'
   'We shall not want it to go to church; but it must be ready the
moment we return: all the boxes and luggage arranged and strapped
on, and the coachman in his seat.'
   'Yes, sir.'
   'Jane, are you ready?'
   I rose. There were no groomsmen, no bridesmaids, no relatives to
wait for or marshal: none but Mr. Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax
stood in the hall as we passed. I would fain have spoken to her, but
my hand was held by a grasp of iron: I was hurried along by a stride I
could hardly follow; and to look at Mr. Rochester's face was to feel
that not a second of delay would be tolerated for any purpose. I
wonder what other bridegroom ever looked as he did- so bent up to a
purpose, so grimly resolute: or who, under such steadfast brows,
ever revealed such flaming and flashing eyes.
   I know not whether the day was fair or foul; in descending the
drive, I gazed neither on sky nor earth: my heart was with my eyes;
and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester's frame. I wanted to see
the invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to
fasten a glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose
force he seemed breasting and resisting.
   At the churchyard wicket he stopped: he discovered I was quite
out of breath. 'Am I cruel in my love?' he said. 'Delay an instant:
lean on me, Jane.'
   And now I can recall the picture of the grey old house of God
rising calm before me, of a rook wheeling round the steeple, of a
ruddy morning sky beyond. I remember something, too, of the green
grave-mounds; and I have not forgotten, either, two figures of
strangers straying amongst the low hillocks and reading the
mementoes graven on the few mossy head-stones. I noticed them,
because, as they saw us, they passed round to the back of the
church; and I doubted not they were going to enter by the side-aisle
door and witness the ceremony. By Mr. Rochester they were not
observed; he was earnestly looking at my face, from which the blood
had, I daresay, momentarily fled: for I felt my forehead dewy, and
my cheeks and lips cold. When I rallied, which I soon did, he walked
gently with me up the path to the porch.
   We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his
white surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was
still: two shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had
been correct: the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now
stood by the vault of the Rochesters, their backs towards us,
viewing through the rails the old times-stained marble tomb, where a
kneeling angel guarded the remains of Damer de Rochester, slain at
Marston Moor in the time of the civil wars, and of Elizabeth, his
wife.
   Our place was taken at the communion rails. Hearing a cautious step
behind me, I glanced over my shoulder: one of the strangers- a
gentleman, evidently- was advancing up the chancel. The service began.
The explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and
then the clergyman came a step farther forward, and, bending
slightly towards Mr. Rochester, went on.
   'I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful
day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed),
that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be
joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well
assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's Word
doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony
lawful.'
   He paused, as the custom is. When is the pause after that
sentence ever broken by reply? Not, perhaps, once in a hundred
years. And the clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his book,
and had held his breath but for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was
already stretched towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to
ask, 'Wilt thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?-' when a distinct
and near voice said-
   'The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an
impediment.'
   The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk
did the same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had
rolled under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his
head or eyes, he said, 'Proceed.'
   Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep
but low intonation. Presently Mr. Wood said-
   'I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been
asserted, and evidence of its truth or falsehood.'
   'The ceremony is quite broken off,' subjoined the voice behind
us. 'I am in a condition to prove my allegation: an insuperable
impediment to this marriage exists.'
   Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid,
making no movement but to possess himself of my hand. What a hot and
strong grasp he had! and how like quarried marble was his pale,
firm, massive front at this moment! How his eye shone, still watchful,
and yet wild beneath!
   Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. 'What is the nature of the
impediment?' he asked. 'Perhaps it may be got over- explained away?'
   'Hardly,' was the answer. 'I have called it insuperable, and I
speak advisedly.'
   The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued,
uttering each word distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly-
   'It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr.
Rochester has a wife now living.'
   My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never
vibrated to thunder- my blood felt their subtle violence as it had
never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of
swooning. I looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His
whole face was colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He
disavowed nothing: he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without
speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a
human being, he only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to
his side.
   'Who are you?' he asked of the intruder.
   'And you would thrust on me a wife?'
   'I would remind you of your lady's existence, sir, which the law
recognises, if you do not.'
   'Favour me with an account of her- with her name, her parentage,
her place of abode.'
   'Certainly.' Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and
read out in a sort of official, nasal voice:-
date of fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield
England, was married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter
of Jonas Mason, merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at-
church, Spanish Town, Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be
found in the register of that church- a copy of it is now in my
possession. Signed, Richard Mason."'
   'That- if a genuine document- may prove I have been married, but it
does not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still
living.'
   'She was living three months ago,' returned the lawyer.
   'How do you know?'
   'I have a witness to the fact, whose testimony even you, sir,
will scarcely controvert.'
   'Produce him- or go to hell.'
   'I will produce him first- he is on the spot. Mr. Mason, have the
goodness to step forward.'
   Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he
experienced, too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I
was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through
his frame. The second stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the
background, now drew near; a pale face looked over the solicitor's
shoulder- yes, it was Mason himself. Mr. Rochester turned and glared
at him. His eye, as I have often said, was a black eye: it had now a
tawny, nay, a bloody light in its gloom; and his face flushed- olive
cheek and hueless forehead received a glow as from spreading,
ascending heart-fire: and he stirred, lifted his strong arm- he
could have struck Mason, dashed him on the church-floor, shocked by
ruthless blow the breath from his body- but Mason shrank away and
cried faintly, 'Good God!' Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester- his
passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he only asked- 'What
have you to say?'
   An inaudible reply escaped Mason's white lips.
   'The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again
demand, what have you to say?'
   'Sir- sir,' interrupted the clergyman, 'do not forget you are in
a sacred place.' Then addressing Mason, he inquired gently, 'Are you
aware, sir, whether or not this gentleman's wife is still living?'
   'Courage,' urged the lawyer,- 'speak out.'
   'She is now living at Thornfield Hall,' said Mason, in more
articulate tones: 'I saw her there last April. I am her brother.'
   'At Thornfield Hall!' ejaculated the clergyman. 'Impossible! I am
an old resident in this neighbourhood, sir, and I never heard of a
Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield Hall.'
   I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester's lips, and he muttered-
   'No, by God! I took care that none should hear of it- or of her
under that name.' He mused- for ten minutes he held counsel with
himself: he formed his resolve, and announced it-
   'Enough! all shall bolt out at once, like the bullet from the
barrel. Wood, close your book and take off your surplice; John Green
(to the clerk), leave the church: there will be no wedding to-day.'
The man obeyed.
   Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: 'Bigamy is an ugly
word!- I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out-manoeuvred
me, or Providence has checked me,- perhaps the last. I am little
better than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell
me, deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God, even to the
quenchless fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen, my plan is broken
up:- what this lawyer and his client say is true: I have been married,
and the woman to whom I was married lives! You say you never heard
of a Mrs. Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood; but I daresay you
have many a time inclined your ear to gossip about the mysterious
lunatic kept there under watch and ward. Some have whispered to you
that she is my bastard half-sister: some, my cast-off mistress. I
now inform you that she is my wife, whom I married fifteen years ago,-
Bertha Mason by name; sister of this resolute personage, who is now,
with his quivering limbs and white cheeks, showing you what a stout
heart men may bear. Cheer up, Dick!- never fear me!- I'd almost as
soon strike a woman as you. Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad
family; idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her mother,
the Creole, was both a mad-woman and a drunkard!- as I found out after
I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before.
Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points. I
had a charming partner- pure, wise, modest: you can fancy I was a
happy man. I went through rich scenes! Oh! my experience has been
heavenly, if you only knew it! But I owe you no further explanation.
Briggs, Wood, Mason, I invite you all to come up to the house and
visit Mrs. Poole's patient, and my wife! You shall see what sort of
a being I was cheated into espousing, and judge whether or not I had a
right to break the compact, and seek sympathy with something at
least human. This girl,' he continued, looking at me, 'knew no more
than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret: she thought all was fair and
legal, and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into a feigned
union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and
embruted partner! Come all of you- follow!'
   Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came
after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage.
   'Take it back to the coach-house, John,' said Mr. Rochester coolly:
'it will not be wanted to-day.'
   At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adele, Sophie, Leah, advanced to
meet and greet us.
   'To the right-about- every soul!' cried the master; 'away with your
congratulations! Who wants them? Not I!- they are fifteen years too
late!'
   He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, and
still beckoning the gentlemen to follow him, which they did. We
mounted the first staircase, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the
third storey: the low, black door, opened by Mr. Rochester's
master-key, admitted us to the tapestried room, with its great bed and
its pictorial cabinet.
   'You know this place, Mason,' said our guide; 'she bit and
stabbed you here.'
   He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door:
this, too, he opened. In a room without a window, there burnt a fire
guarded by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the
ceiling by a chain. Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently cooking
something in a saucepan. In the deep shade, at the farther end of
the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether
beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it
grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like
some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a
quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and
face.
   'Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole!' said Mr. Rochester. 'How are you? and
how is your charge to-day?'
   'We're tolerable, sir, I thank you,' replied Grace, lifting the
boiling mess carefully on to the hob: 'rather snappish, but not
'rageous.'
   A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report: the
clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet.
   'Ah! sir, she sees you!' exclaimed Grace: 'you'd better not stay.'
   'Only a few moments, Grace: you must allow me a few moments.'
   'Take care then, sir!- for God's sake, take care!'
   The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage,
and gazed wildly at her visitors. I recognised well that purple face,-
those bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced.
   'Keep out of the way,' said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside:
'she has no knife now, I suppose, and I'm on my guard!'
   'One never knows what she has, sir: she is so cunning: it is not in
mortal discretion to fathom her craft.'
   'We had better leave her,' whispered Mason.
   'Go to the devil!' was his brother-in-law's recommendation.
   ''Ware!' cried Grace. The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously.
Mr. Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled his
throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled. She
was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and
corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the contest- more than
once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have
settled her with a well-planted blow: but he would not strike: he
would only wrestle. At last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him
a cord, and he pinioned them behind her: with more rope, which was
at hand, he bound her to a chair. The operation was performed amidst
the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then
turned to the spectators: he looked at them with a smile both acrid
and desolate.
   'That is my wife,' said he. 'Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am
ever to know- such are the endearments which are to solace my
leisure hours! And this is what I wished to have' (laying his hand
on my shoulder): 'this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at
the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon. I
wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs,
look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls
yonder- this face with that mask- this form with that bulk; then judge
me, priest of the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what
judgment ye judge ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up
my prize.'
   We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a moment behind us, to give
some further order to Grace Poole. The solicitor addressed me as he
descended the stair.
   'You, madam,' said he, 'are cleared from all blame: your uncle will
be glad to hear it- if, indeed, he should be still living- when Mr.
Mason returns to Madeira.'
   'My uncle! What of him? Do you know him?'
   'Mr. Mason does. Mr. Eyre has been the Funchal correspondent of his
house for some years. When your uncle received your letter
intimating the contemplated union between yourself and Mr.
Rochester, Mr. Mason, who was staying at Madeira to recruit his
health, on his way back to Jamaica, happened to be with him. Mr.
Eyre mentioned the intelligence; for he knew that my client here was
acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Rochester. Mr. Mason,
astonished and distressed as you may suppose, revealed the real
state of matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to say, is now on a sick-bed;
from which, considering the nature of his disease- decline- and the
stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will ever rise. He could not
then hasten to England himself, to extricate you from the snare into
which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason to lose no time in
taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He referred him to me
for assistance. I used all despatch, and am thankful I was not too
late: as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I not morally certain that
your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would advise you to
accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I think you had better
remain in England till you can hear further, either from or of Mr.
Eyre. Have we anything else to stay for?' he inquired of Mr. Mason.
   'No, no- let us be gone,' was the anxious reply; and without
waiting to take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the
hall door. The clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of
admonition or reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done,
he too departed.
   I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room,
to which I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in,
fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded- not to weep,
not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but- mechanically to take
off the wedding-dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn
yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt
weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on
them. And now I thought: till now I had only heard, seen, moved-
followed up and down where I was led or dragged- watched event rush on
event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but now, I thought.
   The morning had been a quiet morning enough- all except the brief
scene with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been
noisy; there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no
dispute, no defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words
had been spoken, a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage made;
some stern, short questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers,
explanations given, evidence adduced; an open admission of the truth
had been uttered by my master; then the living proof had been seen;
the intruders were gone, and all was over.
   I was in my own room as usual- just myself, without obvious change:
nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where was
the Jane Eyre of yesterday?- where was her life?- where were her
prospects?
   Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman- almost a bride,
was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were
desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December
storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts
crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen
shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were
pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours
since waved leafy and fragrant as groves between the tropics, now
spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway. My
hopes were all dead- struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night,
fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt. I looked on my
cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark,
chill, livid corpses that could never revive. I looked at my love:
that feeling which was my master's- which he had created; it
shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle;
sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr.
Rochester's arms- it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh,
never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted- confidence
destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been; for he was
not what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice to him; I would
not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless truth was
gone from his idea, and from his presence I must go: that I
perceived well. When- how- whither, I could not yet discern; but he
himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real
affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only
fitful passion: that was balked; he would want me no more. I should
fear even to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him. Oh,
how blind had been my eyes! How weak my conduct!
   My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim
round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow.
Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down
in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in
remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to
flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only
still throbbed life-like within me- a remembrance of God: it begot
an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my
rayless mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was
found to express them-
   'Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help.'
   It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it-
as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my
lips- it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The
whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched,
my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen
mass. That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, 'the waters came
into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing: I came into
deep waters; the floods overflowed me.'
                        CHAPTER XXVII

   SOME time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round
and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the
wall, I asked, 'What am I to do?'
   But the answer my mind gave- 'Leave Thornfield at once'- was so
prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such
words now. 'That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part
of my woe,' I alleged: 'that I have wakened out of most glorious
dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and
master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is
intolerable. I cannot do it.'
   But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and
foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I
wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further
suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held
Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her
dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he
would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.
   'Let me be torn away, then!' I cried. 'Let another help me!'
   'No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall
yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand:
your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.'
   I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless
a judge haunted,- at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My
head swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from
excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips
that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I
now reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had
been sent to ask how I was, or to invite me to come down: not even
little Adele had tapped at the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had
sought me. 'Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes,' I
murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed out. I stumbled over an
obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs were
feeble. I could not soon recover myself. I fell, but not on to the
ground; an outstretched arm caught me. I looked up- I was supported by
Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber threshold.
   'You come out at last,' he said. 'Well, I have been waiting for you
long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob:
five minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced
the lock like a burglar. So you shun me?- you shut yourself up and
grieve alone! I would rather you had come and upbraided me with
vehemence. You are passionate: I expected a scene of some kind. I
was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be
shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your
drenched handkerchief. But I err: you have not wept at all! I see a
white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose, then,
your heart has been weeping blood?
   'Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter- nothing
poignant? Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly
where I have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look.
   'Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but
one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of
his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some
mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his
bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?'
   Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such
deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy
in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole
look and mien- I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly;
only at my heart's core.
   'You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?' ere long he inquired
wistfully- wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness,
the result rather of weakness than of will.
   'Yes, sir.'
   'Then tell me so roundly and sharply- don't spare me.'
   'I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water.' He heaved a
sort of shuddering sigh, and taking me in his arms, carried me
downstairs. At first I did not know to what room he had borne me;
all was cloudy to my glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving
warmth of a fire; for, summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my
chamber. He put wine to my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate
something he offered me, and was soon myself. I was in the library-
sitting in his chair- he was quite near. 'If I could go out of life
now, without too sharp a pang, it would be well for me,' I thought;
'then I should not have to make the effort of cracking my
heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester's. I must leave
him, it appears. I do not want to leave him- I cannot leave him.'
   'How are you now, Jane?'
   'Much better, sir; I shall be well soon.'
   'Taste the wine again, Jane.'
   I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before
me, and looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an
inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind;
he walked fast through the room and came back; he stooped towards me
as if to kiss me; but I remembered caresses were now forbidden. I
turned my face away and put his aside.
   'What!- How is this?' he exclaimed hastily. 'Oh, I know! you
won't kiss the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled
and my embraces appropriated?'
   'At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir.'
   'Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will
answer for you- Because I have a wife already, you would reply.- I
guess rightly?'
   'Yes.'
   'If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must
regard me as a plotting profligate- a base and low rake who has been
simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare
deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of
self-respect. What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing: in
the first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw
your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself
to accuse and revile me, and besides, the flood-gates of tears are
opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and you have no
desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking
how to act- talking you consider is of no use. I know you- I am on
my guard.'
   'Sir, I do not wish to act against you,' I said; and my unsteady
voice warned me to curtail my sentence.
   'Not in your sense of the word, but in mine you are scheming to
destroy me. You have as good as said that I am a married man- as a
married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have
refused to kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to
me: to live under this roof only as Adele's governess; if ever I say a
friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to
me, you will say,- "That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must
be ice and rock to him"; and ice and rock you will accordingly
become.'
   I cleared and steadied my voice to reply: 'All is changed about me,
sir; I must change too- there is no doubt of that; and to avoid
fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections
and associations, there is only one way- Adele must have a new
governess, sir.'
   'Oh, Adele will go to school- I have settled that already; nor do I
mean to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections of
Thornfield Hall- this accursed place- this tent of Achan- this
insolent vault, offering the ghastliness of living death to the
light of the open sky- this narrow stone hell, with its one real
fiend, worse than a legion of such as we imagine. Jane, you shall
not stay here, nor will I. I was wrong ever to bring you to Thornfield
Hall, knowing as I did how it was haunted. I charged them to conceal
from you, before I ever saw you, all knowledge of the curse of the
place; merely because I feared Adele never would have a governess to
stay if she knew with what inmate she was housed, and my plans would
not permit me to remove the maniac elsewhere- though I possess an
old house, Ferndean Manor, even more retired and hidden than this,
where I could have lodged her safely enough, had not a scruple about
the unhealthiness of the situation, in the heart of a wood, made my
conscience recoil from the arrangement. Probably those damp walls
would soon have eased me of her charge: but to each villain his own
vice; and mine is not a tendency to indirect assassination, even of
what I most hate.
   'Concealing the mad-woman's neighbourhood from you, however, was
something like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down near a
upas-tree: that demon's vicinage is poisoned, and always was. But I'll
shut up Thornfield Hall: I'll nail up the front door and board the
lower windows: I'll give Mrs. Poole two hundred a year to live here
with my wife, as you term that fearful hag: Grace will do much for
money, and she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to
bear her company and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when
my wife is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at
night, to stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and so on-'
   'Sir,' I interrupted him, 'you are inexorable for that
unfortunate lady: you speak of her with hate- with vindictive
antipathy. It is cruel- she cannot help being mad.'
   'Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are),
you don't know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it
is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think
I should hate you?'
   'I do indeed, sir.'
   'Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and
nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of
your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would
still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it
would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine
you, and not a strait waistcoat- your grasp, even in fury, would
have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did
this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond
as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with
disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no
watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring
tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary
of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of
recognition for me.- But why do I follow that train of ideas? I was
talking of removing you from Thornfield. All, you know, is prepared
for prompt departure: to-morrow you shall go. I only ask you to endure
one more night under this roof, Jane; and then, farewell to its
miseries and terrors for ever! I have a place to repair to, which will
be a secure sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from unwelcome
intrusion- even from falsehood and slander.'
   'And take Adele with you, sir,' I interrupted; 'she will be a
companion for you.'
   'What do you mean, Jane? I told you I would send Adele to school;
and what do I want with a child for a companion, and not my own
child,- a French dancer's bastard? Why do you importune me about
her! I say, why do you assign Adele to me for a companion?'
   'You spoke of a retirement, sir; and retirement and solitude are
dull: too dull for you.'
   'Solitude! solitude!' he reiterated with irritation. 'I see I
must come to an explanation. I don't know what sphynx-like
expression is forming in your countenance. You are to share my
solitude. Do you understand?'
   I shook my head: it required a degree of courage, excited as he was
becoming, even to risk that mute sign of dissent. He had been
walking fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly rooted
to one spot. He looked at me long and hard: I turned my eyes from him,
fixed them on the fire, and tried to assume and maintain a quiet,
collected aspect.
   'Now for the hitch in Jane's character,' he said at last,
speaking more calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak.
'The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew
there would come a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation,
and exasperation, and endless trouble! By God! I long to exert a
fraction of Samson's strength, and break the entanglement like tow!'
   He recommenced his walk, but soon again stopped, and this time just
before me.
   'Jane! will you hear reason?' (he stooped and approached his lips
to my ear); 'because, if you won't, I'll try violence. His voice was
hoarse; his look that of a man who is just about to burst an
insufferable bond and plunge headlong into wild license. I saw that in
another moment, and with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be
able to do nothing with him. The present- the passing second of
time- was all I had in which to control and restrain him: a movement
of repulsion, flight, fear would have sealed my doom,- and his. But
I was not afraid: not in the least. I felt an inward power; a sense of
influence, which supported me. The crisis was perilous; but not
without its charm: such as the Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips
over the rapid in his canoe. I took hold of his clenched hand,
loosened the contorted fingers, and said to him, soothingly-
   'Sit down; I'll talk to you as long as you like, and hear all you
have to say, whether reasonable or unreasonable.'
   He sat down: but he did not get leave to speak directly. I had been
struggling with tears for some time: I had taken great pains to
repress them, because I knew he would not like to see me weep. Now,
however, I considered it well to let them flow as freely and as long
as they liked. If the flood annoyed him, so much the better. So I gave
way and cried heartily.
   Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed. I said I
could not while he was in such a passion.
   'But I am not angry, Jane: I only love you too well; and you had
steeled your little pale face with such a resolute, frozen look, I
could not endure it. Hush, now, and wipe your eyes.'
   His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so I, in my turn,
became calm. Now he made an effort to rest his head on my shoulder,
but I would not permit it. Then he would draw me to him: no.
   'Jane! Jane!' he said, in such an accent of bitter sadness it
thrilled along every nerve I had; 'you don't love me, then? It was
only my station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued? Now that
you think me disqualified to become your husband, you recoil from my
touch as if I were some toad or ape.'
   These words cut me: yet what could I do or say? I ought probably to
have done or said nothing; but I was so tortured by a sense of remorse
at thus hurting his feelings, I could not control the wish to drop
balm where I had wounded.
   'I do love you,' I said, 'more than ever: but I must not show or
indulge the feeling: and this is the last time I must express it.'
   'The last time, Jane! What! do you think you can live with me,
and see me daily, and yet, if you still love me, be always cold and
distant?'
   'No, sir; that I am certain I could not; and therefore I see
there is but one way: but you will be furious if I mention it.'
   'Oh, mention it! If I storm, you have the art of weeping.'
   'Mr. Rochester, I must leave you.'
   'For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair-
which is somewhat dishevelled; and bathe your face- which looks
feverish?'
   'I must leave Adele and Thornfield. I must part with you for my
whole life: I must begin a new existence among strange faces and
strange scenes.'
   'Of course: I told you you should. I pass over the madness about
parting from me. You mean you must become a part of me. As to the
new existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not
married. You shall be Mrs. Rochester- both virtually and nominally.
I shall keep only to you so long as you and I live. You shall go to
a place I have in the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the
shores of the Mediterranean. There you shall live a happy, and
guarded, and most innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you
into error- to make you my mistress. Why did you shake your head?
Jane, you must be reasonable, or in truth I shall again become
frantic.'
   His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye
blazed: still I dared to speak.
   'Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning
by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be
your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical- is false.'
   'Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man- you forget that: I am not
long-enduring; I am not cool and dispassionate. Out of pity to me
and yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and-
beware!'
   He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking
his cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all
hands. To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was
cruel: to yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do
instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity- looked for
aid to one higher than man: the words 'God help me!' burst
involuntarily from my lips.
   'I am a fool!' cried Mr. Rochester suddenly. 'I keep telling her
I am not married, and do not explain to her why. I forget she knows
nothing of the character of that woman, or of the circumstances
attending my infernal union with her. Oh, I am certain Jane will agree
with me in opinion, when she knows all that I know! Just put your hand
in mine, Janet- that I may have the evidence of touch as well as
sight, to prove you are near me- and I will in a few words show you
the real state of the case. Can you listen to me?'
   'Yes, sir; for hours if you will.'
   'I ask only minutes. Jane, did you ever hear or know that I was not
the eldest son of my house: that I had once a brother older than I?'
   'I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once.'
   'And did you ever hear that my father was an avaricious, grasping
man?'
   'I have understood something to that effect.'
   'Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to keep the property
together; he could not bear the idea of dividing his estate and
leaving me a fair portion: all, he resolved, should go to my
brother, Rowland. Yet as little could he endure that a son of his
should be a poor man. I must be provided for by a wealthy marriage. He
sought me a partner betimes. Mr. Mason, a West India planter and
merchant, was his old acquaintance. He was certain his possessions
were real and vast: he made inquiries. Mr. Mason, he found, had a
son and daughter; and he learned from him that he could and would give
the latter a fortune of thirty thousand pounds: that sufficed. When
I left college, I was sent out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride
already courted for me. My father said nothing about her money; but he
told me Miss Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for her beauty: and
this was no lie. I found her a fine woman, in the style of Blanche
Ingram: tall, dark, and majestic. Her family wished to secure me
because I was of a good race; and so did she. They showed her to me in
parties, splendidly dressed. I seldom saw her alone, and had very
little private conversation with her. She flattered me, and lavishly
displayed for my pleasure her charms and accomplishments. All the
men in her circle seemed to admire her and envy me. I was dazzled,
stimulated: my senses were excited; and being ignorant, raw, and
inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no folly so besotted
that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness,
the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission. Her
relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she allured me: a
marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was. Oh, I have
no respect for myself when I think of that act!- an agony of inward
contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not even
know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her nature:
I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candour, nor
refinement in her mind or manners- and, I married her:- gross,
grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might
have- But let me remember to whom I am speaking.
   'My bride's mother I had never seen: I understood she was dead. The
honeymoon over, I learned my mistake; she was only mad, and shut up in
a lunatic asylum. There was a younger brother, too- a complete dumb
idiot. The elder one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot hate,
whilst I abhor all his kindred, because he has some grains of
affection in his feeble mind, shown in the continued interest he takes
in his wretched sister, and also in a dog-like attachment he once bore
me), will probably be in the same state one day. My father and my
brother Rowland knew all this; but they thought only of the thirty
thousand pounds, and joined in the plot against me.
   'These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of
concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my
wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes
obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and
singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to
anything larger- when I found that I could not pass a single
evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that
kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because
whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once
coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile- when I perceived that I
should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant
would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable
temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting
orders- even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I
curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in
secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.
   'Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details: some
strong words shall express what I have to say. I lived with that woman
upstairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed: her
character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices
sprang up fast and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty could check
them, and I would not use cruelty. What a pigmy intellect she had, and
what giant propensities! How fearful were the curses those
propensities entailed on me! Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an
infamous mother, dragged me through all the hideous and degrading
agonies which must attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate
and unchaste.
   'My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four
years my father died too. I was rich enough now- yet poor to hideous
indigence: a nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was
associated with mine, and called by the law and by society a part of
me. And I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings: for the
doctors now discovered that my wife was mad- her excesses had
prematurely developed the germs of insanity. Jane, you don't like my
narrative; you look almost sick- shall I defer the rest to another
day?'
   'No, sir, finish it now; I pity you- I do earnestly pity you.'
   'Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of
tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of
those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous,
selfish hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes,
crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But
that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole
face is full at this moment- with which your eyes are now almost
overflowing- with which your heart is heaving- with which your hand is
trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of
love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion. I
accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free advent- my arms wait to
receive her.'
   'Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?'
   'Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect
was all that intervened between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the
world, I was doubtless covered with grimy dishonour; but I resolved to
be clean in my own sight- and to the last I repudiated the
contamination of her crimes, and wrenched myself from connection
with her mental defects. Still, society associated my name and
person with hers; I yet saw her and heard her daily: something of
her breath (faugh!) mixed with the air I breathed; and besides, I
remembered I had once been her husband- that recollection was then,
and is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover, I knew that while
she lived I could never be the husband of another and better wife;
and, though five years my senior (her family and her father had lied
to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live as
long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind. Thus,
at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless.
   'One night I had been awakened by her yells- (since the medical men
had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up)- it was a
fiery West Indian night; one of the description that frequently
precede the hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in
bed, I got up and opened the window. The air was like
sulphur-steams- I could find no refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes
came buzzing in and hummed sullenly round the room; the sea, which I
could hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake- black
clouds were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves,
broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball- she threw her last bloody
glance over a world quivering with the ferment of tempest. I was
physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were
filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she
momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with
such language!- no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary
than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word- the thin
partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction
to her wolfish cries.
   '"This life," said I at last, "is hell: this is the air- those
are the sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself
from it if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me
with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic's
burning eternity I have no fear: there is not a future state worse
than this present one- let me break away, and go home to God!"
   'I said this whilst I knelt down at, and unlocked a trunk which
contained a brace of loaded pistols: I meant to shoot myself. I only
entertained the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the
crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair, which had originated the
wish and design of self-destruction, was past in a second.
   'A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through
the open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and
the air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. While I
walked under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst
its drenched pomegranates and pineapples, and while the refulgent dawn
of the tropics kindled round me- I reasoned thus, Jane- and now
listen; for it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and
showed me the right path to follow.
   'The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed
leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart,
dried up and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled
with living blood- my being longed for renewal- my soul thirsted for a
pure draught. I saw hope revive- and felt regeneration possible.
From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea-
bluer than the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened
thus:-
   '"Go," said Hope, "and live again in Europe: there it is not
known what a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is
bound to you. You may take the maniac with you to England; confine her
with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield: then travel
yourself to what clime you will, and form what new tie you like.
That woman, who has so abused your long-suffering, so sullied your
name, so outraged your honour, so blighted your youth, is not your
wife, nor are you her husband. See that she is cared for as her
condition demands, and you have done all that God and humanity require
of you. Let her identity, her connection with yourself, be buried in
oblivion: you are bound to impart them to no living being. Place her
in safety and comfort: shelter her degradation with secrecy, and leave
her."
   'I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had
not made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very
first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union- having already
begun to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the
family character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening
to me- I added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the
infamous conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as
to make him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring
to publish the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as
myself.
   'To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such
a monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to
Thornfield, and saw her safely lodged in that third storey room, of
whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild
beast's den- a goblin's cell. I had some trouble in finding an
attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity
dependence could be placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my
secret: besides, she had lucid intervals of days- sometimes weeks-
which she filled up with abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole from
the Grimsby Retreat. She and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed
Mason's wounds that night he was stabbed and worried), are the only
two I have ever admitted to my confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed
have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise
knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the whole, proved a good
keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her own, of which it
appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to her harassing
profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and
baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never
failed to take advantage of her guardian's temporary lapses; once to
secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to
possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the
night-time. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the
attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid that ghastly
visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she
then spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps brought
back vague reminiscences of her own bridal days: but on what might
have happened, I cannot endure to reflect. When I think of the thing
which flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet
visage over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles-'
   'And what, sir,' I asked, while he paused, 'did you do when you had
settled her here? Where did you go?'
   'What did I do, Jane? I transformed myself into a will-o'-the-wisp.
Where did I go? I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the
March-spirit. I sought the Continent, and went devious through all its
lands. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent
woman, whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at
Thornfield-'
   'But you could not marry, sir.'
   'I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It
was not my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I
meant to tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals openly: and it
appeared to me so absolutely rational that I should be considered free
to love and be loved, I never doubted some woman might be found
willing and able to understand my case and accept me, in spite of
the curse with which I was burdened.'
   'Well, sir?'
   'When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile. You open
your eyes like an eager bird, and make every now and then a restless
movement, as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you,
and you wanted to read the tablet of one's heart. But before I go
on, tell me what you mean by your "Well, sir?" It is a small phrase
very frequent with you; and which many a time has drawn me on and on
through interminable talk: I don't very well know why.'
   'I mean,- What next? How did you proceed? What came of such an
event?'
   'Precisely! and what do you wish to know now?'
   'Whether you found any one you liked: whether you asked her to
marry you; and what she said.'
   'I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I
asked her to marry me: but what she said is yet to be recorded in
the book of Fate. For ten long years I roved about, living first in
one capital, then another: sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in
Paris; occasionally in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with
plenty of money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own
society: no circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a
woman amongst English ladies, French countesses, Italian signoras, and
German grafinnen. I could not find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting
moment, I thought I caught a glance, heard a tone, beheld a form,
which announced the realisation of my dream: but I was presently
undeceived. You are not to suppose that I desired perfection, either
of mind or person. I longed only for what suited me- for the antipodes
of the Creole: and I longed vainly. Amongst them all I found not one
whom, had I been ever so free, I- warned as I was of the risks, the
horrors, the loathings of incongruous unions- would have asked to
marry me. Disappointment made me reckless. I tried dissipation-
never debauchery: that I hated, and hate. That was my Indian
Messalina's attribute: rooted disgust at it and her restrained me
much, even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed
to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it.
   'Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of
mistresses. The first I chose was Celine Varens- another of those
steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them. You already
know what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two
successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered
singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks?
Giacinta was unprincipled and violent: I tired of her in three months.
Clara was honest and quiet; but heavy, mindless, and unimpressible:
not one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to
set her up in a good line of business, and so get decently rid of her.
But, Jane, I see by your face you are not forming a very favourable
opinion of me just now. You think me an unfeeling, loose-principled
rake: don't you?'
   'I don't like you so well as I have done sometimes, indeed, sir.
Did it not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way, first
with one mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of
course.'
   'It was with me; and I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion
of existence: I should never like to return to it. Hiring a mistress
is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature,
and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with
inferiors is degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I
passed with Celine, Giacinta, and Clara.'
   I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain
inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching
that had ever been instilled into me, as- under any pretext- with
any justification- through any temptation- to become the successor
of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same
feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not
give utterance to this conviction: it was enough to feel it. I
impressed it on my heart, that it might remain there to serve me as
aid in the time of trial.
   'Now, Jane, why don't you say "Well, sir?" I have not done. You are
looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to
the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses- in a harsh, bitter
frame of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life-
corroded with disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and
especially against all womankind (for I began to regard the notion
of an intellectual, faithful, loving woman as a mere dream),
recalled by business, I came back to England.
   'On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield
Hall. Abhorred spot! I expected no peace- no pleasure there. On a
stile in Hay Lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I
passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it: I
had no presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning
that the arbitress of my life- my genius for good or evil- waited
there in humble guise. I did not know it, even when, on the occasion
of Mesrour's accident, it came up and gravely offered me help.
Childish and slender creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped
to my foot and proposed to bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly;
but the thing would not go: it stood by me with strange
perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort of authority. I must be
aided, and by that hand: and aided I was.
   'When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something new- a fresh
sap and sense- stole into my frame. It was well I had learnt that this
elf must return to me- that it belonged to my house down below- or I
could not have felt it pass away from under my hand, and seen it
vanish behind the dim hedge, without singular regret. I heard you come
home that night, Jane, though probably you were not aware that I
thought of you or watched for you. The next day I observed you- myself
unseen- for half an hour, while you played with Adele in the
gallery. It was a snowy day, I recollect, and you could not go out
of doors. I was in my room; the door was ajar: I could both listen and
watch. Adele claimed your outward attention for a while; yet I fancied
your thoughts were elsewhere: but you were very patient with her, my
little Jane; you talked to her and amused her a long time. When at
last she left you, you lapsed at once into deep reverie: you betook
yourself slowly to pace the gallery. Now and then, in passing a
casement, you glanced out at the thick-falling snow; you listened to
the sobbing wind, and again you paced gently on and dreamed. I think
those day visions were not dark: there was a pleasurable
illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft excitement in your
aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, hypochondriac brooding: your
look revealed rather the sweet musings of youth when its spirit
follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up and on to an ideal
heaven. The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the
hall, wakened you: and how curiously you smiled to and at yourself,
Janet! There was much sense in your smile: it was very shrewd, and
seemed to make light of your own abstraction. It seemed to say- "My
fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are
absolutely unreal. I have a rosy sky and a green flowery Eden in my
brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my feet a rough
tract to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter."
You ran downstairs and demanded of Mrs. Fairfax some occupation: the
weekly house accounts to make up, or something of that sort, I think
it was. I was vexed with you for getting out of my sight.
   'Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my
presence. An unusual- to me- a perfectly new character I suspected was
yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better. You entered
the room with a look and air at once shy and independent: you were
quaintly dressed- much as you are now. I made you talk: ere long I
found you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were
restricted by rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether
that of one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a
good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by
some solecism or blunder; yet when addressed, you lifted a keen, a
daring, and a glowing eye to your interlocutor's face: there was
penetration and power in each glance you gave; when plied by close
questions, you found ready and round answers. Very soon you seemed
to get used to me: I believe you felt the existence of sympathy
between you and your grim and cross master, Jane; for it was
astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquillised
your manner: snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear,
annoyance, or displeasure at my moroseness; you watched me, and now
and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot
describe. I was at once content and stimulated with what I saw: I
liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long time, I
treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely. I was an
intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of
making this novel and piquant acquaintance: besides, I was for a while
troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely
its bloom would fade- the sweet charm of freshness would leave it. I
did not then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the
radiant resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover,
I wished to see whether you would seek me if I shunned you- but you
did not; you kept in the schoolroom as still as your own desk and
easel; if by chance I met you, you passed me as soon, and with as
little token of recognition, as was consistent with respect. Your
habitual expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not
despondent, for you were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had
little hope, and no actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of
me, or if you ever thought of me, and resolved to find this out.
   'I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your
glance, and genial in your manner, when you conversed: I saw you had a
social heart; it was the silent schoolroom- it was the tedium of
your life- that made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of
being kind to you; kindness stirred emotion soon: your face became
soft in expression, your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by
your lips in a grateful happy accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting
with you, Jane, at this time: there was a curious hesitation in your
manner: you glanced at me with a slight trouble- a hovering doubt: you
did not know what my caprice might be- whether I was going to play the
master and be stern, or the friend and be benignant. I was now too
fond of you often to simulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my
hand out cordially, such bloom and light and bliss rose to your young,
wistful features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and
there to my heart.'
   'Don't talk any more of those days, sir,' I interrupted,
furtively dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was
torture to me; for I knew what I must do- and do soon- and these
reminiscences, and these revelations of his feelings, only made my
work more difficult.
   'No, Jane,' he returned: 'what necessity is there to dwell on the
Past, when the Present is so much surer- the Future so much brighter?'
   I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion.
   'You see now how the case stands- do you not?' he continued. 'After
a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in
dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly
love- I have found you. You are my sympathy- my better self- my good
angel. I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good,
gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my
heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life,
wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame,
fuses you and me in one.
   'It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you.
To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now
that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you;
but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared
early instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before
hazarding confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to
your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now- opened to you
plainly my life of agony- described to you my hunger and thirst
after a higher and worthier existence- shown to you, not my resolution
(that word is weak), but my resistless bent to love faithfully and
well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should
have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours.
Jane- give it me now.'
   A pause.
   'Why are you silent, Jane?'
   I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my
vitals. Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a
human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was
loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must
renounce love and idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable
duty- 'Depart!'
   'Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise- "I
will be yours, Mr. Rochester."'
   'Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours.'
   Another long silence.
   'Jane!' recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with
grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror- for this still
voice was the pant of a lion rising- 'Jane, do you mean to go one
way in the world, and to let me go another?'
   'I do.'
   'Jane' (bending towards and embracing me), 'do you mean it now?'
   'I do.'
   'And now?' softly kissing my forehead and cheek.
   'I do,' extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely.
   'Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This- this is wicked. It would not be
wicked to love me.'
   'It would to obey you.'
   A wild look raised his brows- crossed his features: he rose; but he
forbore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I
shook, I feared- but I resolved.
   'One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you
are gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left?
For a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer
me to some corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do, Jane? Where
turn for a companion and for some hope?'
   'Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope
to meet again there.'
   'Then you will not yield?'
   'No.'
   'Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?' His
voice rose.
   'I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil.'
   'Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on
lust for a passion- vice for an occupation?'
   'Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at
it for myself. We were born to strive and endure- you as well as I: do
so. You will forget me before I forget you.'
   'You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I
declared I could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change
soon. And what a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in
your ideas, is proved by your conduct! Is it better to drive a
fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law, no man
being injured by the breach? for you have neither relatives nor
acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me?'
   This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason
turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting
him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured
wildly. 'Oh, comply!' it said. 'Think of his misery; think of his
danger- look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong
nature; consider the recklessness following on despair- soothe him;
save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in
the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?'
   Still indomitable was the reply- 'I care for myself. The more
solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I
will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by
man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and
not mad- as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when
there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body
and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they;
inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break
them, what would be their worth? They have a worth- so I have always
believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane-
quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating
faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone
determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant
my foot.'
   I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so.
His fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment,
whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and
grasped my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance:
physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the
draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul,
and with it the certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately,
has an interpreter- often an unconscious, but still a truthful
interpreter- in the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his
fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and
my overtaxed strength almost exhausted.
   'Never,' said he, as he ground his teeth, 'never was anything at
once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!'
(And he shook me with the force of his hold.) 'I could bend her with
my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore,
if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free
thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage- with a
stern triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it- the
savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my
outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the
house; but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call
myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit-
with will and energy, and virtue and purity- that I want: not alone
your brittle frame. Of yourself you could come with soft flight and
nestle against my heart, if you would: seized against your will, you
will elude the grasp like an essence- you will vanish ere I inhale
your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come!'
   As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at
me. The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only
an idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled
his fury; I must elude his sorrow: retired to the door.
   'You are going, Jane?'
   'I am going, sir.'
   'You are leaving me?'
   'Yes.'
   'You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My
deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?'
   What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to
reiterate firmly, 'I am going.'
   'Jane!'
   'Mr. Rochester!'
   'Withdraw, then,- I consent; but remember, you leave me here in
anguish. Go up to your own room; think over all I have said, and,
Jane, cast a glance on my sufferings- think of me.'
   He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. 'Oh,
Jane! my hope- my love- my life!' broke in anguish from his lips. Then
came a deep, strong sob.
   I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back- walked
back as determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him; I turned
his face from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; I smoothed his
hair with my hand.
   'God bless you, my dear master!' I said. 'God keep you from harm
and wrong- direct you, solace you- reward you well for your past
kindness to me.'
   'Little Jane's love would have been my best reward,' he answered;
'without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love:
yes- nobly, generously.'
   Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his
eyes; erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded the embrace,
and at once quitted the room.
   'Farewell!' was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added,
'Farewell for ever!'

                   .    .    .    .    .    .

   That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me as
soon as I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to the
scenes of childhood: I dreamt I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that
the night was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears. The
light that long ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this
vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause
in the centre of the obscured ceiling. I lifted up my head to look:
the roof resolved to clouds, high and dim; the gleam was such as the
moon imparts to vapours she is about to sever. I watched her come-
watched with the strangest anticipation; as though some word of doom
were to be written on her disk. She broke forth as never moon yet
burst from cloud: a hand first penetrated the sable folds and waved
them away; then, not a moon, but a white human form shone in the
azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and gazed on
me. It spoke to my spirit: immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so
near, it whispered in my heart-
   'My daughter, flee temptation.'
   'Mother, I will.'
   So I answered after I had waked from the trancelike dream. It was
yet night, but July nights are short: soon after midnight, dawn comes.
'It cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfil,'
thought I. I rose: I was dressed; for I had taken off nothing but my
shoes. I knew where to find in my drawers some linen, a locket, a
ring. In seeking these articles, I encountered the beads of a pearl
necklace Mr. Rochester had forced me to accept a few days ago. I
left that; it was not mine: it was the visionary bride's who had
melted in air. The other articles I made up in a parcel; my purse,
containing twenty shillings (it was all I had), I put in my pocket:
I tied on my straw bonnet, pinned my shawl, took the parcel and my
slippers, which I would not put on yet, and stole from my room.
   'Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!' I whispered, as I glided past her
door. 'Farewell, my darling Adele! I said, as I glanced towards the
nursery. No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I
had to deceive a fine ear: for aught I knew it might now be listening.
   I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without a pause;
but my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my
foot was forced to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate was
walking restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed
while I listened. There was a heaven- a temporary heaven- in this room
for me, if I chose: I had but to go in and to say-
   'Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till
death,' and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thought of
this.
   That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with
impatience for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be
gone. He would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself
forsaken; his love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow
desperate. I thought of this too. My hand moved towards the lock: I
caught it back, and glided on.
   Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and
I did it mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in the
kitchen; I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the
key and the lock. I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I
should have to walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late,
must not break down. All this I did without one sound. I opened the
door, passed out, shut it softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard.
The great gates were closed and locked; but a wicket in one of them
was only latched. Through that I departed: it, too, I shut; and now
I was out of Thornfield.
   A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the
contrary direction to Millcote; a road I had never travelled, but
often noticed, and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps.
No reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast
back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either
to the past or to the future. The first was a page so heavenly
sweet- so deadly sad- that to read one line of it would dissolve my
courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank:
something like the world when the deluge was gone by.
   I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes till after sunrise. I
believe it was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which I had
put on when I left the house, were soon wet with dew. But I looked
neither to rising sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature. He who is
taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not
of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and
axe-edge; of the disseverment of bone and vein; of the grave gaping at
the end: and I thought of drear flight and homeless wandering- and oh!
with agony I thought of what I left. I could not help it. I thought of
him now- in his room- watching the sunrise; hoping I should soon
come to say I would stay with him and be his. I longed to be his; I
panted to return: it was not too late; I could yet spare him the
bitter pang of bereavement. As yet my flight, I was sure, was
undiscovered. I could go back and be his comforter- his pride; his
redeemer from misery, perhaps from ruin. Oh, that fear of his
self-abandonment- far worse than my abandonment- how it goaded me!
It was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when I tried to
extract it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it farther in.
Birds began singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful to their
mates; birds were emblems of love. What was I? In the midst of my pain
of heart and frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself. I had
no solace from self-approbation: none even from self-respect. I had
injured- wounded- left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes.
Still I could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must have led me on.
As to my own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one
and stifled the other. I was weeping wildly as I walked along my
solitary way: fast, fast I went like one delirious. A weakness,
beginning inwardly, extending to the limbs, seized me, and I fell: I
lay on the ground some minutes, pressing my face to the wet turf. I
had some fear- or hope- that here I should die: but I was soon up;
crawling forwards on my hands and knees, and then again raised to my
feet- as eager and as determined as ever to reach the road.
   When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge;
and while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stood up
and lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going: the driver
named a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had
no connections. I asked for what sum he would take me there; he said
thirty shillings; I answered I had but twenty; well, he would try to
make it do. He further gave me leave to get into the inside, as the
vehicle was empty: I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on its way.
   Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes
never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from
mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so
agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me,
dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love.
                        CHAPTER XXVIII

   TWO days are passed. It is a summer evening; the coachman has set
me down at a place called Whitcross; he could take me no farther for
the sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in
the world. The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone. At this
moment I discover that I forgot to take my parcel out of the pocket of
the coach, where I had placed it for safety; there it remains, there
it must remain; and now, I am absolutely destitute.
   Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar
set up where four roads meet: whitewashed, I suppose, to be more
obvious at a distance and in darkness. Four arms spring from its
summit: the nearest town to which these point is, according to the
inscription, distant ten miles; the farthest, above twenty. From the
well-known names of these towns I learn in what county I have lighted;
a north-midland shire, dusk with moorland, ridged with mountain:
this I see. There are great moors behind and on each hand of me; there
are waves of mountains far beyond that deep valley at my feet. The
population here must be thin, and I see no passengers on these
roads: they stretch out east, west, north, and south-white, broad,
lonely; they are all cut in the moor, and the heather grows deep and
wild to their very verge. Yet a chance traveller might pass by; and
I wish no eye to see me now: strangers would wonder what I am doing,
lingering here at the sign-post, evidently objectless and lost. I
might be questioned: I could give no answer but what would sound
incredible and excite suspicion. Not a tie holds me to human society
at this moment- not a charm or hope calls me where my fellow-creatures
are- none that saw me would have a kind thought or a good wish for me.
I have no relative but the universal mother, Nature: I will seek her
breast and ask repose.
   I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw
deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark
growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened
granite crag in a hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of
moor were about me; the crag protected my head: the sky was over that.
   Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague
dread that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or
poacher might discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked
up, fearing it was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I
imagined it a man. Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and
calmed by the deep silence that reigned as evening declined at
nightfall, I took confidence. As yet I had not thought; I had only
listened, watched, dreaded; now I regained the faculty of reflection.
   What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I
could do nothing and go nowhere!- when a long way must yet be measured
by my weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human habitation-
when cold charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging:
reluctant sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before
my tale could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved!
   I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of
the summer day. I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star
twinkled just above the chasm ridge. The day fell, but with propitious
softness; no breeze whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good;
I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could
anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with
filial fondness. To-night, at least, I would be her guest, as I was
her child: my mother would lodge me without money and without price. I
had one morsel of bread yet: the remnant of a roll I had bought in a
town we passed through at noon with a stray penny- my last coin. I saw
ripe bilberries gleaming here and there, like jet beads in the
heath: I gathered a handful and ate them with the bread. My hunger,
sharp before, was, if not satisfied, appeased by this hermit's meal. I
said my evening prayers at its conclusion, and then chose my couch.
   Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet
were buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow
space for the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl double, and
spread it over me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow.
Thus lodged, I was not, at least at the commencement of the night,
cold.
   My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it.
It plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven
chords. It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him
with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and,
impotent as a bird with both wings broken, it still quivered its
shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.
   Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night
was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too
serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is
everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are
on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded
night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read
clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had
risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with
tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-way. Remembering what it was-
what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light- I
felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to
save what He had made: convinced I grew that neither earth should
perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned my prayer to
thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits.
Mr. Rochester was safe: he was God's, and by God would he be
guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long in
sleep forgot sorrow.
   But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the
little birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the
sweet prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried-
when the long morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth
and sky- I got up, and I looked round me.
   What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading
moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it. I
saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet
bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that
I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here. But I
was a human being, and had a human being's wants: I must not linger
where there was nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked back at the
bed I had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished but this- that my
Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I
slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death from further
conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in
peace with the soil of this wilderness. Life, however, was yet in my
possession, with all its requirements, and pains, and
responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided for;
the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled. I set out.
   Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now
fervent and high. By no other circumstance had I will to decide my
choice. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done
enough, and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost
overpowered me- might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on a
stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged heart
and limb- I heard a bell chime- a church bell.
   I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the
romantic hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an
hour ago, I saw a hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right
hand was full of pasture-fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a
glittering stream ran zigzag through the varied shades of green, the
mellowing grain, the sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea.
Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to the road before me, I saw a
heavily-laden waggon labouring up the hill, and not far beyond were
two cows and their drover. Human life and human labour were near. I
must struggle on: strive to live and bend to toil like the rest.
   About two o'clock P.M. I entered the village. At the bottom of
its one street there was a little shop with some cakes of bread in the
window. I coveted a cake of bread. With that refreshment I could
perhaps regain a degree of energy: without it, it would be difficult
to proceed. The wish to have some strength and some vigour returned to
me as soon as I was amongst my fellow-beings. I felt it would be
degrading to faint with hunger on the causeway of a hamlet. Had I
nothing about me I could offer in exchange for one of these rolls? I
considered. I had a small silk handkerchief tied round my throat; I
had my gloves. I could hardly tell how men and women in extremities of
destitution proceeded. I did not know whether either of these articles
would be accepted: probably they would not; but I must try.
   I entered the shop: a woman was there. Seeing a respectably-dressed
person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with civility. How
could she serve me? I was seized with shame: my tongue would not utter
the request I had prepared. I dared not offer her the half-worn
gloves, the creased handkerchief: besides, I felt it would be
absurd. I only begged permission to sit down a moment, as I was tired.
Disappointed in the expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to
my request. She pointed to a seat; I sank into it. I felt sorely urged
to weep; but conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation would be,
I restrained it. Soon I asked her 'if there were any dressmaker or
plain-workwoman in the village?'
   'Yes; two or three. Quite as many as there was employment for.'
   I reflected. I was driven to the point now. I was brought face to
face with Necessity. I stood in the position of one without a
resource, without a friend, without a coin. I must do something. What?
I must apply somewhere. Where?
   'Did she know of any place in the neighbourhood where a servant was
wanted?'
   'Nay; she couldn't say.'
   'What was the chief trade in this place? What did most of the
people do?'
   'Some were farm labourers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver's
needle-factory, and at the foundry.'
   'Did Mr. Oliver employ women?'
   'Nay; it was men's work.'
   'And what do the women do?'
   'I knawn't,' was the answer. 'Some does one thing, and some
another. Poor folk mun get on as they can.'
   She seemed to be tired of my questions: and, indeed, what claim had
I to importune her? A neighbour or two came in; my chair was evidently
wanted. I took leave.
   I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to
the right hand and to the left; but I could discover no pretext, nor
see an inducement to enter any. I rambled round the hamlet, going
sometimes to a little distance and returning again, for an hour or
more. Much exhausted, and suffering greatly now for want of food, I
turned aside into a lane and sat down under the hedge. Ere many
minutes had elapsed, I was again on my feet, however, and again
searching something- a resource, or at least an informant. A pretty
little house stood at the top of the lane, with a garden before it,
exquisitely neat and brilliantly blooming. I stopped at it. What
business had I to approach the white door or touch the glittering
knocker? In what way could it possibly be the interest of the
inhabitants of that dwelling to serve me? Yet I drew near and knocked.
A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young woman opened the door. In such a
voice as might be expected from a hopeless heart and fainting frame- a
voice wretchedly low and faltering- I asked if a servant was wanted
here?
   'No,' said she; 'we do not keep a servant.'
   'Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind?' I
continued. 'I am a stranger, without acquaintance in this place. I
want some work: no matter what.'
   But it was not her business to think for me, or to seek a place for
me: besides, in her eyes, how doubtful must have appeared my
character, position, tale. She shook her head, she 'was sorry she
could give me no information,' and the white door closed, quite gently
and civilly: but it shut me out. If she had held it open a little
longer, I believe I should have begged a piece of bread; for I was now
brought low.
   I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides,
no prospect of aid was visible. I should have longed rather to deviate
to a wood I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick shade to
offer inviting shelter; but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with
nature's cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where there
was a chance of food. Solitude would be no solitude- rest no rest-
while the vulture, hunger, thus sank beak and talons in my side.
   I drew near houses; I left them, and came back again, and again I
wandered away: always repelled by the consciousness of having no claim
to ask- no right to expect interest in my isolated lot. Meantime,
the afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a lost and
starving dog. In crossing a field, I saw the church spire before me: I
hastened towards it. Near the churchyard, and in the middle of a
garden, stood a well-built though small house, which I had no doubt
was the parsonage. I remembered that strangers who arrive at a place
where they have no friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply
to the clergyman for introduction and aid. It is the clergyman's
function to help- at least with advice- those who wished to help
themselves. I seemed to have something like a right to seek counsel
here. Renewing then my courage, and gathering my feeble remains of
strength, I pushed on. I reached the house, and knocked at the
kitchen-door. An old woman opened: I asked was this the parsonage?
   'Yes.'
   'Was the clergyman in?'
   'No.'
   'Would he be in soon?'
   'No, he was gone from home.'
   'To a distance?'
   'Not so far- happen three mile. He had been called away by the
sudden death of his father: he was at Marsh End now, and would very
likely stay there a fortnight longer.'
   'Was there any lady of the house?'
   'Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper'; and of
her, reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I
was sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away.
   Once more I took off my handkerchief- once more I thought of the
cakes of bread in the little shop. Oh, for but a crust! for but one
mouthful to allay the pang of famine! Instinctively I turned my face
again to the village; I found the shop again, and I went in; and
though others were there besides the woman I ventured the request-
'Would she give me a roll for this handkerchief?'
   She looked at me with evident suspicion: 'Nay, she never sold stuff
i' that way.'
   Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused.
'How could she tell where I had got the handkerchief?' she said.
   'Would she take my gloves?'
   'No! what could she do with them?'
   Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say
there is enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but
at this day I can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude:
the moral degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too
distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed
none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be
expected, and what could not be helped: an ordinary beggar is
frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably
so. To be sure, what I begged was employment; but whose business was
it to provide me with employment? Not, certainly, that of persons
who saw me then for the first time, and who knew nothing about my
character. And as to the woman who would not take my handkerchief in
exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the offer appeared to
her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let me condense now. I am
sick of the subject.
   A little before dark I passed a farmhouse, at the open door of
which the farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese. I
stopped and said-
   'Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry.' He
cast on me a glance of surprise; but without answering, he cut a thick
slice from his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think I
was a beggar, but only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a
fancy to his brown loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his house, I
sat down and ate it.
   I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in
the wood I have before alluded to. But my night was wretched, my
rest broken: the ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders
passed near me more than once, and I had again and again to change
my quarters: no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me. Towards
morning it rained; the whole of the following day was wet. Do not
ask me, reader, to give a minute account of that day; as before, I
sought work; as before, I was repulsed; as before, I starved; but once
did food pass my lips. At the door of a cottage I saw a little girl
about to throw a mess of cold porridge into a pig trough. 'Will you
give me that?' I asked.
   She stared at me. 'Mother!' she exclaimed, 'there is a woman
wants me to give her these porridge.'
   'Well, lass,' replied a voice within, 'give it her if she's a
beggar. T' pig doesn't want it.'
   The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hands and I devoured
it ravenously.
   As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary
bridle-path, which I had been pursuing an hour or more.
   'My strength is quite failing me,' I said in a soliloquy. 'I feel I
cannot go much farther. Shall I be an outcast again this night?
While the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched
ground? I fear I cannot do otherwise: for who will receive me? But
it will be very dreadful, with this feeling of hunger, faintness,
chill, and this sense of desolation- this total prostration of hope.
In all likelihood, though, I should die before morning. And why cannot
I reconcile myself to the prospect of death? Why do I struggle to
retain a valueless life? Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester
is living: and then, to die of want and cold is a fate to which nature
cannot submit passively. Oh, Providence! sustain me a little longer!
Aid!- direct me!'
   My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape. I saw I
had strayed far from the village: it was quite out of sight. The
very cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I had, by
cross-ways and by-paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland;
and now, only a few fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the
heath from which they were scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and
the dusky hill.
   'Well, I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a
frequented road,' I reflected. 'And far better that crows and
ravens- if any ravens there be in these regions- should pick my
flesh from my bones, than that they should be prisoned in a
workhouse coffin and moulder in a pauper's grave.'
   To the hill, then, I turned. I reached it. It remained now only
to find a hollow where I could lie down, and feel at least hidden,
if not secure. But all the surface of the waste looked level. It
showed no variation but of tint: green, where rush and moss overgrew
the marshes; black, where the dry soil bore only heath. Dark as it was
getting, I could still see these changes, though but as mere
alternations of light and shade; for colour had faded with the
daylight.
   My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the moor-edge,
vanishing amidst the wildest scenery, when at one dim point, far in
among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up. 'That is an ignis
fatuus,' was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish. It
burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor advancing. 'Is
it, then, a bonfire just kindled?' I questioned. I watched to see
whether it would spread: but no; as it did not diminish, so it did not
enlarge. 'It may be a candle in a house,' I then conjectured; 'but
if so, I can never reach it. It is much too far away: and were it
within a yard of me, what would it avail? I should but knock at the
door to have it shut in my face.'
   And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the
ground. I lay still a while: the night-wind swept over the hill and
over me, and died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting
me afresh to the skin. Could I but have stiffened to the still
frost- the friendly numbness of death- it might have pelted on; I
should not have felt it; but my yet living flesh shuddered at its
chilling influence. I rose ere long.
   The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain.
I tried to walk again: I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards it.
It led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would have
been impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even now, in
the height of summer. Here I fell twice; but as often I rose and
rallied my faculties. This light was my forlorn hope: I must gain it.
   Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor. I
approached it; it was a road or a track: it led straight up to the
light, which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a clump of trees-
firs, apparently, from what I could distinguish of the character of
their forms and foliage through the gloom. My star vanished as I
drew near: some obstacle had intervened between me and it. I put out
my hand to feel the dark mass before me: I discriminated the rough
stones of a low wall- above it, something like palisades, and
within, a high and prickly hedge. I groped on. Again a whitish
object gleamed before me: it was a gate- a wicket; it moved on its
hinges as I touched it. On each side stood a sable bush- holly or yew.
   Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house
rose to view, black, low, and rather long; but the guiding light shone
nowhere. All was obscurity. Were the inmates retired to rest? I feared
it must be so. In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot
out the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very
small latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller
by the growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves
clustered thick over the portion of the house wall in which it was
set. The aperture was so screened and narrow, that curtain or
shutter had been deemed unnecessary; and when I stooped down and put
aside the spray of foliage shooting over it, I could see all within. I
could see clearly a room with a sanded floor, clean scoured; a dresser
of walnut, with pewter plates ranged in rows, reflecting the redness
and radiance of a glowing peat-fire. I could see a clock, a white deal
table, some chairs. The candle, whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on
the table; and by its light an elderly woman, somewhat
rough-looking, but scrupulously clean, like all about her, was
knitting a stocking.
   I noticed these objects cursorily only- in them there was nothing
extraordinary. A group of more interest appeared near the hearth,
sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it. Two
young, graceful women- ladies in every point- sat, one in a low
rocking-chair, the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning
of crape and bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair
necks and faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on
the knee of one girl- in the lap of the other was cushioned a black
cat.
   A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who
were they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at
the table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy
and cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet,
as I gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot
call them handsome- they were too pale and grave for the word: as they
each bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A
stand between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to
which they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the
smaller books they held in their hands, like people consulting a
dictionary to aid them in the task of translation. This scene was as
silent as if all the figures had been shadows and the firelit
apartment a picture: so hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall
from the grate, the clock tick in its obscure corner; and I even
fancied I could distinguish the click-click of the woman's
knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice broke the strange stillness
at last, it was audible enough to me.
   'Listen, Diana,' said one of the absorbed students; 'Franz and
old Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a
dream from which he has awakened in terror- listen!' And in a low
voice she read something, of which not one word was intelligible to
me; for it was in an unknown tongue- neither French nor Latin. Whether
it were Greek or German I could not tell.
   'That is strong,' she said, when she had finished: 'I relish it.'
The other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister,
repeated, while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read.
At a later day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will
here quote the line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a
stroke on sounding brass to me- conveying no meaning:-
   '"Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht." Good!
good!' she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. 'There you
have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line is
worth a hundred pages of fustian. "Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale
meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms." I like
it!'
   Both were again silent.
   'Is there ony country where they talk i' that way?' asked the old
woman, looking up from her knitting.
   'Yes, Hannah- a far larger country than England, where they talk in
no other way.'
   'Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t'one
t'other: and if either o' ye went there, ye could tell what they said,
I guess?'
   'We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all-
for we are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don't speak
German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us.'
   'And what good does it do you?'
   'We mean to teach it some time- or at least the elements, as they
say; and then we shall get more money than we do now.'
   'Varry like: but give ower studying; ye've done enough for
to-night.'
   'I think we have: at least I'm tired. Mary, are you?'
   'Mortally: after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language
with no master but a lexicon.'
   'It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious
Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home.'
   'Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a
little gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah:
will you have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?'
   The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a
passage: soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she
presently came back.
   'Ah, childer!' said she, 'it fair troubles me to go into yond' room
now: it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a
corner.'
   She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before,
looked sad now.
   'But he is in a better place,' continued Hannah: 'we shouldn't wish
him here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he
had.'
   'You say he never mentioned us?' inquired one of the ladies.
   'He hadn't time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father.
He had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify;
and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o' ye to be sent
for, he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a
heaviness in his head the next day- that is, a fortnight sin'- and
he went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a'most stark when your
brother went into t' chamber and fand him. Ah, childer! that's t' last
o' t' old stock- for ye and Mr. St. John is like of different soart to
them 'at's gone; for all your mother wor mich i' your way, and
a'most as book-learned. She wor the pictur' o' ye, Mary: Diana is more
like your father.'
   I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant
(for such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were
fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of
distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker
than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing
it; Mary's pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana's
duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls. The clock struck
ten.
   'Ye'll want your supper, I am sure,' observed Hannah; 'and so
will Mr. St. John when he comes in.'
   And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed
about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so
intent on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited
in me so keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched
position: now it recurred to me. More desolate, more desperate than
ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible did it appear to
touch the inmates of this house with concern on my behalf; to make
them believe in the truth of my wants and woes- to induce them to
vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As I groped out the door, and
knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last idea to be a mere
chimera. Hannah opened.
   'What do you want?' she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she
surveyed me by the light of the candle she held.
   'May I speak to your mistresses?' I said.
   'You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do
you come from?'
   'I am a stranger.'
   'What is your business here at this hour?'
   'I want a night's shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel
of bread to eat.'
   Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face.
'I'll give you a piece of bread,' she said, after a pause; 'but we
can't take in a vagrant to lodge. It isn't likely.'
   'Do let me speak to your mistresses.'
   'No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving
about now; it looks very ill.'
   'But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?'
   'Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you
don't do wrong, that's all. Here is a penny; now go-'
   'A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther.
Don't shut the door:- oh, don't, for God's sake!'
   'I must; the rain is driving in-'
   'Tell the young ladies. Let me see them-'
   'Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you
wouldn't make such a noise. Move off.'
   'But I must die if I am turned away.'
   'Not you. I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring
you about folk's houses at this time o' night. If you've any
followers- housebreakers or such like- anywhere near, you may tell
them we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and
dogs, and guns.' Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the
door to and bolted it within.
   This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering- a throe of true
despair- rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not
another step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned- I
wrung my hands- I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death!
Oh, this last hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this
isolation- this banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of
hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone- at least for a moment;
but the last I soon endeavoured to regain.
   'I can but die,' I said, 'and I believe in God. Let me try to
wait His will in silence.'
   These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all
my misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain
there- dumb and still.
   'All men must die,' said a voice quite close at hand; 'but all
are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as
yours would be if you perished here of want.'
   'Who or what speaks?' I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound,
and incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A
form was near- what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision
prevented me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock, the newcomer
appealed to the door.
   'Is it you, Mr. St. John?' cried Hannah.
   'Yes- yes; open quickly.'
   'Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is!
Come in- your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe
there are bad folks about. There has been a beggar-woman- I declare
she is not gone yet!- laid down there. Get up! for shame! Move off,
I say!'
   'Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done
your duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was
near, and listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar
case- I must at least examine into it. Young woman, rise, and pass
before me into the house.'
   With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that
clean, bright kitchen- on the very hearth- trembling, sickening;
conscious of an aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and
weather-beaten. The two ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old
servant, were all gazing at me.
   'St. John, who is it?' I heard one ask.
   'I cannot tell: I found her at the door,' was the reply.
   'She does look white,' said Hannah.
   'As white as clay or death,' was responded. 'She will fall: let her
sit.'
   And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I
still possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak.
   'Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some.
But she is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless!'
   'A mere spectre!'
   'Is she ill, or only famished?'
   'Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece
of bread.'
   Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me
and the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk,
and put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in
it, and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In her simple words,
too, the same balm-like emotion spoke: 'Try to eat.'
   'Yes- try,' repeated Mary gently; and Mary's hand removed my sodden
bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me: feebly at
first, eagerly soon.
   'Not too much at first- restrain her,' said the brother; 'she has
had enough.' And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of bread.
   'A little more, St. John- look at the avidity in her eyes.'
   'No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now- ask her
her name.'
   I felt I could speak, and I answered- 'My name is Jane Elliott.'
Anxious as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume an
alias.
   'And where do you live? Where are your friends?'
   I was silent.
   'Can we send for any one you know?'
   I shook my head.
   'What account can you give of yourself?'
   Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house,
and once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer
outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put off
the mendicant- to resume my natural manner and character. I began once
more to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an account-
which at present I was far too weak to render- I said after a brief
pause-
   'Sir, I can give you no details to-night.'
   'But what, then,' said he, 'do you expect me to do for you?'
   'Nothing,' I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers.
Diana took the word-
   'Do you mean,' she asked, 'that we have now given you what aid
you require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy
night?'
   I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance,
instinct both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage.
Answering her compassionate gaze with a smile, I said- 'I will trust
you. If I were a masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not
turn me from your hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no fear. Do
with me and for me as you like; but excuse me from much discourse-
my breath is short- I feel a spasm when I speak.' All three surveyed
me, and all three were silent.
   'Hannah,' said Mr. St. John, at last, 'let her sit there at
present, and ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the
remainder of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into the
parlour and talk the matter over.'
   They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned- I could not
tell which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by
the genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah.
Ere long, with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my
dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me. I
thanked God- experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of
grateful joy- and slept.
                         CHAPTER XXIX

   THE recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this
is very dim in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in that
interval; but few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew
I was in a small room and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to
have grown; I lay on it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me
from it would have been almost to kill me. I took no note of the lapse
of time- of the change from morning to noon, from noon to evening. I
observed when any one entered or left the apartment: I could even tell
who they were; I could understand what was said when the speaker stood
near to me; but I could not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs
was equally impossible. Hannah, the servant, was my most frequent
visitor. Her coming disturbed me. I had a feeling that she wished me
away: that she did not understand me or my circumstances; that she was
prejudiced against me. Diana and Mary appeared in the chamber once
or twice a day. They would whisper sentences of this sort at my
bedside-
   'It is very well we took her in.'
   'Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the
morning had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has gone
through?'
   'Strange hardships, I imagine- poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer?'
   'She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner
of speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took
off, though splashed and wet, were little worn and fine.'
   'She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I
rather like it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy
her physiognomy would be agreeable.'
   Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at
the hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or
aversion to, myself. I was comforted.
   Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of
lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted
fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he
was sure, would manage best, left to herself. He said every nerve
had been overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep
torpid a while. There was no disease. He imagined my recovery would be
rapid enough when once commenced. These opinions he delivered in a few
words, in a quiet, low voice; and added, after a pause, in the tone of
a man little accustomed to expansive comment, 'Rather an unusual
physiognomy; certainly, not indicative of vulgarity or degradation.'
   'Far otherwise,' responded Diana. 'To speak truth, St. John, my
heart rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able to
benefit her permanently.'
   'That is hardly likely,' was the reply. 'You will find she is
some young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and
has probably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in
restoring her to them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines of
force in her face which make me sceptical of her tractability.' He
stood considering me some minutes; then added, 'She looks sensible,
but not at all handsome.'
   'She is so ill, St. John.'
   'Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of
beauty are quite wanting in those features.'
   On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak,
move, rise in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and
dry toast, about, as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with
relish: the food was good- void of the feverish flavour which had
hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed. When she left me, I felt
comparatively strong and revived: ere long satiety of repose and
desire for action stirred me. I wished to rise; but what could I put
on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept on the
ground and fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed to appear before my
benefactors so clad. I was spared the humiliation.
   On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My
black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were
removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was
quite decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered
presentable. There were the means of washing in the room, and a comb
and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and resting
every five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My clothes hung
loose on me; for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with
a shawl, and once more, clean and respectable looking- no speck of the
dirt, no trace of the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to
degrade me, left- I crept down a stone staircase with the aid of the
banisters, to a narrow low passage, and found my way presently to
the kitchen.
   It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a
generous fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known, are
most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been
loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds
among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first:
latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in
tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled.
   'What, you have got up!' she said. 'You are better, then. You may
sit you down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will.'
   She pointed to the rocking-chair: I took it. She bustled about,
examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye. Turning to
me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly-
   'Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?'
   I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of
the question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I
answered quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness-
   'You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar. I am no beggar; any
more than yourself or your young ladies.'
   After a pause she said, 'I dunnut understand that: you've like no
house, nor no brass, I guess?'
   'The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money)
does not make a beggar in your sense of the word.'
   'Are you book-learned?' she inquired presently.
   'Yes, very.'
   'But you've never been to a boarding-school?'
   'I was at a boarding-school eight years.'
   She opened her eyes wide. 'Whatever cannot ye keep yourself for,
then?'
   'I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again. What
are you going to do with these gooseberries?' I inquired as she
brought out a basket of the fruit.
   'Mak' 'em into pies.'
   'Give them to me and I'll pick them.'
   'Nay; I dunnut want ye to do nought.'
   'But I must do something. Let me have them.'
   She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over
my dress, 'lest,' as she said, 'I should mucky it.'
   'Ye've not been used to sarvant's wark, I see by your hands,' she
remarked. 'Happen ye've been a dressmaker?'
   'No, you are wrong. And now, never mind what I have been: don't
trouble your head further about me; but tell me the name of the
house where we are.'
   'Some calls it Marsh End, and some calls it Moor House.'
   'And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John?'
   'Nay; he doesn't live here: he is only staying a while. When he
is at home, he is in his own parish at Morton.'
   'That village a few miles off?'
   'Aye.'
   'And what is he?'
   'He is a parson.'
   I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage,
when I had asked to see the clergyman. 'This, then, was his father's
residence?'
   'Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather,
and gurt (great) grandfather afore him.'
   'The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?'
   'Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name.'
   'And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?'
   'Yes.'
   'Their father is dead?'
   'Dead three weeks sin' of a stroke.'
   'They have no mother?'
   'The mistress has been dead this mony a year.'
   'Have you lived with the family long?'
   'I've lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three'
   'That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I
will say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call
me a beggar.'
   She again regarded me with a surprised stare. 'I believe,' she
said, 'I was quite mista'en in my thoughts of you: but there is so
mony cheats goes about, you mun forgie me.'
   'And though,' I continued, rather severely, 'you wished to turn
me from the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog.'
   'Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o' th'
childer nor of mysel: poor things! They've like nobody to tak' care on
'em but me. I'm like to look sharpish.'
   I maintained a grave silence for some minutes.
   'You munnut think too hardly of me,' she again remarked.
   'But I do think hardly of you,' I said; 'and I'll tell you why- not
so much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an
impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I
had no "brass" and no house. Some of the best people that ever lived
have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you
ought not to consider poverty a crime.'
   'No more I ought,' said she: 'Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I
see I wor wrang- but I've clear a different notion on you now to
what I had. You look a raight down dacent little crater.'
   'That will do- I forgive you now. Shake hands.'
   She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier
smile illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were friends.
   Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit, and
she made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry
details about her deceased master and mistress, and 'the childer,'
as she called the young people.
   Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a
gentleman, and of as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh End had
belonged to the Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she
affirmed, 'aboon two hundred year old- for all it looked but a
small, humble place, naught to compare wi' Mr. Oliver's grand hall
down i' Morton Vale. But she could remember Bill Oliver's father a
journeyman needle-maker; and th' Rivers wor gentry i' th' owd days
o' th' Henrys, as onybody might see by looking into th' registers i'
Morton Church vestry.' Still, she allowed, 'the owd maister was like
other folk- naught mich out o' th' common way: stark mad o'
shooting, and farming, and sich like.' The mistress was different. She
was a great reader, and studied a deal; and the 'bairns' had taken
after her. There was nothing like them in these parts, nor ever had
been; they had liked learning, all three, almost from the time they
could speak; and they had always been 'of a mak' of their own.' Mr.
St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a parson; and
the girls, as soon as they left school, would seek places as
governesses: for they had told her their father had some years ago
lost a great deal of money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt;
and as he was now not rich enough to give them fortunes, they must
provide for themselves. They had lived very little at home for a
long while, and were only come now to stay a few weeks on account of
their father's death; but they did so like Marsh End and Morton, and
all these moors and hills about. They had been in London, and many
other grand towns; but they always said there was no place like
home; and then they were so agreeable with each other- never fell
out nor 'threaped.' She did not know where there was such a family for
being united.
   Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the
two ladies and their brother were now.
   'Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half
an hour to tea.'
   They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they
entered by the kitchen door. Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely
bowed and passed through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few
words, kindly and calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing
me well enough to be able to come down; Diana took my hand: she
shook her head at me.
   'You should have waited for my leave to descend,' she said. 'You
still look very pale- and so thin! Poor child!- poor girl!'
   Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove.
She possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face
seemed to me full of charm. Mary's countenance was equally
intelligent- her features equally pretty; but her expression was
more reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant. Diana
looked and spoke with a certain authority: she had a will,
evidently. It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an
authority supported like hers, and to bend, where my conscience and
self-respect permitted, to an active will.
   'And what business have you here?' she continued. 'It is not your
place. Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we
like to be free, even to license- but you are a visitor, and must go
into the parlour.'
   'I am very well here.'
   'Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with
flour.'
   'Besides, the fire is too hot for you,' interposed Mary.
   'To be sure,' added her sister. 'Come, you must be obedient.' And
still holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner
room.
   'Sit there,' she said, placing me on the sofa, 'while we take our
things off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we
exercise in our little moorland home- to prepare our own meals when we
are so inclined, or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or
ironing.'
   She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat
opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I examined first, the
parlour, and then its occupant.
   The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet
comfortable, because clean and neat. The old-fashioned chairs were
very bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass. A few
strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days
decorated the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained
some books and an ancient set of china. There was no superfluous
ornament in the room- not one modern piece of furniture, save a
brace of workboxes and a lady's desk in rosewood, which stood on a
side-table: everything- including the carpet and curtains- looked at
once well worn and well saved.
   Mr. St. John- sitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on
the walls, keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his lips
mutely sealed- was easy enough to examine. Had he been a statue
instead of a man, he could not have been easier. He was young- perhaps
from twenty-eight to thirty- tall, slender; his face riveted the
eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight,
classic nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin. It is seldom,
indeed, an English face comes so near the antique models as did his.
He might well be a little shocked at the irregularity of my
lineaments, his own being so harmonious. His eyes were large and blue,
with brown lashes; his high forehead, colourless as ivory, was
partially streaked over by careless locks of fair hair.
   This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it
describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a
yielding, an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as
he now sat, there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his
brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either
restless, or hard, or eager. He did not speak to me one word, nor even
direct to me one glance, till his sisters returned. Diana, as she
passed in and out, in the course of preparing tea, brought me a little
cake, baked on the top of the oven.
   'Eat that now,' she said: 'you must be hungry. Hannah says you have
had nothing but some gruel since breakfast.'
   I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr.
Rivers now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took a
seat, fixed his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me. There was an
unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his
gaze now, which told that intention and not diffidence, had hitherto
kept it averted from the stranger.
   'You are very hungry,' he said.
   'I am, sir.' It is my way- it always was my way, by instinct-
ever to meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness.
   'It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain
for the last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to
the cravings of your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though
still not immoderately.'
   'I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir,' was my very
clumsily-contrived, unpolished answer.
   'No,' he said coolly: 'when you have indicated to us the
residence of your friends, we can write to them, and you may be
restored to home.'
   'That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being
absolutely without home and friends.'
   The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was
no suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity. I speak
particularly of the young ladies. St. John's eyes, though clear enough
in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He
seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people's
thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of
keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass
than to encourage.
   'Do you mean to say,' he asked, 'that you are completely isolated
from every connection?'
   'I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I
possess to admittance under any roof in England.'
   'A most singular position at your age!'
   Here I saw his glance directed to my hands, which were folded on
the table before me. I wondered what he sought there: his words soon
explained the quest.
   'You have never been married? You are a spinster?'
   Diana laughed. 'Why, she can't be above seventeen or eighteen years
old, St. John,' said she.
   'I am near nineteen: but I am not married. No.'
   I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating
recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage. They all
saw the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me by
turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but the
colder and sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble he
had excited forced out tears as well as colour.
   'Where did you last reside?' he now asked.
   'You are too inquisitive, St. John,' murmured Mary in a low
voice; but he leaned over the table and required an answer by a second
firm and piercing look.
   'The name of the place where, and of the person with whom I
lived, is my secret,' I replied concisely.
   'Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both
from St. John and every other questioner,' remarked Diana.
   'Yet if I know nothing about you or your history, I cannot help
you,' he said. 'And you need help, do you not?'
   'I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true
philanthropist will put me in the way of getting work which I can
do, and the remuneration for which will keep me, if but in the
barest necessaries of life.'
   'I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to
aid you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest. First, then,
tell me what you have been accustomed to do, and what you can do.'
   I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the
beverage; as much so as a giant with wine: it gave new tone to my
unstrung nerves, and enabled me to address this penetrating young
judge steadily.
   'Mr. Rivers,' I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he
looked at me, openly and without diffidence, 'you and your sisters
have done me a great service- the greatest man can do his
fellow-being; you have rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from
death. This benefit conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my
gratitude, and a claim, to a certain extent, on my confidence. I
will tell you as much of the history of the wanderer you have
harboured, as I can tell without compromising my own peace of mind- my
own security, moral and physical, and that of others.
   'I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman. My parents died
before I could know them. I was brought up a dependant; educated in
a charitable institution. I will even tell you the name of the
establishment, where I passed six years as a pupil, and two as a
Mr. Rivers?- the Rev. Robert Brocklehurst is the treasurer.'
   'I have heard of Mr. Brocklehurst, and I have seen the school.'
   'I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess. I
obtained a good situation, and was happy. This place I was obliged
to leave four days before I came here. The reason of my departure I
cannot and ought not to explain: it would be useless, dangerous, and
would sound incredible. No blame attached to me: I am as free from
culpability as any one of you three. Miserable I am, and must be for a
time; for the catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a
paradise was of a strange and direful nature. I observed but two
points in planning my departure- speed, secrecy: to secure these, I
had to leave behind me everything I possessed except a small parcel;
which, in my hurry and trouble of mind, I forgot to take out of the
coach that brought me to Whitcross. To this neighbourhood, then, I
came, quite destitute. I slept two nights in the open air, and
wandered about two days without crossing a threshold: but twice in
that space of time did I taste food; and it was when brought by
hunger, exhaustion, and despair almost to the last gasp, that you, Mr.
Rivers, forbade me to perish of want at your door, and took me under
the shelter of your roof. I know all your sisters have done for me
since- for I have not been insensible during my seeming torpor- and
I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt
as to your evangelical charity.'
   'Don't make her talk any more now, St. John,' said Diana, as I
paused; 'she is evidently not yet fit for excitement. Come to the sofa
and sit down now, Miss Elliott.'
   I gave an involuntary half start at hearing the alias: I had
forgotten my new name. Mr. Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape,
noticed it at once.
   'You said your name was Jane Elliott?' he observed.
   'I did say so; and it is the name by which I think it expedient
to be called at present, but it is not my real name, and when I hear
it, it sounds strange to me.'
   'Your real name you will not give?'
   'No: I fear discovery above all things; and whatever disclosure
would lead to it, I avoid.'
   'You are quite right, I am sure,' said Diana. 'Now do, brother, let
her be at peace a while.'
   But when St. John had mused a few moments he recommenced as
imperturbably and with as much acumen as ever.
   'You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality- you
would wish, I see, to dispense as soon as may be with my sisters'
compassion, and, above all, with my charity (I am quite sensible of
the distinction drawn, nor do I resent it- it is just): you desire
to be independent of us?'
   'I do: I have already said so. Show me how to work, or how to
seek work: that is all I now ask; then let me go, if it be but to
the meanest cottage; but till then, allow me to stay here: I dread
another essay of the horrors of homeless destitution.'
   'Indeed you shall stay here,' said Diana, putting her white hand on
my head. 'You shall,' repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative
sincerity which seemed natural to her.
   'My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you,' said Mr. St.
John, 'as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a
half-frozen bird, some wintry wind might have driven through their
casement. I feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping
yourself, and shall endeavour to do so; but observe, my sphere is
narrow. I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must
be of the humblest sort. And if you are inclined to despise the day of
small things, seek some more efficient succour than such as I can
offer.'
   'She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she
can do,' answered Diana for me; 'and you know, St. John, she has no
choice of helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people
as you.'
   'I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a
servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better,' I answered.
   'Right,' said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. 'If such is your
spirit, I promise to aid you, in my own time and way.'
   He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea.
I soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my
present strength would permit.
                        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