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Table of Contents

From the Pages of Jane Eyre Title Page Copyright Page Charlotte Brontë The World of Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre Introduction Dedication Preface to the Second Edition Note to the Third Edition

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXX

Chapter XXXI

Chapter XXXII

Chapter XXXIII

Chapter XXXIV

Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVII

Chapter XXXVIII - Conclusion

Endnotes Inspired by Jane Eyre Comments & Questions For Further Reading

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From the Pages of Jane Eyre

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. (page 21)

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. (page 130)

“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.” (page 170)

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. (page 175)

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 revived green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me. (page 207)

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.

(page 221)

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.” (page 297)

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 agonized 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! (page 374)

Reader, I married him. (page 520)

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Published by Barnes & Noble Books

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Jane Eyre was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell.

Originally published in mass market format in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics

with new Introduction, Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By,

Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.

This trade paperback format published in 2005.

Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading Copyright © 2003 by Susan Ostrov Weisser.

Note on Charlotte Brontë, The World of Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre,

Inspired by Jane Eyre, and Comments & Questions

Copyright © 2003 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

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colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Jane Eyre

ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-117-1 ISBN-10: 1-59308-117-0

eISBN : 978-1-411-43386-1

LC Control Number 2004111992

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Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë was born on April 21, 1816, in Thornton, Yorkshire, in the north of England, the third child of the Reverend Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell Brontë. In 1820 the family moved to neighboring Haworth, where Reverend Brontë was offered a lifetime curacy. The following year Mrs.

Brontë died of cancer, and her sister, Elizabeth Branwell, moved in to help raise the six children. The four eldest sisters—Charlotte, Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth—attended Cowan Bridge School, until Maria and Elizabeth contracted what was probably tuberculosis and died within months of each other, at which point Charlotte and Emily returned home. The four remaining siblings—Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne—played on the Yorkshire moors and dreamed up fanciful, fabled worlds, creating a constant stream of tales, such as the “Young Men” plays (1826) and “Our Fellows” (1827).

Reverend Brontë kept his children abreast of current events; among these

were the 1829 parliamentary debates centering on the Catholic Question, in which the duke of Wellington was a leading voice. Charlotte’s awareness of politics filtered into her fictional creations, as in the siblings’ saga The Islanders (1827), about an imaginary world peopled with the Brontë children’s real-life heroes, in which Wellington plays a central role as Charlotte’s chosen character.

Throughout her childhood, Charlotte had access to the circulating library

at the nearby town of Keighley. She knew the Bible and read the works of Shakespeare, George Gordon, Lord Byron, and Sir Walter Scott, and she particularly admired William Wordsworth and Robert Southey. In 1831 and 1832, Charlotte attended Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head, and she returned there as a teacher from 1835 to 1838. After working for a couple of years as a governess, Charlotte, with her sister Emily, traveled to Brussels

to study, with the goal of opening their own school, but this dream did not materialize once she returned to Haworth in 1844.

In 1846 the sisters published their collected poems under the pen names

Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily), and Acton (Anne) Bell. That same year Charlotte finished her first novel, The Professor, but it was not accepted for publication. However, she began work on Jane Eyre, which was published in 1847 and met with instant success. Though some critics saw impropriety in the core of the story—the relationship between a middle-aged man and the young, naive governess who works for him—most reviewers praised the novel, helping to ensure its popularity. One of Charlotte’s literary heroes, William Makepeace Thackeray, wrote her a letter to express his complete enjoyment of the novel and to praise her writing style, as did the influential literary critic G. H. Lewes.

Following the deaths of Branwell and Emily Brontë in 1848 and Anne in

1849, Charlotte made trips to London, where she began to move in literary circles that included such luminaries as Thackeray, whom she met for the first time in 1849; his daughter described Brontë as “a tiny, delicate, serious, little lady.” In 1850 Charlotte met the noted British writer Elizabeth Gaskell, with whom she formed a lasting friendship and who, at the request of Reverend Brontë, later became her biographer.

In 1854 Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls, a curate at Haworth who

worked with her father. However, less than a year later Charlotte fell seriously ill, perhaps with tuberculosis, and she died on March 31, 1855. At the time of her death, Charlotte Brontë was a celebrated author. The 1857 publication of her first novel, The Professor, and of Gaskell’s biography of her life only heightened her renown.

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The World of Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre

1816 Charlotte Brontë is born on April 21 in Thornton, En gland, the third of six children of the Reverend Patrick and Maria Branwell Brontë.

1817-

1820

Charlotte’s younger siblings, Patrick Branwell, Emily, and Anne, are born.

1820 The Brontë family moves to Haworth, where Reverend Brontë has been offered a lifetime curacy.

1821 Charlotte’s mother, Maria, dies, and her sister, Elizabeth Branwell, moves into the Brontë household to help raise the six young children.

1824 Charlotte and Emily, along with their older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, attend Cowan Bridge School.

1825 Maria and Elizabeth contract what is probably tuberculosis and die. Charlotte and Emily are pulled out of school to return home to Haworth.

1826 The four surviving siblings create the “Young Men” plays, the first of their imaginative fictional writings, which are followed in 1827 by “Our Fellows” and “The Islanders.”

1831-

1832

Charlotte attends Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head.

1835 Charlotte returns to Roe Head as a teacher. Emily attends as a student, but stays only three months; Anne takes her place,

studying there until 1837.

1837 Charlotte writes to Robert Southey, the British poet lau reate, to ask his opinion of her poetry. His disheartening response implies that while Charlotte displays what Words worth calls “faculty of verse,” this is nothing extraordinary in a time of so many decent poets. He goes on to declare that women have no business in literature.

1838 Charlotte resigns from her teaching position at Roe Head.

1839 She works as a governess, first in Lothersdale and later in

1841 Rawdon.

1842 Charlotte and Emily travel to Brussels to study at Pension nat Héger, where they read, among other things, works by French and German Romantics. They stay less than a year, returning to Haworth because their aunt Elizabeth Bran well has died.

1843-

1844

Charlotte spends a second year at the Pensionnat in Brus sels honing her French and German language skills. She develops a strong emotional attachment to her married employer and former teacher, Constantin Héger, a situa tion that may have informed the Jane Eyre love story. Char lotte returns to Haworth in January 1844.

1846 In February, Charlotte sends a manuscript, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (the pen names of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, respectively), to the London publisher Aylott and Jones. The poems are published in May at the sisters’ expense; only two copies are sold. In June Charlotte completes her first novel, The Professor. By the end of the year she has begun work on Jane Eyre.

1847 While Charlotte’s manuscript for The Professor is rejected by various publishers, her sisters’ novels—Anne’s Agnes Grey and

Emily’s Wuthen‘ng Heights-are accepted for pub lication by Thomas Cautley Newby. Charlotte approaches another publisher, Smith, Elder and Co., with Jane Eyre, which is published in October to instant success, over shadowing the publication in December of her sisters’ nov els and surpassing them in acclaim. All three sisters are still publishing under their “Bell” pen names.

1848 Amid growing rumors that there is only one “Bell” writer, Charlotte and Anne travel to London to prove otherwise.

Charlotte’s publisher, George Smith, learns the truth of the Brontës’ identities but is sworn to protect their secret. In September, Branwell Brontë dies after a sustained bout with depression, alcoholism, and drug use; in December, Emily dies of tuberculosis.

1849 In May, Anne dies of tuberculosis. Charlotte’s novel Shirley is published by Smith, Elder and Co. In November, Char

lotte travels again to London, this time as a well-known author.

She meets one of her literary idols, William Mak epeace Thackeray.

1850 Charlotte returns to London. In August, she travels to Win dermere, where she meets the writer Elizabeth Gaskell, with whom she becomes close friends. In December, Char lotte writes the prefaces and biographical notes for her sisters’ novels; she reveals the true identities of the “Bells” and works to protect the posthumous reputations of Emily and Anne, who have received some criticism for their “coarse” and “nihilistic” writings.

Depressed by the loss of her siblings, Charlotte writes little fiction this year but reads Jane Austen for the first time; she disparages Aus ten’s novels as shrewd and observant, but without senti ment.

1853 Charlotte’s novel Villette is published in January. In April, she spends a week in Manchester with Elizabeth Gaskell; in September, Gaskell visits her at Haworth.

1854 In June, Charlotte marries Arthur Bell Nicholls, whom she has known since 1845, when he began work as a curate at Haworth.

1855 Charlotte is happily married for a few months, but early in the year she becomes ill; she dies on March 31.

1857 Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë is published, as is Charlotte’s first novel, The Professor, though the latter’s re lease is partly obscured by the enormous interest Gaskell’s work receives.

1928 In August, Haworth Parsonage opens to the public as the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

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Introduction

Matthew Arnold famously characterized Charlotte Brontë’s writing as full of “rebellion and rage,” yet that description does not easily square with the most famous line of her best-known novel, Jane Eyre: “Reader, I married him.” Coming as it does at the conclusion of a tempestuous series of ordeals in the romance of the governess Jane Eyre and her wealthy employer, Rochester, it implies a conventional happy ending for a heroine, her domestic reward for virtue. Between these two differing accounts of Jane Eyre as subversive and conservative lies a complex and challenging novel full of paradoxes, not least of which is that it appears regularly on lists of classics, yet has had enduring mass appeal as a romance as well.

In Jane Eyre we have that unusual monument in the history of literature, a

novel considered from the first a work of high literary merit that is also an immediate and enormous popular success. Indeed, it continues to be widely read both in and out of the academic setting. While it is often “required” reading in secondary schools and universities, it has also been adapted into numerous films, television productions, theatrical plays, and at least one

Broadway musical.a The first of these productions took place in London less than four months after the novel’s publication, much to the dismay of its author, who feared, like most authors, that the play would misrepresent her work. In fact, it is not surprising that most adaptations of Jane Eyre have selectively emphasized the melodramatic Gothic and romantic elements of the novel at the expense of less easily dramatized aspects, such as its passages about religion or the condition of women. Yet these are just as integral to its meaning as the melodrama for which it is remembered, if not more so.

In some ways it is difficult to account for the continued stature and

popular appeal of a work that has been read as both feminist and antifeminist, radical and conservative, highly original and highly derivative,

Romantic and Victorian. Certainly many readers, beginning with George Eliot in the nineteenth century, have been disturbed by the way the plot hinges on a moral dilemma involving antiquated divorce laws and nineteenth-century notions of women’s sexual purity. Some critics, such as Virginia Woolf, have seen the novel as too angry for its own literary good; others, notably some modern feminist critics, as not explicitly angry enough. Why does this novel about the moral trials of an impoverished and orphaned governess continue to hold such fascination for a modern audience? Is it the passionate romance, the Cinderella ending, the incipient feminism of its views about the suppression of women?

Most readers who respond to the novel agree that the appeal of Jane Eyre

lies in its intensity of feeling, richness of language, and forceful representation of passion in a decidedly dramatic plot. Even at its publication in 1847, critics and the public recognized that, for better or worse, Jane Eyre was something different : a novel about a woman written with a man’s freedom, the freedom to portray the indecorum of a heroine who has outbursts of anger as a child and uncontrollable passion as an adult, who confesses her desire openly when she thinks it is hopeless and refuses the passive and dependent role in romance. All these violated deeply entrenched social codes of femininity and respectability, and shocked some of Brontë’s early critics. Miss Eyre is “rather a brazen Miss,” cried one contemporary reader (letter from John Gibson Lockhart, 1847); another called the novel “dangerous,” filled with “outrages on decorum.” “[The author] cannot appreciate the hold which a daily round of simple duties and pure pleasures has on those who are content to practice and enjoy them,” sniffed another reviewer (Anne Mozley, The Christian Remembrancer, April 1853).

Fearing (with justification) that female authors would not be taken

seriously, the three Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, published their first novels in 1847 under the male pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis, and

Acton Bell. A great deal of speculation followed in the press about the identities of the pseudonymous authors, including controversy as to their gender. The exciting revelation that eventually followed—that the writers were not only females, but the humble, reserved, unfashionable, and religious daughters of a clergyman living in a remote village on the moors

of Yorkshire—only stimulated more curiosity, this time about the nature of the women who could produce such disturbing works about passion while leading reclusive and virginal lives.

Many modern readers are aware that Charlotte Brontë was one of four

remarkable children, three of whom, including Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë, became famous authors themselves, and the other of whom, Branwell, the only brother, died at age thirty-one in miserable and ignoble circumstances. One important aspect of Jane Eyre’s remarkable success has surely been the literary mystery that has grown to the proportions of myth about the entire Brontë family: How could the modest, unworldly authors of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall have understood and depicted fervent, obsessive, sometimes violent love?

The Brontës were a highly unusual family, to be sure. The father, Patrick

Brontë (originally Brunty), was born and reared in Ireland by a poor and probably illiterate peasant family. His mother, a Catholic by birth, had become a Protestant upon marriage to his father. Young Patrick was clever enough to be a schoolteacher at age sixteen and thereafter admitted to Cambridge to study for the ministry—a most unusual accomplishment for an impecunious Irish youth. By the time he was appointed to the pulpit of Haworth, in Yorkshire, in 1820, he had risen in social class enough to be considered a gentleman, albeit an impoverished one without wealthy connections or a private income to supplement his meager wages. In 1812 Patrick had married Maria Branwell, from Cornwall, a religious young woman of Methodist faith, and they had six children by 1820: Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Patrick Branwell (known as Branwell), Emily, and Anne. When the baby, Anne, was less than two years old, Maria Branwell Brontë died of cancer at age thirty-eight, after a prolonged and terrible period of illness.

Though an aunt from Cornwall, the strict and deeply religious Elizabeth

Branwell, came to care for the children after their mother’s death, the four eldest girls (Emily was only six years old) were sent to Cowan Bridge School, while Branwell and Anne remained to be educated at home. Cowan Bridge was an institution established for the education of poor clergymen’s daughters by the Reverend William Carus-Wilson, the original model for the character of the Reverend Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre. It is not difficult to

understand why Patrick Brontë sent his daughters there: He could afford little else, and Cowan Bridge had such well-known patrons as William Wilberforce and Charles Simeon, the evangelical preachers who had influenced Patrick Brontë’s religious views. At the time it must have seemed like a godsend to the widower with six children crowded in his small home and with few resources to educate them.

But Cowan Bridge, which inspired the portrait of Lowood School in Jane

Eyre, was a place of harsh daily regimes, unhealthy conditions, and unrelenting deprivation. Its educational mission was that the female pupils, of genteel social class but with few prospects for the future, should be taught stringent self-denial and unquestioning submission in their own best interest. The evangelical Reverend Carus-Wilson believed the pupils should be schooled in strict religious and moral principles in order to save their souls, as we can see in the magazine he wrote for them, called The Children’s Friend, in which he admonishes his charges, “The Lord will call you to account, my dear children, at the awful day of judgment.... What shame and confusion will seize upon you! You will in vain call upon the rocks and mountains to fall upon you, and hide you ... and you will hear these words sounded in your ears, ‘Depart (oh, that word depart) ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.’ ”

All the children at Cowan Bridge suffered from insufficient and poor-

quality food, lack of heat, and rampant disease. In 1825 the two oldest Brontë sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, were sent home from school in advanced stages of illness and died there, probably of consumption (or tuberculosis, as it is called today). Though Charlotte and Emily were removed from the school soon after the deaths of their older sisters, the fate of Maria and Elizabeth was an enormous blow, following so soon upon the loss of their mother. Charlotte spoke often of Maria as a truly remarkable child, highly intelligent and precocious at age eleven, mothering her younger siblings, of a deeply religious nature even then. The character of selfless yet strong-minded Helen in Jane Eyre is based on this important figure in Charlotte’s childhood.

The next period of the Brontë children’s life was truly astonishing: The

remaining four—now educated rather haphazardly at home, precocious and imaginative, cut off from the outside world and with little to entertain them

—began to write. Colla boratively they produced numerous plays, historical fantasies, poems, and homemade miniature books (some of which still exist) over a long period extending into adulthood, all based on imaginary kingdoms of their own devising. Though none of the children had much formal instruction, all were avid readers of several newspapers, literary magazines like Blackwood‘s, popular ladies’ annuals, the Bible, and literary classics like John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, The Arabian Nights, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Sir Walter Scott, and the latest Romantic poetry, all used as models for their own creative efforts.

The four Brontë children’s writing endeavors began about a year after

their sisters’ deaths, when Patrick Brontë brought home toy soldiers for his children to play with. Each selected a favorite, named it (Charlotte’s was called Wellington, after the duke her father idolized), and began to invent a system of imaginative fantasy centering around the soldier’s chosen character. These fantasies soon extended into elaborate sagas of invented worlds. The children read their writing, which they set down in miniature books in a tiny hand, aloud to each other, furnishing themselves with a limited but enthusiastically appreciative audience. These were both individual and collective efforts: Working in pairs, Emily and Anne wrote poetry, stories, and “histories” of their kingdom, which they called Gondal, while Charlotte and Branwell’s realm was called Angria.

In both of these worlds of juvenilia, but especially in Angria, which was

influenced by accounts the children had read of Africa, the setting was lush and exotic and the plots highly melodramatic. Charlotte’s characters tended toward the Byronic: impetuous, impulsive, and grand, with names like Zenobia and Zamorna. In these extravagant stories the heroines, both childish and precociously gifted, are as amoral as the heroes, and nearly all are gorgeous and glamorous, as well as powerful aristocrats. The influence of the popular Gothic novel is evident in the juvenilia, as it is in Jane Eyre, where Charlotte Brontë absorbs and reorganizes both Byronic and Gothic

models for the characters of Rochester and Bertha.b

These shared fantasies enabled the Brontë children to lead rich lives of the

imagination in secret, while depending only on one another for emotional support and mental stimulation. In a household run by a strict, religious

aunt and a detached father who often left the children alone because their “prattle” annoyed him, the young Brontës constructed their own world of adventure and pleasure. So enthralling were the tales they spun that as a young adult Charlotte found it difficult to leave them behind for the mundane world of daily domestic routine. To her they represented the thrilling romance of hidden desires, couched in glamorous language and settings, and as she matured they contrasted bitterly with the real world in which she was plain, obscure, and in forced seclusion.

But the practicalities of their lives intruded on this rather idyllic childhood

passage: Their livings must be earned, and at age fifteen, in 1831, Charlotte was sent as a pupil to Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head, where she suffered agonies of shyness and self-consciousness about her unattractive appearance and social awkwardness. Though the Brontës identified with the gentrified classes because of their father’s education and social position as clergyman, they were not gentry by virtue of their economic status.

Charlotte’s lack of beauty, fashion, and social graces not only made her feel out of place, but did not bode well for her future in the marriage market, as she was painfully aware.

Later as a teacher at Roe Head (1835-1838) and as a governess in 1839

and 1841, virtually the only two professions open to impoverished genteel women, Charlotte was miserable both at her inability to adjust to the social conventions regarding women and at the severe restrictions on her time to write. The Angrian fantasies were her salvation, but also her guilty secret: When the schoolroom was quiet, she wrote in her journal in 1836, “All this day I have been in a dream half-miserable and half-ecstatic, miserable because I could not follow it out uninterruptedly, ecstatic because it shewed almost in the vivid light of reality the ongoings of the infernal world.” She “longed to write,” “felt she could have written gloriously”—but could not. “Am I to spend all the best part of my life in this wretched bondage, forcibly suppressing my rage at the idleness, the apathy, and the hyperbolical and most asinine stupidity of these fat-headed oafs, and on compulsion assuming an air of kindness, patience and assiduity?” Though these rebellious, furious feelings always had their counterpart in guilt at her own pride (“Don’t deceive yourself that I have a bit of real goodness about me,” she wrote to her closest friend, the proper Ellen Nussey, in 1836; “If

you knew my thoughts; the dreams that absorb me; and the fiery imagination that at times eats me up and makes me feel Society as it is wretchedly insipid you would pity and I dare say despise me”), she could not suppress her tendency to lose herself in what she called in her journal “the divine unseen land of thought.”

At one time or another, all the Brontë sisters tried to earn their keep as

governesses, and all despised the work. Governesses, like teachers, were very poorly paid, worked long hours, and were often treated as servants in spite of educations and class origins that were superior to those of their employers. Yet no other path to independence seemed open to them: Their only other resource, their brother, Branwell, who was educated to become a portrait painter, failed miserably at this and all other attempts he made at a profession, and became increasingly mired in scandal, drink, and opium.

Eventually he died young and in disgrace, a horrible disappointment to his family, and especially to his father, who, like most Victorian fathers, had taken care to give his son opportunities he did not give his more dutiful daughters. Ironically, Branwell’s rather amateurish attempts at painting his sisters’ likeness have been reproduced widely in modern books about the Brontës and have become quite famous.

Charlotte was ambitious, too, but her burning hope was to write, and

gathering her courage, she wrote to the British poet laureate, Robert Southey, in 1837, sending some of her poems and begging him for a response from his “throne of light and glory.” His answer is legendary:

Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure she will have for it, even as an accomplishment and recreation. To those duties you have not yet been called, and when you are you will be less eager for celebrity.

Charlotte wrote back:

In the evenings, I confess, I do think, but I never trouble anyone else with my thoughts.... I have endeavored not only attentively to observe all the duties a woman ought to fulfill, but to feel deeply interested in them. I don’t always succeed, for sometimes when I’m teaching or sewing I would rather be reading or writing; but I try to deny myself.

... Once more allow me to thank you with sincere gratitude. I trust I shall nevermore feel ambitious to see my name in print; if the wish should rise, I’ll look at Southey’s letter, and suppress it.

It isn’t difficult to see the combination of guilt and barely suppressed bitterness in this reply. The famous passages in Jane Eyre that strongly assert the right of women to a wider life of their own apart from the domestic circle may be seen as Charlotte’s response to Southey after years of struggle with her own internalization of his conventional view.

In 1842 Charlotte and Emily Brontë went to school at the Pensionnat

Héger in Brussels, with the hope of acquiring skills (such as fluency in French) that could be put to use in opening their own school. The scheme of starting a school to support them all did not materialize; a printed handbill survives, but no pupils came. Nevertheless, Charlotte’s sojourn in Europe had a profound effect on her. The lonely and shy young woman fell deeply in love with the one man who recognized her intelligence and talent and encouraged her: her married teacher and mentor at the Pensionnat, Constantin Héger. Though this was a painful time, as Charlotte’s surviving letters to her unresponsive “Master” show, it was also a period of intellectual growth and stimulation. When the family was reunited at Haworth, the young Brontës formulated a common desire to be authors.

Under the male pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, the sisters

first published a book of their combined poetry in 1846, after Charlotte’s famous discovery of Emily’s poems in a drawer. Emily resisted publication, but Charlotte was absolutely convinced of the value of her work, and prevailed. Though only two copies of the book were sold, this event established their joint ambition to be authors. As the hope of the family, Branwell, was sinking, in 1847 the sisters were successful in publishing Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë’s only known novel), Agnes Grey (Anne Brontë’s short novel about a poor governess, followed by The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in 1848), and Charlotte’s Jane Eyre.

All three novels appeared within months of each other, an intensely

exciting time in the parsonage at Haworth, though the books’ true authorship was kept secret from their father and brother, as well as from most friends and acquaintances. At first, speculation was strong about the

identity of the three Bells—from the beginning it was suspected that they might not be males, and some critics believed all three “brothers” were really the same person. A distressing rumor had it that Jane Eyre was written by a discontented governess in William Makepeace Thackeray’s family. Cut off from social life as she was, Charlotte did not hear this gossip until after she had dedicated the second edition of her novel to Thackeray with humble praise for him. (Since Thackeray did in fact have a mentally unstable wife, this proved terribly embarrassing for her.)

The notices for the three novels were strikingly dissimilar: Critics tended

to ignore Anne’s slim volume, and to decry the perceived immorality of Wuthering Heights with disgust and outrage, but Jane Eyre received more mixed reviews. It is fair to say that critics both highly praised and condemned it. No less a critic than the eminent George Henry Lewes (essayist and future common-law husband of George Eliot) found it a “strange love story” but wrote that “no such book has gladdened our eyes for a long while” (Fraser’s Magazine, December 1847), while Thackeray wrote to the publishers that he couldn’t put it down and cried at the love

scenes. But others, most infamously Elizabeth Rigby, later Lady Eastlake, expressed repugnance at its “gross inconsistencies and improbabilities,” its “singularly unattractive” hero and heroine, and most tellingly, the unchristian nature of the heroine’s “unregenerate and undisciplined spirit,” which the reviewer linked to the “ungodly discontent” of the rebellions of the poor both in England and abroad. Moreover, Lady Eastlake adds, the book is unfeminine, and she therefore concludes it is not written by a woman, or if a woman, by “one who has, for some sufficient reason, long forfeited the society of her own sex” (The Quarterly Review, December 1848). Even the sympathetic Lewès later wrote that it was “overmasculine,” with a vigor that “often amounts to coarseness,—and is certainly the very antipode to ‘ladylike’ ” (Edinburgh Review, January 1850).

Such harsh judgments and misconceptions were difficult enough; this

mixture of exhilaration in publishing and disappointment in notices was followed all too rapidly by the sudden decline of Emily, followed soon by Anne, from tuberculosis. The two sisters died not long after Branwell’s ignominious demise, probably from alcoholism though possibly also from tuberculosis. By 1849 the entire family had been decimated, except for

Patrick Brontë, the aging paterfamilias, and Charlotte herself. While Charlotte continued to write and enjoy more success with her next two novels, Shirley and Villette, it seemed that she was condemned to care for her father alone in a desolate and terribly lonely environment. Her letters of this time are full of painful reflections and attempts to reconcile herself to her sisters’ deaths, as well as her own fate as a lifelong “spinster.”

The next years of Charlotte’s life were, however, enlivened by a growing

reputation as a serious novelist and occasional trips to London, where she eventually met George Henry Lewes and Thackeray himself. She also became friends with Elizabeth Gaskell, the Victorian novelist who was to write a famous biography of her after her death, which has since become a classic in its own right.

Then in 1854 Charlotte unexpectedly married, an event at first irately

opposed by her possessive father. Her suitor for years, Arthur Bell Nicholls, a poor curate in her father’s ministry, was unattractive and neither intellectual nor artistic, and she was not in love with him. But she came to appreciate his fidelity and devotion to her, as well as to value the strong feeling for her that led him to cry openly when she first refused his proposal. Since she had always considered herself most undesirable and even unlovable, this expression of ardent love shocked and gratified her. At age thirty-eight, Charlotte renounced her romantic dreams and for a while was surprised by how happy she was in her new life.

It did not last long. Within months she became severely ill and wasted,

and died in March 1855. Though a local doctor linked her symptoms to pregnancy—and there has been much popular psychological criticism purporting to explain her death as an unconscious rejection of sex, marriage, and motherhood—there is no real evidence that she was pregnant, or if she was, that she died of a pregnancy-related condition rather than tuberculosis (like her sisters) or typhoid, which was rampant in Haworth in the nineteenth century.

Because of the high drama of the Brontë family story, the almost mythic

legend of the three isolated, eccentric, and repressed sisters in the lonely parsonage at Haworth soon grew in popularity. The literary reputation of the odd and complex Wuthering Heights, first seen as amoral if not

“diabolical,” rose considerably beginning in the late nineteenth century. But twentieth-century critics such as Thomas Moser and biographers such as Helene Moglen tended to see Jane Eyre as a powerful but transparently neurotic outpouring of sexual frustration couched in Victorian moralism.

Moreover, the novel’s improbable coincidences (so common in Victorian prose fiction), the attempt at Byronism in the portrait of its hero, and the moral stringency of its characters’ religious preoccupations all contributed to its lower status within the canon.

This state of critical affairs changed with the feminist revolution in

literary criticism, and especially with the publication of Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s groundbreaking work The Madwoman in the Attic (1979; see “For Further Reading”) . Feminist critics stimulated a new appreciation of the ways in which Brontë forthrightly addresses the position of women and tries to revise the conventions of gender roles in romantic love. The result has been a more nuanced understanding of the paradoxical nature of Jane Eyre’s mix of rebellion with social and religious conservatism. Critics have always noticed the conflict of views and forces in the novel, labeling them Nature versus Grace, private versus public, passion and reason, romanticism and rationalism, and so on. A feminist reexamination of these divisions has allowed these competing categories to be recast in new and more complex terms.

One way to understand the structure of Jane Eyre is to see it as a

bildungsroman, the story of a young person’s moral and social education.

Certainly we are encouraged to identify with Jane as heroine because, like Dickens’s David Copperfield, she narrates the tale of her own life. The novel is, to be sure, subtitled “An Autobiography,” though actually it begins in girlhood when Jane is ten years old and ends with marriage and motherhood, in conformity with the Victorian view that this trajectory completes the purpose of a woman’s life. But Jane is not an ordinary heroine : Though her emotional isolation as an orphan is a common motif, her physical smallness and plain features, as well as her sarcasm, outspokenness, and strong will, set her sharply apart from the sweet and adorable girls often found in Victorian fiction. We know that Charlotte insisted over her sisters’ objections that her heroine must not be beautiful, as convention required for romance; according to her biographer, Elizabeth

Gaskell, she told Emily and Anne confidently, “I will prove to you that you are wrong; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours” (Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte, p. 215) . The rebelliousness of Jane’s childhood lies in her outspoken insistence on her right to be loved and valued as an individual, and her equally passionate resistance to the rigidly hierarchical social distinctions of class that informed Victorian society. To the modern reader she may appear as a champion of individualism when she fervently declares her own self-worth in opposition to the spoiled and privileged members of the Reed family: When her aunt calls her “not worthy of notice,” Jane counters, “They are not fit to associate with me” (p. 35). In a way, the entire novel seems to affirm Jane’s belief that one should not base human value on differences in social or economic rank, presenting a kind of argument for meritocracy against deeply ingrained values of authority and social privilege.

Yet a careful reader will note that the child Jane’s outbursts are not

endorsed by Jane Eyre as adult narrator: “Half an hour’s silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position.” Vengeance in the form of impulsive expression of rage, she says, had an “after-flavor metallic and corroding, [giving] me a sensation as if I had been poisoned” (p. 47). Though Jane’s need for affection and her indignation at the unjust conditions of her treatment as a loveless outcast are portrayed sympathetically, the “poison” of rebellion is not.

The same ambiguity may be seen in the next phase of the novel, when

Jane is sent to Lowood, the school modeled on the Clergy Daughters’ School of Charlotte Brontë’s memory. Here the loneliness and alienation Jane felt in the Reed household at Gateshead is continued, but in a setting where emotional deprivation is mirrored in the refusal of bodily needs.

Hunger and cold become powerful metaphors for the denial of nature, as the pupils suffer from unreasonable demands and overly harsh discipline and physical conditions. Evangelical Christianity, in the form of Reverend Brocklehurst and his pronouncements, is aligned with this devaluation of nature, feeling, desire, and pleasure : “... we are not to conform to nature; I

wish these girls to be the children of grace;” says Brocklehurst when ordering a pupil’s curls to be cut off (p. 77).

But the character of Helen Burns, who suffers more than Jane does and

rejects Jane’s bitterness and retaliatory anger in a saintly Christian spirit, belies the novel’s seeming endorsement of “Nature” and presents a model for a competing view: a Christian vision based (unlike Brocklehurst’s) on love and forgiveness as well as on submission and self-denial. Jane is impressed by Helen’s sorrowful “You think too much of the love of human beings” (p.83), though she herself does not feel capable—by nature—of imitating this young female incarnation of Christ. Actually, Helen’s early death signals that her martyrdom does not fit her well for the trials of experience in this world, any more than her rejection of strong human attachments invites its pleasures.

When we next see Jane she is a young adult, and ready for the greater trial

of pleasure and pain in the world outside school:

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 amid its perils.... I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped ... (p. 102).

If she cannot have liberty, she prays, “Grant me, at least, a new servitude!” (p. 102).

Here, in the transition from girlhood to adult womanhood, is where Jane

reflects most clearly on the real world of unequal opportunity, as she acknowledges women’s stifled desire for adventure and work in the wider world:

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 . . . (p. 130).

This is perhaps what led Mrs. Oliphant, a popular Victorian novelist, to say of Jane Eyre that it was “but a wild declaration of the ‘Rights of Woman’ in a new aspect” (Blackwood’s Magazine, May 1855).

Though Jane secures a place as a governess, it isn’t very long before she

falls in love with her master, Edward Rochester, the part of the novel most often dramatized in adaptations and for which it is best remembered.

Rochester has many of the characteristics associated with the Byronic hero.

He has a secret, dark past. He is an unloved outcast, like Jane; too unconcerned with society to be a typical gentleman, he is, like her, alienated from family, society, and love. Reminiscent of Brontë’s Angrian hero Zamorna, he is intensely masculine, sexual, full of unrestrained feeling, with an appeal beyond smooth manners or good looks: “He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow” (p. 135), “broad and jetty eyebrows . . . decisive nose ... full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; his grim mouth, chin, and jaw” (p. 143), “granite-hewn features” (p. 157), “unusual breadth of chest” (p. 158). Yet unlike the Byronic or the Angrian hero, he is not “heroic-looking.”

In some important ways Rochester is “kin” to Jane’s kind; his lack of

conventional handsomeness, his ability to be “natural,” and his contempt for social niceties all allow Jane to find a connection with him beyond what she earlier called “rules and systems,” here the social niceties of conventional male-female or master-servant relations. Jane too is a highly unconventional romantic heroine, not only in her plainness of appearance, dress, and manner, but also in her insistence on the validity of her own emotions, entirely contrary to the passivity and modesty required of respectable women: “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,” she says when she believes she must part from him (p. 295).

Once more Brontë appears to affirm nature and feeling as important values when she sets Jane’s naturalness of speech and manner, the worth of her mind and heart, against the artificiality and hollowness of snobbish “ladies” such as Blanche (her supposed rival for Rochester’s affections) who are Jane’s social betters.

When Rochester chooses Jane in spite of the social stigma of marrying

“down,” romantic love appears subversive of the social order, indeed.

Romantic love is defined as a harmony of minds, deeply “understanding one another,” and the transcendence of merit over conventional categories of bloodlines, class, and power, as in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It is not difficult to see why Jane Eyre is best remembered as a romance: The depth, spontaneity, and integrity of Jane’s romantic desire are continually contrasted with the superficiality and egoism of Celine, Blanche, and even little Adèle, females who sell themselves to men for their keep, depending on their feminine charm and good looks to please and flatter men.

Nature, emotion, and expression overmaster reason and social convention

in Jane’s daring declaration of love to Rochester:

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? ... 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 (p. 296).

But the story is not so simple, and its values not so easily derived from this most famous part of the book alone. (Not coincidentally, a similarly misplaced emphasis is often noted in the interpretations and adaptations of Wuthering Heights.) For as soon as Jane and Rochester are engaged to be married, the tone of the narrative changes again. The next phase of the novel reveals, with some comic alarm but also growing unease, Rochester’s possessiveness and desire for Jane’s dependency in love: “I mean shortly to claim you,” he tells her, “your thoughts, conversation, and company, for life” (p. 310). To Jane’s dismay he wants to lavish gifts on her as though she were a lady (or Cinderella), and calls her a fairy and an angel. Jane’s increasing anxiety is reflected in literal dreams foreshadowing disaster, as well as her statement to Rochester, “You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all; you are a mere dream” (p. 325).

Brontë associates this dreamlike state of romance, which inevitably

recalls Charlotte’s renounced visionary dreams in girlhood, with a sexuality that is heightened and uncontrolled. When Rochester looks lovingly at Jane,

she notices his face is “ardent and flushed” (p. 326). This unregulated passion is not only antisocial, inimical to living by the real rules of the world, but also irreligious. As Jane says during her courtship, “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.... I could not, in those days, see God for his creature, of whom I had made an idol” (p. 320).

Just as the tension between Jane’s and Rochester’s views of love and

marriage seems irreconcilable and Jane is in danger of losing her selfhood to the more dominant Rochester, the melodramatic revelation of Rochester’s hidden wife, Bertha, brings the wedding to a sudden halt. The Gothic plot line, in which the sequestered mad wife prevents the legal marriage of Jane and Rochester, allows Brontë to present the competing claims of an alternate system of values to romance and pleasure, which may conveniently be called Christian, traditional, and moral. The outsized and physically strong Bertha is the ultimate contrast with the ethereal Helen; Bertha’s mad avidity for drink and promiscuity represent the danger of flouting the Christian ethic of self-denial.

But romantic love stands in an interestingly ambiguous relation to the

Christian system of belief and the humanist value of individual feeling. So far, Brontë has strongly endorsed the right feeling of love as natural and good, and Jane’s reward has been the love she deserves in return. Yet Rochester’s behavior to her during their engagement, Jane’s own threatened loss of autonomy in passion, and the discovery of the mad consequences of indulgence in appetite all weigh against the conclusion that romantic passion is the answer to Jane’s search for meaning and dignity. On the contrary, what Jane takes away from this most often dramatized section of the novel is that unregulated or illegitimate emotion and sexual desire are threats to social harmony and order, as well as disobedient to the laws imposed by religion. Jane’s romantic interlude is meant to expose the antisocial and antireligious nature of uncontrolled self-will, which represents the breakdown of moral law and stability. This view, which deeply informs Jane Eyre, reflects the conflicted nature of the history of romantic love in the West, where the tradition of consuming, impossible,

often adulterous passion is in marked contrast to the Christianized version of love, which regulates its subversive desire into marital devotion.

The compelling scene in which Jane and Rochester struggle with each

other emotionally after she has learned the truth about his marriage is the climax of the novel’s conflict regarding the evangelical Christian imperative to value Grace over Nature. Certainly there is a strong attraction in Jane Eyre, psychologically and aesthetically, toward what is “natural,” which sometimes seems to include romantic and sexual passion. At times Nature is aligned at once against reason and with imagination and feeling, impulse, aesthetic sensibility, nonconformity, and individualism. But is Nature “right”? And how do we know?

When Rochester asserts the right of natural feeling over social

conventions “It would not be wicked to love me.... Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law no man being injured by the breach?” (pp. 368-369), Jane denounces his argument as a mere rationale for the temptation of evil-doing, though Rochester’s speech distinctly echoes her own claim during their courtship to the right of feeling to reign over social custom. But Jane pleads “self-respect” as well as universal moral principles, without which life would have no coherence.

Though Rochester’s argument that no one would be hurt by their living together outside marriage under these difficult circumstances may sound reasonable and socially acceptable to modern ears, the novel turns on our admiration of Jane’s ability to deny her own desire and feelings for the greater good of the traditional moral principles she assumes are universal.

Though her cries “I care for myself” and “I will respect myself” have a distinctly feminist ring, it is easy to forget or dismiss that strict adherence to the Christian ethic of sexual purity, the “law given by God” (p. 369), is the framework for her self-assertion.

To avoid temptation, Jane leaves Thornfield and is cast into the harsh and

unforgiving world, orphaned once again from the temporary shelter she had found in romantic love. Many strands come together in this penultimate part of the novel: Jane finds independence in work, she finds out (with typically Victorian improbable coincidence) that her new friends at Marsh End are her cousins, and she inherits money at the precise time that she can put it to good use (with the usual convenience of Victorian plotting). Most

important, she encounters a new character, one who is both so like and unlike the others who have influenced (and reflected) her that he introduces a new element in the ongoing dialogue between romance and Christian submission.

This character is, of course, her cousin St. John Rivers, still another

minister, whose mission is to save souls, this time in India. St. John is handsome, unlike Rochester, but like a “prostrate column,” cold and rigid (unlike Rochester again). Though Jane admires him greatly, he represents danger of another sort: extreme repression of desire and self-denial, a sort of tyranny over the naturalness of human feeling. St. John wants to marry her only to complete his calling to missionary work. “Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love ... and know that the spirit was quite absent?” Jane asks herself (p. 469).

Here is where the novel best demonstrates its own capacity for

complexity: Jane revolts against marriage for the higher purpose of serving God rather than as the natural outcome of romantic desire, and her struggle with St. John for the integrity of her selfhood mirrors her struggle with Rochester when she leaves him. Ultimately she rejects both suitors in turn until her own conditions, which are the legitimation of romantic and sexual love within the Christian and social sanctity of marriage, are met. Both Rochester and St. John violate the romantic love/marriage paradigm: Rochester wants love without marriage, while St. John wants marriage without love. Interestingly, both these temptations are seen as struggles between female will and male egoism, the latter of which includes a desire to exert power over women. Like Rochester’s possessive sexuality, St.

John’s “ice kiss” is another kind of trap, as well as a temptation to “rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my own.” The two men are directly compared as dominating when Jane says, “I was almost as hard beset by [St. John] now as I had been once before, in a different way, by another” (p. 484).

Though in many ways the novel seems divided against itself, it isn’t easy

to categorize or align the divisions as, for instance, passion versus duty or Nature versus Christianity, because such divisions cut across each other in complex ways. For example, both Helen and Brocklehurst promulgate self-denying Christianity, as does St. John Rivers, yet Helen and St. John’s

Christianity of love and goodness is clearly meant to contrast favorably with Brocklehurst’s ultimately righteous and cruel imposition of deprivation under the hypocritical name of Christian self-restraint. To complicate matters further, Helen’s admirable self-restraint under oppression and St.

John’s cold denial of feeling differ from each other and therefore can’t simply be lumped together as “the Christian view.”

Because to this point the novel seems to endorse Jane’s Christian attack

on Rochester’s “natural” morality of love, Jane’s view does appear at first to be aligned with the values of Helen, Brocklehurst, and St. John. On the other hand, it should be noted that all three of these characters also devalue Jane’s selfhood in some way—that is, her right to physical comfort and childlike pleasure (Brocklehurst), her earthly attachments and need for love as “thinking too much about the love of others” (Helen), and the rightness of strong feeling, including romantic love in its legitimate setting of marriage (St. John Rivers). Moreover, all three speak from a Christian and moral view: “Don’t cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh,” St. John admonishes Jane, echoing Helen (p. 453). For this reason, Jane herself does not have a unified and consistent view of this denial of self. As fiction Jane Eyre constructs a version of the world that invites opposing categories, labeled with various terms at different points in the story, as well as by different critics at changing points in the novel’s history—for example, passion versus duty, romance versus reason, and so on. But a close reading of the book’s structure reveals that its heroine flows back and forth among competing values in shifting patterns, more like a wave than a particle bouncing between two clearly inimical states.

As the novel approaches its final phase, Brontë attempts to tighten this

ambiguous scheme and bring her heroine into realignment with a conclusion clearly meant to satisfy the reader as well as the heroine. After another intervention of plotting—Jane’s telepathic summons by Rochester after he has been left alone by the fire that has destroyed his house and mad wife—Jane returns to him at Ferndean, a new residence that is less grand than Thornfield, and closer to nature in a removed, peaceful spot. Much critical controversy has centered on this conclusion to Jane’s moral dilemma. The sticking point is that after vigorously arguing against staying with Rochester while he is still married, the novel then implies the rightness

of Jane’s return to him before she knows he is now free. To put it another way, the benevolence of the just universe and the coincidence of plotting spare Jane the difficult final choice between morality and passion. In the conflict between “Nature” and “Grace,” the novel achieves resolution of its competing value systems through plot closure. We might say that through the grace of nature is revealed the nature of grace.

Perhaps even more problematic for critics, including feminist critics, is

Jane’s discovery that Rochester has lost a hand and an eye in the fire that destroyed the scene of their courtship. Because Rochester is now blind, crippled, and helpless, needing Jane physically rather than dominating and tempting her with his sexuality, some have argued that Brontë was perpetrating a kind of unconscious “castration” of his masculinity. In other words, Jane’s selfhood, including the ability to express and satisfy her sexual and romantic desire, seems to be achieved only at the expense of Rochester’s passion, which was the key to her sense of his “mastery.”

When Jane finds Rochester again she is touched by the “powerlessness of

the strong man” and his “avowal of his dependence” (p. 508). Does Jane need to control Rochester, or “serve” him in order to marry him? So much between the lovers has taken the form of a struggle for “mastery” and control both in courtship and afterward: “I love you better now,” she tells him, “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” (p. 516). One way to look at the conclusion of the novel is that Rochester’s new physical disability, like Jane’s inheritance, equalizes the relationship so that it comes closer to Brontë’s ideal version of mutuality of power in marriage without resorting to open social challenge.

On the other hand, Jane’s intense desire to “nurse” Rochester in his

debilitation can be related easily to the pervasive Victorian domestic ideal of the wife serving as helpmeet to the husband—that is, as a domestic expression of the Christian ideal of service. She “did not love [her] servitude” to St. John (p. 461), but the conclusion is that servitude in romantic love, if equal and mutual, allows for the integrity of the independent soul. It is true that in her “new servitude” (to recall her words early on when pining for new experience with limited resources), Jane is rewarded with a mutually satisfying relationship, but this might be seen as a

wishful fantasy that spiritualized love in marriage can be made to reconcile the great rift in traditional and modern values, Christian duty and modern individualism, “rules and systems” versus romantic feeling, that has been so trenchantly expressed in the novel.

The same ambivalence can be seen in the trajectory of Jane’s romance.

Though the character Jane Eyre is a kind of antiheroine of romantic love— unattractive, humble, unfashionable, and retiring—Bronte’s novel is related to a certain kind of romance that harks back to Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, a mid-eighteenth-century work(arguably the first true novel in the English language) that is still found in popular romances today: the story of a poor, spirited, but unappreciated heroine whose worth is finally recognized by her lover, a man of some wealth and social status who is in a position to give her a home and love. As in many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels, virtue and inner worth are ultimately recognized by inheritance and through marriage, a rise in economic fortunes. In Pamela, Fanny Burney’s Evelina, and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the resistance to ingrained values of authority and hierarchy seems contradicted at the end by the “reward” of the happy ending of romance, while Richardson‘s, Burney’s, and Austen’s novels’ proposed substitution of merit for blood superiority of rank is undercut by the absorption of the heroine into a better social class.

This explains some of the ambivalence that critics, feminists among them,

have struggled with in understanding Brontë’s work (though her last novel, Villette, has provoked much less controversy) . In the end Jane Eyre is both a high romance and an antiromance, equally rejecting the conventions of femininity in the social paradigm of courtship and the destructive immorality and selfishness of illegitimate passion. On one hand, the romantic narrative of Jane and Rochester entails the political stance that she is a heroine worthy of his love, as well as the strong assertion of the legitimacy of feeling, the recognition that human love is vital to life and should not be repressed. This is St. John’s function in the novel, to conduct a dialogue that in the end weighs in favor of love, as Rochester conducted a furious argument in its favor, an argument that Jane also rejected. “I scorn your idea of love,” she tells her cousin; “the very name of love is an apple of discord between us ...” (p. 473).

But though Jane—and Brontë’s novel—claims love as a human right, a

need, as opposed to St. John’s more-than-human ideal of self-denial celebrated at the conclusion, the whole nature of romantic love in Jane Eyre is redefined in a way that departs from the melodrama and romance in the Angrian sense of the Brontë juvenilia. It is removed from the passion of Brontë’s “dream” life, including the creative imaginings of her schoolgirl days, which she called in her journal “that burning clime where we have sojourned too long.” Instead, romance is revisioned as the agape of marital love, one partner taking care of the other. This version of love merges with the Christian concept of saving the soul from sin, and thus can be seen as just reward, as well as constituting social and psychological maturity. The divine justice that punishes Rochester and rewards Jane “proves” a Christian benevolent universe, makes God’s love and will consonant with the desires of the person of integrity, and serves to redistribute the power balance between the lovers. “Some say it was a just judgment on him,” a character says of Rochester’s injuries. Nature itself, in the supernatural

scene when Jane hears Rochester’s call from afar, seems continuous with both Romantic and Christian ideals. We may see Rochester’s maiming as the fulfillment of Christ’s words, paraphrased by Jane when she resolves to renounce her own temptation to illegitimate passion: “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” (p. 347).

Theorists of popular romance have noted that novels in that genre often

feature intelligent and spirited women who are initially stifled, limited, bossed around, oppressed, or abused by dominant or powerful men of spectacular masculinity. Romance, the critic Janice Radway says, requires rousing as well as allaying women’s anxieties about men, encompassing both individual desires and power issues in complex ways. As the sociologists Stevi Jackson and Eva Illouz have pointed out, romance is also closely tied to social status and value, though it purports to be an entirely private choice. We may easily recognize all these elements in Jane Eyre.

Yet Brontë’s novel is not merely a popular romance, in that it is a work of great linguistic virtuosity that makes artistic use of its equivocality toward romantic passion by dramatizing both sides of the issue. In one way Jane Eyre not only offers the popular romantic solutions of fantasy, but also

criticizes them, appealing to feminists and other serious critics as well as to the public hunger for a happy and just ending.

Thus both Bertha, the intemperate exotic, an icon of selfish and

unrestrained sensuality and madness, whose symbol is destructive fire, and at the opposite pole, St. John, with his “ice kiss,” who renounces personal happiness, are both eventually extirpated from the text. These two extremes are found wanting as models for Jane, who must find a way to accommodate “feeling” (including desire) within a Christian framework.

Though Cinderella’s rescue from poverty by a prince who chooses her is often cited as a mythic source for Jane Eyre, on a deeper level the fantasy is the tale of Beauty and the Beast, in which the true lover rehumanizes the savage beast, as Jane saves the rake/sinner from sin, “guiding” and helping him as she does when she first meets him on the road, as well as at the end.

Perhaps this view allows us to see why Jane Eyre continues to be both a

central text in the Western literary canon and a durable fantasy in the popular public imagination. Jane Eyre as heroine is best remembered for the strong will that bravely questions expected roles for women and asserts a woman’s right to love and pleasure. Though Brontë’s solution is Victorian and traditional, the novel is a unique and pivotal contribution to the modern view of romantic love and the problem of sexual desire for women, an attempt to endorse as well as regulate female passion.

Jane Eyre suggests emotional equality, “sameness,” “kinship,” and

“likeness” of character as the basis of a new kind of mutual love and respect, in contrast to the social and economic inequalities that formed the nineteenth-century context of courtship and marriage. This view is not asserted in revolutionary form; no transformation of the social order is proposed. On the contrary, at the conclusion of the novel, the bond between Jane and Rochester allows the lovers to withdraw from an unsatisfactory society into a cocoon of protective love.

But the romance on which the dramatized versions of the novel focus is

only a part of the narrative of Jane’s “autobiography,” the tale of how she grows into being fully human. In the end the experience of romantic love illuminates but does not wholly constitute female identity, so that passion itself is a metaphor for the drive to female selfhood and individuation, the

key to a search for a larger meaning than that prescribed for women by cultural norms. Jane Eyre’s self-respect is integral to her understanding the full meaning of sexual love, even while love itself constitutes a necessary living energy, without which life has no light, fire, or air.

Susan Ostrov Weisser is a professor in the English Department at Adelphi University, where she specializes in nineteenth-century literature and women’s studies, and teaches frequently in the Honors College. Dr.

Weisser’s Ph.D. is from Columbia University. She is the author and editor of three books in women’s studies. Her research centers on women and romantic love in nineteenth-century literature, as well as in contemporary popular culture.

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To

W. M. THACKERAY, ESQ.

THIS WORK

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,

BY

THE AUTHOR

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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 suffragec 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.1

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?2 I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst

whom he hurls the Greek fired of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes

the levin-brande 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.3 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

Dec. 21st, 1847

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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

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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 out-door 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

mamma 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 endeavoring 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 book-case: 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:4 the letter-

press 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.5

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 rigors 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 quiet, solitary church-yard, 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 humor; 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 night-cap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and older ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of

Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.6

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 mamma 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 arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.

John Reed was a school-boy 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,f and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mamma 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 sweet-meats 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 overapplication, 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 on my bones shrunk 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 wonderif 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 mamma a while 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 dependent, mamma

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 mamma’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, &c.7 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 mamma? 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 some 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 up stairs; she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and the 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 up stairs.

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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’ son! your young master!”

“Master! How is he my master? Am I a ervant?”

“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 pairs 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 guaranty 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.g

“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.”h

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 poor-house.”

I had nothing to say to these words; they were not new to me; my very

first recollection 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 bed-room was a spare 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 a soft fawn-color, 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 Marseillesi 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 kitchens; 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 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 up out of lone,

ferny dells,j 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 vigor; 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 brow-beaten, always accused, forever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one’s favor? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled

temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage,k 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,l 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 disregardedher 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 further irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.

“Unjust! unjust!” said my reason, forced by the agonizing 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 sympathize with one among 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 scape-goat 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 stair-case window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall. I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sunk. 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?m 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,n 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—had 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 toward 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 realized. With all my might I endeavored to stifle it—I endeavored 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 wicked, 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.”

“Oh 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 almost 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 further parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit; unconsciousness closed the scene.

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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 burned 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 scrutinized 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.8 “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 sunk; 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 to-night; 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 church-yard just over his grave”—&c., &c.

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 worst 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 mamma. 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;o 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 rose-buds, 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 favor; coming, like most other favors, 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.9 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:10 whereas Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my creed, solid parts of the earth’s surface, I doubted not that I might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds, of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other. Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand—when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find—all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. 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 went 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 gray 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.

Even 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. “11

“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, Miss 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 dare say 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 gray; not very bright, but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking face. Having considered me at leisure, he said—

“What made you ill yesterday?”

“She had a fall,” said Bessie, again putting in her word.

“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 rung for

the servant’s 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 Gateshead 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 analyze 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,p wore back-

boards,q 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 dote on Miss Georgiana!” cried the fervent Abbot. “Little darling!

with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet color 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.

OceanofPDF.com

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 closetr 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 s 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 advantageto purpose; but he was already with his mamma. 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,t

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

gray 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 mamma; 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

boxedu 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 gayety 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 afterward, in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footmen, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room doors 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 sunk 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 scare-crow. It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doted on this wooden 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 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 mamma; 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,v 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 parterrew 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 nursery maid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs, &c.). 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 rung 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 chirped 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 up stairs 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 had 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 poltroonx

had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of me in those days! I feared to return to the nursery; I feared to go forward to the parlor; 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 courtesying 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 these words: “This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to you.”

He, for it was a man, turned his head slowly toward where I stood, and

having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking gray 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 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

forever?”

“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 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 a clean one—to take away your heart of

stone and give you a heart of flesh."12

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 among 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 mamma 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 Hollandy

pockets outside their frocks—they are almost all like poor people’s children!’ and, said she, ‘they looked at my dress and mamma’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 to 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-by.”

“Good-by, Mr. Brocklehurst; remember me to Mrs. and Miss

Brocklehurst, and to Augusta and Theodore, and Master Brough ton Brocklehurst.”

“I will, madam. Little girl, here is a book entitled the Child’s Guide:13

read it, with prayer, especially that part containing an ‘account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G——, a naughty child, addicted to falsehood and deceit.’ ”

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 truth; 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 fermented 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, and 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 it 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 freezing 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 as

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 live 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 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 afterward 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 metely 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;z its after-flavor, 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 reëxciting every turbulent impulse of my nature.

I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking; fain

find some nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of sombre indignation. I took a book, some Arabian tales; I sat down and endeavored to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my own thoughts swam always between me and the page I had always found fascinating. I opened a 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 fallen 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 gray

day; a most opaque sky, “onding on snaw,”aa 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 now, 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 nurse-maid’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 the 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’ve 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 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 are glad to leave me?”

“Not at all, Bessie; indeed, just now I am rather sorry.”

“Just now! and rather! How coolly my little lady says it! I dare say now, if

I were to ask you for a kiss you wouldn’t give it me; you’d say you would 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 en-chaining stories, and sung me some of her sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter V

Five o‘clock had hardly struck on the morning of the 19th 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 ray streamed through the narrow window of my little 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 lighted 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 pelisseab 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-by?”

“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 bed-clothes, 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.”

“Oh, Miss Jane! don’t say so!”

“Good-by 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 clapped 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 a long time, feeling very strange, and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured in Bessie’s fireside chronicles. At last the guard returned; once more I was stowed away in the coach, my protector mounted his own seat, sounded his hollow horn, and

away we rattled over the “stony street” of L—.14

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 gray 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 among 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 thrown 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 parlor, 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 fore-finger, 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 afterward 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 burned 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 stuffac 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, up stairs. Overpowered by this time with weariness, I scarcely noticed what sort of a place the bed room was, except that, like the school-room, 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; amid 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 rush-light 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 rung; all formed in file, two and two, and in that order descended the stairs and entered the cold and dimly-lighted school-room; here prayers were read by Miss Miller; afterward 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 the 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 assuming 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 collectad 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,ae 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 odor 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 burned again!”

“Silence!” ejaculated a voice—not that of Miss Miller, but of 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 afterward 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. Burned 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 school-room. 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 begun, during which the

school-room 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 not 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 school-room 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 clamor 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 tuckeraf about the throat, with little

pocketsag 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 overworked—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,15 for I

retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes tracked her steps.

Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked tall, fair, and shapely; brown eyes,

with a benignant light in their irids,ah and a fine penciling of long lashes

round, relieved the whiteness of her large front;ai 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 in geography; the lower classes were called by the teachers; repetitions in history, grammar, &c., went on for an hour; writing and arithmetic succeeded, and music lessons were given by Miss Temple to some of the elder girls. The duration of each lesson was measured by the clock, which at last struck twelve. The superintendent rose:

“I have a word to address to the pupils,” said she.

The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth, but it

sunk 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 afterward 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 colored calico, and a cloak of gray frieze. I was similarly equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into the open air.

The garden was a wide inclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to

exclude every glimpse of prospect. A covered verandah ran down on 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 around me. It was an inclement day for out-door exercise—not positively rainy, but darkened by a drizzling, yellow fog. All underfoot 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 among 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 leaned against a pillar of the verandah, drew my gray 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 around the convent-like garden, and then, up at the house—a large building, half of which seemed gray and old, the other half quite new. The new part, containing the school-room and dormitory, was lighted by mullioned and latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect; a stone tablet over the door bore this inscription:

“Lowood Institution. This portion was rebuilt A.D.————, by Naomi

Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county. ‘Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’—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 endeavoring 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,16

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 neighborhood

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 ribbon, 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 reentered the

house. The odor which now filled the refectory was scarcely more appetizing 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 rustyaj 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 school-room. The punishment seemed to me in a high degree ignominious, especially for so great a girl—she looked thirteen or upward. 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.

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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 bed-room 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 burned; the quality was eatable, the quantity small.

How small my portion seemed! I wished it had been double.

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, &c., and sent me to sit in a quiet corner of the school-room, 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,ak 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,” &c., &c.

A chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed and the

girls examined. The lesson had comprised part of the reign of Charles I, and there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage, and ship-money, which most of them appeared unable to answer; still, every little difficulty was solved instantly when it reached Burns; her memory seemed to have retained the substance of the whole lesson, and she was ready with answers on every point. 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,al stitch, knit, &c.; till she dismissed me, I could not pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd’s movements. When I returned to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order, of which I did not catch the import; but Burns immediately left the class, and, going into the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a respectful courtesy; 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’ 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 school room 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,am

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 clamor.

Jumping over forms and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of

the fireplaces; 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 further 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 dislike 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 sympathize 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.17

“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 not influence to cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight.”

“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.18 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 wakened; 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 further 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 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

civilized 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.”19

“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 hardhearted, 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 life 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;20 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, sunk 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 Cumber-land 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 revery fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor

without reply as without delay.

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Chapter VII

My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age, either: it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot; though these were no trifles.

During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after

their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but within these limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold. We had no boots; the snow got into our shoes and melted there; our ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet; I remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this cause, every evening when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw and stiff toes into my shoes in the morning. Then the scanty supply of food was distressing. With the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse which pressed hardly on the younger pupils; whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger.

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 paralyzed. 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 around 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 school-room was immediately surrounded by a double row of great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their

starvedan 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 hebdomadalao 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 by sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off

the fourth form, and be taken up half dead.21 The remedy was to thrust them forward into the centre of the school-room, and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sunk 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 recognized, 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 school-room, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearth-rug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right; it was Mr. Brocklehurst,

buttoned up in a surtout,ap 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, &c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprize 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,”aq whose information respecting my past life and conversation was to brand me as a bad child forever; 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 villany, 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, oh, 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 Ca tharine

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 look 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 over-dressing of a dish, the incident ought not to be neutralized by replacing with something more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and subverting 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;22 to his warnings that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth

out of the mouth of God;23 to his divine consolations, ‘If ye suffer hunger

or thirst for my sake, happy are ye.’24 Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burned 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 establishment25

—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 to-morrow; 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 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.26

He scrutinized 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;27 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 gray 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 frontar of French curls.

These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs. and the

Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honor 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 rooms up stairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper, questioning the laundress, and lecturing 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 own personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if I could only elude observation. To this end, I had set 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 that 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 paralyzed. But the two

great girls who sat on each side of me set me on my legs and pushed me toward 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 cast-away; 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 from your converse. Teachers, you must watch her; keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinize 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 Brahmaas and

kneels before Juggernautat—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 Brock lehursts produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the 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;28 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 I was, 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 question about her work

of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lighted up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken gray 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 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 disk 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.

OceanofPDF.com

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 sunk 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 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 favorite, 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, recognize our innocence (if innocent we be, as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness—to glory?”

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 recognized 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 tread some

intricate passages, and mount a stair-case 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 me.”

“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, maam; 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 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 the 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 rung

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 the tray was soon brought. How pretty to my eyes did the china cups

and bright tea-pot 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 whale-bone and iron.

“Oh, very well!” returned Miss Temple; “we must make it do, Barbara, I

suppose.” And as the girl withdrew, she added, smilingly, “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, and 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; 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 color, 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 bed-time; 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 bed-room, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd; she was

examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns’, and when we entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told that to-morrow she should have half a dozen of untidy 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-by, 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 supperau 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-likeavgroups of cattle, sweet paintings of butterflies hovering over unblown roses, of birds picking at ripe cherries, of wrens’ nests inclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed about with young ivy sprays. I examined, too, in

thought, the possibility of my ever being able to translate currently aw a certain little French story-book, 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.”29

I would not now have exchanged Lowood, with all its privations, for

Gateshead and its daily luxuries.

OceanofPDF.com

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 swelled to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gender 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 among 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 way-side, 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 a prospect of noble summits girding 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!ax 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 vigor; 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 sprung 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;30 which, quickening with the quickening spring, crept into the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded school-room and dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the seminary into a 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

pastileay 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, dahlias and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and crimson double-daisies; the sweet-briers 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 gypsies, 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 scrutinized 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 favorite 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 me and another girl—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-humor never soured nor irritation ever troubled? But Helen was ill at present; for some weeks she had been removed from my sight to I knew not what room, up stairs.

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 down

stairs, 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 school-room 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 morning. This done, I lingered yet a little

longer; the flowers smelled 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 school-room. 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 wrapped 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 odor of camphor and burned 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 stair-case, 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 key-hole, 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 eyes 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 burned dimly on the table. Miss Temple was not to be seen; I knew afterward 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-by, then; you are just in time, probably.”

“Are you going somewhere, Helen? Are you going home?”

“Yes; to my long homeaz—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 round 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 afterward 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’ shoulder, my arms round her neck.

I was asleep, and Helen was—dead.

Her grave is in Brocklebridge church-yard; for fifteen years after her

death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a gray marble tablet

marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word “Resurgam.”31

OceanofPDF.com

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 sympathizing 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 honor 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 amid 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 further! 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 an 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 down stairs.

I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till bed-

time; 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 relief.

Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman, and till now her

habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any other light than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deep notes with satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my half-effaced thought instantly revived.

“A new servitude! There is something in that,” I soliloquized (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, among 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 labor, I got up and took a turn in the room; undrew the curtain, noted a star or two, shivered with cold, and again crept to bed.

A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required suggestion

on my pillow; for as I lay down it came quietly and naturally to my mind: “Those who want situations advertise; you must advertise in the—shire Herald.”

“How? I know nothing about advertising.”

Replies rose smooth and prompt now:

“You must inclose 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, inclosed, and

directed, before the bell rung 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). Address J. E., Post-office, Lowton,—shire.”

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, toward 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; afterward 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 burned out; fortunately, however, the heavy supper she had eaten produced a soporific effect; she was already snoring, before I had finished undressing. There still remained an inch of candle; I now took out my letter, the seal was an initial F.; I broke it, the contents were brief.

“If J. E., who advertised in the —shire Herald of last Thursday, possesses

the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a position to give satisfactory references as to character and competency, a situation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little girl, under ten years of age; and where

the salary is thirty pounds per annum. J. E. is requested to send references, name, address, and all particulars, to the direction:

“Mrs. Fairfax, Thornfield, near Millcote,—shire.”

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 endeavors to be respectable, proper, en règle.ba 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 correct plan of the premises. Millcote, —shire; I brushed up my recollections of the map of England; yes, I saw it, both the shire and the town.—shire was seventy miles nearer London than the remote 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 manufacturing town on the banks of the A —; a busy place enough, 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 £15 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 week; 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 to-night, a new one opening to-morrow;

impossible to slumber in the interval. I must watchbb 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 down stairs without inquiry. I

was passing the back parlor, or teacher’s 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 recognized;

“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 parlor. By the fire stood a little fellow 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 dare say 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 mamma, 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 mamma could wish. He went to

college, and he got-plucked,bc 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 dare say 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-colors, 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 learned French?”

“Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it.”

“And you can work on muslin and canvass?”

“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 afterward a ‘sneaking trades-man.’ 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.

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Chapter XI

Anew 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 neighborhood called Thornfield?” I asked of the

waiter who answered the summons.

“Thornfield! 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-lighted 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 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 among 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 hill-side, 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; candle-light 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 cozy 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 dare say your own hands are almost numbed with

cold. Leah, make a little hot negus,bd 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 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 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 bed-room.

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 up stairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the stair-case 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 bid 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 stair-case, 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 can not 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 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, Quaker-like 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,be and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace); at a bronze lamp pendent on 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 stories high, of proportions not vast, though considerable; a gentleman’s manor-house, not a nobleman’s seat; battlements around the top gave it a picturesque look. Its

gray 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. Further 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, and second cousin to my husband; but I never presume on the connection—in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper; my employer is always civil, and I expect nothing more.”

“And the little girl—my pupil?”

“She is Mr. Rochester’s ward; he commissioned me to find a governess

for her. He intends to have her brought up in —shire, I 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 dependent 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 là ma gouvernante?” said she, pointing to me, and addressing her

nurse, who answered:

“Mais oui, certainement.”bf

“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 dare say.”

Fortunately I 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, learned 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 into 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?”

“Adèle,” I inquired, “with whom did you live when you were in that

pretty, clean town you spoke of?”

“I lived long ago with mamma; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin.

Mamma used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mamma, 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 gayety of her demeanor, 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.

Adèle sang the canzonetbg tunefully enough, and with the naïveté 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.32 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 mamma who taught you that piece?” I asked.

“Yes, and she just used to say it in this way; ‘Qu’avez vous done? lui dit

un de ces rats; parlez!‘bh 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 mamma went to the Holy Virgin, as you

say, with whom did you live then?”

“With Madame Frédéric 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 mamma. 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 Frédéric, 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 has gone back again himself, and I never see him.”

After breakfast, Adèle and I withdrew to the library, which room, it

appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the school-room.

Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one book-case left open, containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me amply for the present; compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and information. In this room, too, there was a cabinetpiano,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 up stairs 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,bi which stood on a sideboard.

“What a beautiful room!” I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never

before seen anything 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-dyedbjcurtain, 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 Parianbk mantel-piece 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

canvass 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 neighborhood, 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 among them.”

“But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?”bl

“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 dare say 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 up stairs and down stairs, admiring as I went, for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I thought especially grand; and some of the third story 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 casements, showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests, in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs’

heads, like types of the Hebrew ark;33 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 story 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,’ ”34 I muttered. “Where are

you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?” for she was moving away.

“On to the leads;bm will you come and see the view from thence?” I

followed still, up a very narrow stair-case 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 gray 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 sun-lighted 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 stair-case. I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third story; 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.35

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 begun 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, syllabicbn 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 favored 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 courtesied silently and went in.

“She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid’swork,”

continued the widow; ”not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but she does well enough. By-the-by, how have you got on with your new pupil this morning?”

The conversation, thus turned on Adèle, continued till we reached the

light and cheerful region below. Adèle came running to meet us in the hall, exclaiming:—

“Mesdames, vous êtes servies!” adding, “J‘ai bien faim, moi!”bo

We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax’s room.

OceanofPDF.com

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 spoiled 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 parenthèse,bp 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 Adèle’s welfare and progress, and a quiet liking to her little self, just as I cherished toward Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society, proportionate to the tranquilregard she had for me, and the moderation of her mind and her 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 Adèle

played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed the three stair-cases, 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 Adèle; 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 story, backward and forward, 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 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

—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 Adèle, because she had a cold; and, as Adèle seconded the request with an ardor 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 Adèle comfortably seated in her little chair by Mrs. Fairfax’s parlor 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 change of amusement; and having replied to her “Revenez bientôt,

ma bonne amie, ma chère Mademoiselle Jeannette,”bq 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 analyze 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;br 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 gray 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 among the trees, and sunk crimson and clear behind them. I turned eastward.

On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but

brightening momently: 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 soughbs 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 among other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigor 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 color made him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one mask 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 common place 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 reestablished, 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-humored to me when I

addressed him, if he had put off my offer of assistance gayly 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 neighborhood; 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 merinobt

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 endeavored 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 fore-feet. 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 sprung 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.36

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

pollardbu 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 reentering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to return to

stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome stair-case, 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 a 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 amid 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;37 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 backward and

forward 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 gray 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 lighted only by the high-hung bronze

lamp; a warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the oak stair-case. 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 mantel-piece; I had scarcely caught it, and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling of voices, among which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adèle, 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 rung 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 Adela—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 up stairs to take off my things.

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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.

Adèle and I had now to vacate the library; it would be in daily requisition

as a reception-room for callers. A fire was lighted in an apartment up stairs, and there I carried our books, and arranged it for the future school-room. 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.

Adèle 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 down stairs, 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,bv Monsieur Édouard Fairfax de Rochester,” bw as she dubbed him (I had not before heard his preno mens), 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 among it a little box in whose contents she had an interest.

“Et cela doit signifier,” said she, “qu‘il y aura là dedans un cadeau pour

moi, et peut-être pour vous aussi, mademoiselle. Monsieur a parlé de vous: il m’a demandé le nom de ma gouvernante, et si elle n‘était pas une petite personne, assez mince et un peu pale. J’ai dit qu‘oui: car c’est vrai, n‘est-ce

pas, mademoiselle?” bx

I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax’s parlour; the afternoon was

wild and snowy, and we passed it in the school room. At dark I allowed Adèle to put away books and work, and to run down stairs; 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 snow-flakes 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 remember

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 gray, which, in my Lowood notions of the toilet, 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 keep-sake; I put it on, and then we went down stairs. 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 mantel-piece;

basking in the light and heat of a superb fire lay Pilot; Adèle knelt near him.

Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester, his foot supported by the cushion; he was looking at Adèle 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 recognized his decisive nose, more remarkable for character than beauty, his

full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler;by his grim mouth, chin, and jaw— yes, all three were very grim, and no mistake. His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonized 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.bz 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, &c., with assiduous celerity. I and Adèle went to the table; but the master did not leave his couch.

“Will you hand Mr. Rochester’s cup?” said Mrs. Fairfax to me; “Adèle

might perhaps spill it.”

I did as requested. As he took the cup from my hand, Adèle, thinking the

moment propitious for making a request in my favor, cried out:

“N‘est-ce-pas, Monsieur, qu’il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre

dans votre petit coffre?”ca

“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 Adèle; she demands a

‘cadeau,’ clamorously, the moment she sees me—you beat about the bush.”

“Because I have less confidence in my desertscb than Adèle 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 Adèle, 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 Adèle was leading me by the hand round the room, showing me the beautiful books

and ornaments on the consoles and chiffonières.cc We obeyed, as in duty bound. Adèle 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—?”

“From Lowood school, in—shire.”

“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,cd 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 Adèle.”

“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 fell 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

religieusesce 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.38

“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:

“Adèle 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 recognize 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. Adèle 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 scrutinized 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 Adèle; you” (glancing at me) “resume your seat, and answer my questions. I perceive these pictures were done by the 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-colors. The first represented clouds low and

livid, rolling over a swelled 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 pallet 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 slanted 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 vapor; 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 wintry sky; a

muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close serried,cf along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the foreground, a head, a colossal head, inclined toward 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, amid 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 diademedcg was “the shape

which shape had none.”39

“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 dare say 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 favored my inclination to apply.”

“And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labors!”

“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 realize.”

“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.ch 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 Adèle sit up so

long? Take her to bed.”

Adèle 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 toward 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 Adèle 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, 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.

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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 neighborhood 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 until late at night.

During this interval, even Adèle was seldom sent for to his presence, and

all my acquaintance with him was confined to an occasional rencounter 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 gentle manlike affability.

His changes of mood did not offend me, because I saw that I had nothing to do with their alteration; 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 rung the bell: a message came that I and Adèle were to go down stairs. I brushed Adèle’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, Adèle wondering

whether the petit coffreci 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!”cj exclaimed she, running toward it.

“Yes—there is your ‘boîte’ 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?”ck

Adèle 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!”cl 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 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 tête à tête with a brat. Don’t draw that chair further 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-by, 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 dispatched 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 Adèle to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting with

repletion; have the goodness to serve her as au ditress and interlocutrice;cm

it will be one of the most benevolent acts you ever performed.”

Adèle, 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 further 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

lighted 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 Adèle (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;cn quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-by, 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 differ; 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.40

“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 retransformation 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 retransformed?

“You look 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 to-night.”

With this announcement he rose from his chair and stood, leaning his arm

on the marble mantle-piece; 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;41 so much ease in his demeanor; 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. Adèle 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 complaisant 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 toward 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,co as Adèle 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—

cankeringcp as a rusty nail.”

He had deigned an explanation—almost an apology. 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 £30 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 dependent 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 candor. 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 wotcq I need not be too severe about others. I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a color of life, to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbors 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 bilgewater 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 end, 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-by, 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;42 but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite, common-place 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 talk 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 mantle-piece). “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 flitted

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 its 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 inclose 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—as 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 legalize them.”

“They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute;

unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules.”

“That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that it

is liable to abuse.”

“Sententious sage! 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 Adèle to bed; it is past her bed-time.”

“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 gayly, 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 the 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; Adèle is not ready to go to bed yet. My

position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the room, favors observation. While talking to you, I have also occasionally watched Adèle (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 à l‘instant

même!’cr and she rushed out of the room. She is now with Sophie, undergoing a robing process; in a few minutes she will reenter; and I know what I shall see, a miniature of Céline 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 realized.”

Ere long, Adèle’s little foot was heard tripping across the hall. She

entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of rose-colored 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 forward: “et mes

souliers? et mes bas? Tenez-je crois que je vais danser!”cs

And spreading out her dress, she chasséed 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 bonté”; then rising, she

added, “C‘est comme cela que maman faisait, n’est-ce-pas, monsieur?”ct

“Pre-cise-ly!” was the answer; “and ‘comme cela,’cu 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 sprung, 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.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter XV

Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it.

It was one afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adèle 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.43

He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera dancer, Céline

Varens, toward whom he once cherished what he called a “grande

passion”cv This passion Céline had professed to return with even superior ardor. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was; he believed, as he said,

that she preferred his “taille d‘athlète”cw 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 a hotel;cx gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres, diamonds,

dentelles,cy &c. In short, I began the process of ruining myself in the

received style—like any other spoony.cz I had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trod the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had-as I deserve to have—the fate of all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening, when Céline 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 pastile perfume she had left—a scent of musk and amber, than an odor 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 gas-

light besides, and very still and serene. The balcony was furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, 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 Havana 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) croquantda chocolate comfits, and smoking alternately, watching, meantime, the equipages that rolled along the fashionable street toward the neighboring opera-house, when, in an elegant close carriage, drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, and distinctly

seen in the brillant city-night, I recognized the ‘voiture’db I had had given Céline. She was returning; of course my heart thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leaned 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 incumbrance, by-the-by, 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’dc—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 cochèredd 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 of the channel, where the whole of life’s stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and

noise; either you will be dashed to atoms on crag-points, or lifted up and borne on by some master wave into a calmer current—as I am now.

“I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and stillness of

the world under this frost. I like Thornfield; its antiquity; its retirement; its old crow-trees and thorn-trees; its gray façade, and lines of dark windows

reflecting that metal welkin;de 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 rows 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, hinderances which

others count as iron and brass, I will esteem but straw and rotten wood.”44

Adèle 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 Mademoiselle 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 toward me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow.

“Oh, I had forgotten Céline! 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.45 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. Céline’s chambermaid entered, lighted 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 rouédf 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 recognizing him, the

fang of the snake—jealousy—was instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for Céline sunk 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 belabor me soundly; but they insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way; especially Céline; 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 ‘beauté

mâle’;dg 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—”

Adèle 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 Céline 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,dh and then thought I had done with the whole crew. But, unluckily, the Varens, six months before, had

given me this fillette,di Adèle, 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 Adèle’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 protégée; 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, &c.—eh?”

“No—Adèle 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 spoiled 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 Adèle 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 English-man’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 toward me than at 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 honored 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 characterized); 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 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 believe 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 tranquility

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 laid 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, muttered, as it

seemed, at the very key-hole of my chamber-door. The head of my bed was near the door, and I thought, at first, the goblin-laughter stood at my bed-side, 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

toward the third story stair-case. A door had lately been made to shut in that stair-case; 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, left 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 vapor, 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 story; 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 third story. Don’t move, remember, or call any one.”

He went; I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very

softly, unclosed the stair-case 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 reentered, pale and very gloomy. “I have found it all out,” said he,

setting his candle down on the wash-stand; “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 tonight’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;46 and now and then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly toward 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.

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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 school-room; 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 Adèle’s studies; only, soon after breakfast, I heard some bustle in the neighborhood 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 burned in his bed!” “It is always dangerous to keep a candle lit at night.” “How providential that he had presence of mind to think of the water-jug!” “I wonder he waked nobody!” “It is to be hoped he will not take cold with sleeping on the library sofa,” &c.

To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to

rights; and when I passed the room, in going down stairs 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 color, 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 bed-clothes or the woodwork caught, and contrived to quench the flame 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 scrutinizing 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 neighborhood 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 platedj

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 dumbfoundered 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 a bit of pudding on a tray, and I’ll

carry it up stairs.”

“You’ll have some meat?”

“Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese—that’s all.”

“And the sago?”dk

“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; in 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 to secresy? It was strange—a bold, vindictive, and haughty gentleman seemed somehow in the power of one of the meanest of his dependents; 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-favored 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 school-room; Adèle 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!”dl

“I am hot, Adèle, 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 color and more flesh; more life, more vivacity; because I had brighter hopes and keener enjoyments.

“Evening approaches,” said I, as I looked toward 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 Adèle 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 down stairs, 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 tea-

pot while I knit off this kneedle?” 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 favorable 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 breakfasted. 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 gayety, 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 favorite; 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 honorable 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 lighted 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 comer 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 be comingly 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-colored 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-colored 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 sung 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 afterward. 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 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 near 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 Adèle 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 endeavored 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 tale47 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 shown preference—equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family, and a man of the world, to a dependent 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 fatuusdm-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.’

“Afterward, take a piece of smooth ivory—you have one prepared in your

drawing-box; take your pallet, 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’s 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.

OceanofPDF.com

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 protégée, 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

suggestion 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 upward 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 spilled 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

Adèle’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 bed-rooms 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 bed-rooms, and airing of sheets and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since. Adèle 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

“passées,”dn and to air and arrange the new. For herself, she did nothing but caper about in front chambers, jumping 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 store-room, 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 chimera; and, I believe, I was as active and gay as anybody—Adèle 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-story stair-case 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 bed-rooms—just say a word, perhaps, to the charwomen about the proper way to polish a grate, or clean a marble mantel-piece, 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 third story; there she sat and sewed—and probably laughed drearily to herself—as companion-less 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 enjoyment, no one pitied her solitude or isolation. I once, indeed, overheard a 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’s a good hand, I dare say,” 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 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 stair-case, 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, &c. Adèle, 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 school-room, for a sanctum it was now becoming to me, “a very pleasant refuge in time of

trouble.”48

It had been a mild, serene spring day; one of those days which, toward 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 school-room 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.”

Adèle 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,do 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. Adèle now petitioned to go down, but I took her on my knee and gave her to understand that she must not on any account think of venturing in sight of the ladies, either now or at any other

time, unless expressly sent for; that Mr. Rochester would be very angry, &c. “Some natural tears she shed” on being told this; but as I began to look very

grave, she consented at last to wipe them.49

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 his 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,”dp said Adèle, who, listening attentively, had

followed every movement; and she sighed.

“Chez maman,” said she, “quand il y avait du monde, je les suivais

partout, au salon et à leurs chambres; souvent je regardais les femmes de chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et c’ était si amusant; comme cela on

apprend.”dq

“Don’t you feel hungry, Adèle?”

“Mais oui, mademoiselle; voilà cinq or six heures que nous n‘avons pas

mange.”dr

“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 back stairs

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 crucibles in a frame of mind and body threatening

spontaneous combustion.ds In the serhall two coachmen and three gentlemen’s gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the Abigails I suppose were up stairs 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 school room 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 gayly 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 stair-case, 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 Adèle peeping through the school-room 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 down stairs 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 Adèle 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!”dt

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 lighted, and it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the servants passing backward and forward. When the evening was far advanced, a sound of music issued from the drawing-room, whither the piano had been removed.

Adèle 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 analyzing the mingled sounds, and trying to discriminate amid 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 Adèle, whose head leaned 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 neighborhood. 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 dare say; no doubt he admires her.”

“And she him,” I added; “look how she leans her head toward 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 Adèle 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 dining-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 dare say 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. Adèle 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 gray 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.

Adèle, who appeared to be still under the influence of a most solemnizing

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, endeavored to read. Adèle brought her stool to my feet; ere long she touched my knee.

“What is it, Adèle?”

“Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendre une seule de ces fleurs magnifiques,

mademoiselle? Seulement pour completer ma toilette.” du

“You think too much of your ‘toilette,’ Adèle; 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 lighted 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

courtesied 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 childlike 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 chiffonné:dv 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 ladylike. 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 woman. The dowager might be between forty and fifty; her shape was still fine; her hair (by candle-light at least) still black; her teeth, too, were still apparently perfect. Most people would have termed her a splendid woman of her age; and so she was, no doubt, physically speaking; but then there was an expression of almost insupportable haughtiness in her bearing and countenance. She had Roman features and a double-chin, disappearing into a throat like a pillar. These features appeared to me not only inflated and

darkened, but even furrowed with pride; and the chin was sustained by the same principle, in a position of almost preternatural erectness. She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye; it reminded me of Mrs. Reed’s; she mouthed her words in speaking; her voice was deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical—very intolerable, in short. 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

Diana.dw 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 seems 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 mamma and she talked it well, with fluency and with a good accent.

Mary had a milder and more open countenance than Blanche; softer

features, too, and a skin some shades fairer—(Miss Ingram was dark as a Spaniard)—but Mary was deficient in life. Her face lacked expression, her

eye lustre. She had nothing to say, and having once taken her seat, remained fixed like a statue in its niche. The sisters were both attired in spotless white.

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 so 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 Adèle 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.”dx

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 alternatively in French and broken English; absorbing not only the young ladies’ attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton and Lady Lynn, and getting spoiled 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-lighted 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 Frederic 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 père

noble de théâtre.dy 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 vigor 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 these 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

colorless, 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 revived, 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 color 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 feeling in common with him, I must, then, repeat continually that we are forever 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-by, I have forgotten to describe—a very big, and very fresh-looking country gentleman, stands before the sofa, coffee-cup in hand, and occasionally puts in a word. Mr. Frederic 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; Adèle shares it with him; he is trying to talk French with her, and Louisa laughs at his blunders. With whom will Blanche Ingram repair? 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 mantel-piece.

“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 Adèle). “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 shrunk further 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 mamma on the chapterdz 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, mamma?”

“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 now bent over to the pious lady, and whispered something in

her ear; I suppose, from the answer elicited, it was a reminder that one of the anathematized race was present.

“Tant pis!”ea 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, mamma! 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—spilled our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, tossed our

books up to the ceiling, and played a charivarieb 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 ‘0 you villainsec childs!’—and then we sermonized 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,ed 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,’ee

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 mamma, 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, mamma! Spare us the enumeration! Au reste,ef we all know

them; danger of bad example to innocence of childhood; distractions and consequent neglect of duty on the part of the attached; mutual alliance and reliance; confidence thence resulting—insolence accompanying—mutiny and general blow-up. 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 quizeg 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 Ed uardo, 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?”50

“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,51 but I have a notion he was just that 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 honor, 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 mamma’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 appanageeh 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 valor; 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 dote on corsairs;ei and for that

reason, sing it con spirito.”ej

“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 endeavor to fail.”

“Gardez-vous en bien!ek 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 stooped to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of the stair-case. 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 Adèle 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 Adèle. Good night, my _______ .” He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.

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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 chamber, 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; in-door amusements only became more lively and varied, in consequence of the stop put to out-door gayety.

I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change of

entertainments 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 story were ransacked, and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped

petticoats, satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets,el &c., were brought down in armfuls by the Abigails; then a selection was made, and such things as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing-room.

Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him, and

was selecting certain of their number to be of his party. “Miss Ingram is mine, of course,” said he; afterward 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 clasps 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, rung the bell merrily; then Adèle (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 kneeled, while Mr. 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 recognize 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 recognized 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 swarth

skin and Paynimem features suited the costume exactly; he looked the very

model of an eastern emir, an agent or a victim of the bowstring.enPresently 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 Is raelitish 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.”52 From the bosom of his robe, he then produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets and ear-rings; 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 this 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.

Amid 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!”eo exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved.

A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their

ordinary costume, they reentered 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 toward 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 color 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 toward 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 learned 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 Adèle; 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 toward 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, fervor, kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two tigers—jealousy and despair; than, 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-complaisancy 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, &c., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or Miss Ingram, for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood. All their class held these principles; I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom. It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of the advantages to the husband’s own happiness, offered by this plan, convinced me that there must be arguments against its general adoption of which I was quite ignorant, otherwise I felt sure all the world would act as I wished to act.

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 endeavor 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 despond ing, 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 among 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 analyze 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 were absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal over the spirits of his guests; and his reëntrance 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 gypsy 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 clock had already given warning of the

hour to dress for dinner, when little Adèle, who knelt by me in the drawing-room window-seat, exclaimed:

“Voilà Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!”ep

I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forward 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.

“Provoking!” exclaimed Miss Ingram; “you tiresome monkey!”

(apostrophizing Adèle); “Who perched you up in the window to give false intelligence?” and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I were in fault.

Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new-comer entered.

He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady present.

“It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam,” said he, “when my

friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to install 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 of

girandoleseq on the mantel-piece 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 has!” 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 new-comer was called Mr. Mason; then I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came from some hot country, which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the house. 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 burned 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 gypsy camp; Sam, here, says that one of the old Mother Buncheser 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 Frederic 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 Lady Lynn.

“I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding,”

chimed in the Dowager Ingram.

“Indeed, mamma, 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 beldamees 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.”et

“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 a 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,eu mounting a breach in the vanev

of his men.

“Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause—reflect!” was her mamma’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 casew 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 do 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 mamma 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.exI have seen a gypsy 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, leaned 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 momentarily 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,ey 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’m sure she is something not right!” they cried, one and all. “She told us

such things! She knows all about us!” and they sunk 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 gypsy 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.

OceanofPDF.com

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 gypsy 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 gypsy’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-locksez 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”fa 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 awaits you.”

She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her smoking

with vigor.

“You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a

solitary dependent 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 diableriefb 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 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, 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 favored 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 gypsy, 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 analyzed, 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 a-visedfc 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 toward 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 fd—it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; when 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 favorable.

“As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to impart

all that the brain conceives, though, I dare say, 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:53 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.’54

“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 flavor 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.’ ”55

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 the 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 eldfe 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!’ ”56 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 gypsy 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 a masquerade I suspected. I knew gypsies 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.57

“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 gypsy, I dare say.”

“Sit down, 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 grasp; 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 of 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 dare say), 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 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 gayety.”

“And Mason?”

“He was laughing too.”

“If all these people came in a body and spit 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 among 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 up stairs.

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.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter XX

I had forgotten to draw my curtain,ff 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

paralyzed. 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 evry. The thing delivering such utterance must rest ere it could repeat the effort.

It came out of the third story; 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 moonlight 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 story. 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 inclosed 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 know 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, namely, 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 story; 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 the 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 quarreling. 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 leaned back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognized 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 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 paralyze 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 story, fastened into one of its mysticfg 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 inclosed 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 form.

Amid 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 the 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 common-place, 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 secresy and sunk 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

gray light edging the window-curtains; dawn was then approaching.

Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his distant kennel in the court-yard; 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 down stairs 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 has 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 reëntrance), take this key; go down 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 d—d 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

wash-stand.

“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 back stairs;

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 inclosing 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-by,

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 toward 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 glamourfh 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 inclosure 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 southern-wood, sweet-brier, 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 the 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 forever 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 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 arbor; sit down.”

The arbor 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?”

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 thorn-field, and the early bees do their first spell of work—I’ll put a case to you, which you must endeavor 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 upward; 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 the eclipse, which you feel will not leave it till the time of

setting.58 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 Arielfi 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 forever, 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 whispersto 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.”fj

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

cheeringly,

“Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before sunrise

—I rose at four to see him off.”

OceanofPDF.com

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 death-bed 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 bed-time 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 down stairs 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 dare say 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

among 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 among 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?”

“At Gateshead, in—shire.”

“—shire? That is a hundred miles off! Who may she be that sends for

people to see her at 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 that

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 to 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 money; you can’t travel without money, and I dare

say 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 pleased 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’m 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, Adèle 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; Adèle, 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 favors 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

Adèle 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-by 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 rung, 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 burned 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 by-gone 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, &c., 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 harborage 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 book-cases, 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, which was augmented by the extreme plainness of a strait-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 colorless 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 wax-work, 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;fk 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 common-places 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,”fl 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! mamma you mean; she is extremely poorly; I doubt if

you can see her to-night.”

“If,” said I, “you would just step up stairs 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.”

“Mamma 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 and softly opened the door; a shaded light stood on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the great four-post bedstead 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 leaned 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 toward 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; tonight 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 bed-

clothes 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 favorite 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 bed-side; and but an hour before he died, he bound me by a 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 toward 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 swelled 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 endeavored to persuade her to take a sedative draught; she

succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more composed, and sunk 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

fancyfm 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-color drawing; this put her at once into good-humor. She proposed a walk in the grounds. Before we had been out two hours, we were deep in a confidential conversation; she had favored 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 gayety, 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 alarumfn 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.”fo 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 to her; and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident which forced her to vary its clock-work 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—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 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 toward 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 forever.” Georgiana took out her handkerchief and blew her nose for an hour afterward. Eliza sat cold, impassable, 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 savorless, for the want of it. Feeling without judgment is a washy draught

indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and huskyfp a

morsel for human degluti tion.fq

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 up stairs 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, reärran ged the bed-clothes, gazed a while 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 tem pestuously.

“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 death-bed, 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 direction. “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 endeavors 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, &c., &c., 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 shrunk 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 dropped a tear.

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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 quailings 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 labor, 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 bourn; 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 a 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 insure 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-by, 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 after 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 were 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

discolored 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 analyzed their separate peculiarities of person and character. The evening arrival at the great town of—scattered these thoughts; night gave them quite another turn. Laid down on my traveller’s bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation.

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 dreamed 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 carfr 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 hostler’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

hay-makers 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 lighted—an altar burning behind its screen of marbled vapor—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 Adèle 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 forever!” 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 laborers

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 pass a tall brier, 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 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 cognizant 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,fs

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,ftor 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

colloquize 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 Adèle 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”fu with glee. This was very pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by our 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 Adèle, 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 Adèle was

“prête à croquer sa petite maman Anglaise”fv—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 Thorn field 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 rumor 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 sunk 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.

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Chapter XXIII

A splendid midsummer shone over England; skies so pure, suns so radiant, as were then seen in long succession, seldom favor, 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, Adèle, 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.59 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 subtile, 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 honeydew fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade forever. But in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the inclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising moon casts on this more open quarter, my step is stayed—not by sound, nor by sight; but once more by a warning fragrance.

Sweet-brier and southern-wood, 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 here 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 toward 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 feet; he sees it, and bends to examine it.

“Now he has his back toward me,” thought I, “and he is occupied, too;

perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed.”

I trod 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 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 perspective 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 Adèle, 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 Rumor, 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,fw 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 Adèle 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. Adèle 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 apologize! I consider that when a dependent 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 warm-hearted 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 avoiding 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 at 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 full.

“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 snapped; 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 forever. 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, inclosing 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 rumor 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 leaped 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 lighted. The clock 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 up stairs. “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 Adèle 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.

OceanofPDF.com

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 color; 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 sung, 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 up stairs. I met Adèle leaving the school-room.

“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 daydream.”

“Which I can and will realize. I shall begin to-day. This morning I wrote

to my banker in London to send me certain jewels he has in his keeping, heir-looms 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 to 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

own 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 depre cation. “This

very day I shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and you must choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we should 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 modem

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 cleansed, 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 ardor 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, fervor, 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

a one?”

“I love it now.”

“But before me; if I, indeed, in any respect come up to that 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 charm ers—”

“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 favor 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.’60 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 petitioner; 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!61 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 of 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 like to be

conquered, and how pleasant over-persuasionfx 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 thunder-loft.’ 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-by, 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.” 62

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?”63

“I believe she thought I had forgotten my station; and you 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

parlor, 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 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 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

dare say, 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, Adèle 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, Adèle;” 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 backward and forward.

“Adèle 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

Adèle.

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.”

Adèle, 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 neighbor 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 lap-dog; “I’ll send her to school

yet,” he said, but now he was smiling.

Adèle heard him, and asked if she was to go to school “sans

mademoiselle?”fy

“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 Adèle.

“I shall gather manna for her morning and night; the plains and hill-sides

in the moon are bleached with manna, Adèle.”

“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!fz 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, Adèle? 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 Adèle, 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.”

“Adèle, 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 thunder-storm, and where the low hedges and lofty timber trees on each side glistened green, and rain-refreshed.

“In that field, Adèle, 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 Hay-hill; 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, Adèle, 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,”ga and assuring him that she made no account whatever of his

“Contes de fée,”gb and that “du reste, il n‘y avait pas de fees et quand

même il y en avait;”gc 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 favor of a sober black satin and pearl-gray silk. “It might pass for the present,” he

said; but he would yet see me “glittering like a parterre.”gd

Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of the

jeweller’s shop; the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation. As we reentered 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 testatrix. “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 Danaëge 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-gray 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, houriforms 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 among the rest. I’ll get

admitted there, and I’ll stir up mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashawgf as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered among 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 Céline Varens?—of the diamonds, the cashmeres, you gave her? I will not be your English Céline Varens. I shall continue to act as Adèle’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 are now approaching Thorn field. Will it please you to dine with me to-day?” he asked, as we reentered 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 suppositions 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,’gg as Adèle 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.”gh

He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage; and while he

afterward lifted out Adèle, I entered the house and made good my retreat up stairs.

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 tête-à-tête 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, begun 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 hinderance 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; Far 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 hand Our natures 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!64

He rose and came toward 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 apostrophized 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 lamblike 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 favors 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.

OceanofPDF.com

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 will be far

on their road to London; and so should I (D.V.),gi 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, on 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-colored robe, the vapory veil, pendent from the usurped

portmanteau.gj 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 disburden 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 sympathize 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, gathering up the apples with

which the grass round the tree-roots was thickly strewed. Then I employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe. I carried them into the house and put them away in the store-room. Then I repaired to the library to ascertain whether the fire was lighted; 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 burned well. I placed his arm-chair by the chimney-corner; I wheeled the table near it; I let down the curtain, and had the candles brought in ready for lighting. More restless than ever, when I had completed these arrangements I could not sit still, nor even remain in the house. A little time-piece in the room and the old clock in the hall simultaneously struck ten.

“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 but a long, pale line, unvaried by one moving speck.

A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked—a tear of disappointment

and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away. I lingered; the moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of dense cloud; the night grew dark; rain came driving fast on the gale.

“I wish he would come! I wish he would come!” I exclaimed, seized with

hypochondriacgk 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 realized; 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 sprung up before him. A hearty kissing I

got for 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 dare say 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 brier-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 to return to him in the library; and he stopped me, as I made for the stair-case, 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 rung 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 color 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 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.”65

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

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 time-piece 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;66 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.67 Just at sunset, the air turned cold and the sky cloudy; I went in.

Sophie called me up stairs 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 mask your plebeian bride in the attributes of a peeress. I thought how I would carry down to you the square

of unembroidered blondgl 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 gm 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.68 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 undersound; 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;69 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 further and further 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, sly, 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 dreamed 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 inclosure 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 candle-light. Sophie, I supposed, had come in. There was a light on 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

discolored 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 gauntgn head, rent it in two parts, and,

flinging both on the floor, trampled on them.”

“Afterward?”

“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 eye glared upon me—she thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my eyes. I was aware her wild 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 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 has 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 day-light, 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 around

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 fragments 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 endeavored 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 Adèle in the nursery?” he asked, as I lighted

my candle.

“Yes, sir.”

“And there is room enough in Adèle’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 up

stairs, 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 tonight, 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 Adèle 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 Adèle 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.

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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 now, 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 church-yard 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 gray 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 among the low hillocks, and reading the mementos 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 dare say, 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 toward us, viewing through the rails the old, time-stained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the remains of Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the civil wars, and of

Elizabeth, his wife.70

Our place was taken at the communion-rails. Hearing a cautious step

behind me, I glanced over my shoulder; one of the strangers—a gentleman, evidently—was advancing up the chancel. The service began. The explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then the clergyman came a step further forward, and, bending slightly toward 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 toward 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 eyes 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 these low-spoken words as they had never vibrated

to thunder—my blood felt their subtile 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 colorless 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 recognize 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.

“My name is Briggs—a solicitor of street, London.”

“And you would thrust on me a wife?”

“I would remind you of your lady’s existence, sir; which the law

recognizes, if you do not.”

“Favor 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—

“I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October, A.D.—(a date of

fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in the county of—, and of Ferndean Manor, in—shire, England, was married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, merchant,

and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creolego—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 neighborhood, sir, and I never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield Hall.”

I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester’s lip, 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.71 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 dare say 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!72 Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard! as I found out after I had wed the daughter; for they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points. I had a charming partner—pure, wise, modest! You can fancy that 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 dreamed she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and em bruted 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, Adèle, 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 stair-case, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the third story. 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 burned 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 sauce-pan. In the deep shade, at the further end of the room, a figure ran backward and forward. 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 favorable 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 recognized 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 sprung 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 amid 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!73 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 we 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 gp 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—declinegq— 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 hay-field and corn-field lay a frozen shroud; lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, today 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 subtile doom, such

as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt.74 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 baulked; 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, I 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 lifelike 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.”75

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,gr 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 sunk into deep mire; I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods

overflowed me.”76

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Chapter XXVII

Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the westering 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 force 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,gs 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.”77

I rose up suddenly, terror-stricken 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 Adèle 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 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 deathlike 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 bosom78 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 down stairs. 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 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 toward 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 honor, 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 abuse 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 Adèle’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—Adèle must have a new governess, sir.”

“Oh, Adèle 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 Achan79—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 Adèle 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 neighborhood from you, however, was

something like covering a child with a cloak, and laying it down near a

upas-tree;gt 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 straight 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 forever; 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 Adèle with you, sir,” I interrupted; “she will be a companion

for you.”

“What do you mean, Jane? I told you I would send Adèle 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 Adèle 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 Adèle 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 white-walled 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 do 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, Russell. 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;gu 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 candor, 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

honey-moon 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, while 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, Russell, 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 up stairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed; her character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices sprung 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 intemperategv 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 dishonor; 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 it 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 my 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-streams—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 while 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 among 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 honor, 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-story 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. gw

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 among English ladies, French countesses,

Italian signoras, and German Gräfinnen.gx 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 realization 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. Among 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‘sgy 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 Céline 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, 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 favorable 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 wish to return to it. Hiring a mistress is the next worst 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 Céline, 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 learned 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 Adèle 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. Adèle 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 revery; 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 down stairs 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 tranquillized 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 school-room 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; 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 school-room-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 all these reminiscences, and these revelations of his feelings, only made my work more difficult.

“No, Jane,” he returned; “what necessity is there to dwell on the Past,

when the Present is so much surer—the Future so much brighter?”

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 toward 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

forebore 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 up stairs; as well might you refer me to some corpse in yonder church-yard. 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 honor. 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 clamored 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 rigor; 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 gripegz was painful, and my overtasked 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; I 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 sprung, 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, forever!”

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 dreamed that 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 vapors 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 trance-like 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 Adèle!” I said, as I glanced toward 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 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 toward the lock, I caught it back and glided on.

Drearily I wound my way down stairs; 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 which 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 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 the 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 sun rise, 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 further in. Birds began to sing 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 forward 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 agonized 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!

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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 further 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; white-washed, 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 furthest, 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 to night-fall, 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 dew fell, but with propitious softness; no breeze whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. To-night, at least, I would be her guest—as I was her child; my mother would lodge me without money and without price. I 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 eat 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 tor 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;80 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, among 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 corn-fields, and wood; and a glittering stream ran zig-zag through the varied shades of green, the mellowing grain, the sombre wood-land, the clear and sunny lea. Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to the road before me, I saw a heavily-laden wagon laboring up the hill; and not far beyond were two cows and their drover. Human life and human labor 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 vigor returned to me as soon as I was among 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 sunk 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 dress-maker or plain-work womanha 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 neighborhood 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-laborers; 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 neighbor 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 sunk 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 toward it.

Near the church-yard, 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 wish 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, but for 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. Toward 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 hand, and I devoured it

ravenously.

As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridle-path, which I

had been pursuing an hour or more.

“My strength is quite failing me,” I said in soliloquy. “I feel I cannot go

much further. 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 still 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 imprisoned 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 color had faded with the daylight.

My eye still roved over the sullen swell, and along the moor-edge,

vanishing amid the wildest scenery, when, at one dim point, far in among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprung up. “That is an ignis fatuus,” was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish. It burned 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 sunk 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 to 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 toward 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, amid 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, burned 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 amid 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 bombasin, which sombre garb singularly set off their 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 are

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 fire-lit 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 wakened 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 which 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.hb ‘Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale meines Zornes

und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.‘hc I like it!”

Both were again silent.

“Is there ony country were 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 parlor?”

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 heaviness in his head the next day—that

is, a fortnight sin‘—and he went to sleep and niver wakened; he wor a’most

starkhd 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 a 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 their curls. The clock struck ten.

“Ye’ll want your supper, I’m 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 parlor. 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 indeed 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 further. 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 feard you have some ill plans agatehe 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 sunk on the wet door-step; 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 endeavored 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 new-comer 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.81 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 parlor 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 under tone, she gave some directions to Hannah. Ere long, with the servant’s aid, I contrived to mount a stair-case—my dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me. I thanked God; experienced amid unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful joy—and slept.

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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 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 bed-side-

“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 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 trac tability.” 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 flavor 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 bed-side 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 a 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 stair-case, 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 fertilized 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

down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will.”