Jane Eyre
by
Charlotte Bronte
Part 11 out of 11
and extremities. The feeling was not like an electric shock, but
it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling: it acted on my
senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had been but torpor,
from which they were now summoned and forced to wake. They rose
expectant: eye and ear waited while the flesh quivered on my bones.
"What have you heard? What do you see?" asked St. John. I
saw nothing, but I heard a voice somewhere cry -
"Jane! Jane! Jane!" -- nothing more.
"O God! what is it?" I gasped.
I might have said, "Where is it?" for it did not seem in the room
-- nor in the house -- nor in the garden; it did not come out of
the air -- nor from under the earth -- nor from overhead. I had
heard it -- where, or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it
was the voice of a human being -- a known, loved, well-remembered
voice -- that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain
and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently.
"I am coming!" I cried. "Wait for me! Oh, I will come!" I flew
to the door and looked into the passage: it was dark. I ran out
into the garden: it was void.
"Where are you?" I exclaimed.
The hills beyond Marsh Glen sent the answer faintly back -- "Where
are you?" I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs: all was
moorland loneliness and midnight hush.
"Down superstition!" I commented, as that spectre rose up black
by the black yew at the gate. "This is not thy deception, nor thy
witchcraft: it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did --
no miracle -- but her best."
I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained
me. It was MY time to assume ascendency. MY powers were in play
and in force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired
him to leave me: I must and would be alone. He obeyed at once.
Where there is energy to command well enough, obedience never fails.
I mounted to my chamber; locked myself in; fell on my knees; and
prayed in my way -- a different way to St. John's, but effective in
its own fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit;
and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet. I rose from the
thanksgiving -- took a resolve -- and lay down, unscared, enlightened
-- eager but for the daylight.
CHAPTER XXXVI
The daylight came. I rose at dawn. I busied myself for an hour or
two with arranging my things in my chamber, drawers, and wardrobe,
in the order wherein I should wish to leave them during a brief
absence. Meantime, I heard St. John quit his room. He stopped
at my door: I feared he would knock -- no, but a slip of paper
was passed under the door. I took it up. It bore these words -
"You left me too suddenly last night. Had you stayed but a little
longer, you would have laid your hand on the Christian's cross and
the angel's crown. I shall expect your clear decision when I return
this day fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not
into temptation: the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh,
I see, is weak. I shall pray for you hourly. -- Yours, ST. JOHN."
"My spirit," I answered mentally, "is willing to do what is right;
and my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to accomplish the will
of Heaven, when once that will is distinctly known to me. At any
rate, it shall be strong enough to search -- inquire -- to grope an
outlet from this cloud of doubt, and find the open day of certainty."
It was the first of June; yet the morning was overcast and chilly:
rain beat fast on my casement. I heard the front-door open, and
St. John pass out. Looking through the window, I saw him traverse
the garden. He took the way over the misty moors in the direction
of Whitcross -- there he would meet the coach.
"In a few more hours I shall succeed you in that track, cousin,"
thought I: "I too have a coach to meet at Whitcross. I too have
some to see and ask after in England, before I depart for ever."
It wanted yet two hours of breakfast-time. I filled the interval
in walking softly about my room, and pondering the visitation which
had given my plans their present bent. I recalled that inward
sensation I had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its
unspeakable strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again
I questioned whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in
ME -- not in the external world. I asked was it a mere nervous
impression -- a delusion? I could not conceive or believe: it was
more like an inspiration. The wondrous shock of feeling had come
like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas's
prison; it had opened the doors of the soul's cell and loosed
its bands -- it had wakened it out of its sleep, whence it sprang
trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a cry on my
startled ear, and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, which
neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the success
of one effort it had been privileged to make, independent of the
cumbrous body.
"Ere many days," I said, as I terminated my musings, "I will know
something of him whose voice seemed last night to summon me. Letters
have proved of no avail -- personal inquiry shall replace them."
At breakfast I announced to Diana and Mary that I was going a
journey, and should be absent at least four days.
"Alone, Jane?" they asked.
"Yes; it was to see or hear news of a friend about whom I had for
some time been uneasy."
They might have said, as I have no doubt they thought, that they
had believed me to be without any friends save them: for, indeed,
I had often said so; but, with their true natural delicacy, they
abstained from comment, except that Diana asked me if I was sure
I was well enough to travel. I looked very pale, she observed. I
replied, that nothing ailed me save anxiety of mind, which I hoped
soon to alleviate.
It was easy to make my further arrangements; for I was troubled with
no inquiries -- no surmises. Having once explained to them that
I could not now be explicit about my plans, they kindly and wisely
acquiesced in the silence with which I pursued them, according to
me the privilege of free action I should under similar circumstances
have accorded them.
I left Moor House at three o'clock p.m., and soon after four I
stood at the foot of the sign-post of Whitcross, waiting the arrival
of the coach which was to take me to distant Thornfield. Amidst
the silence of those solitary roads and desert hills, I heard it
approach from a great distance. It was the same vehicle whence,
a year ago, I had alighted one summer evening on this very spot
-- how desolate, and hopeless, and objectless! It stopped as
I beckoned. I entered -- not now obliged to part with my whole
fortune as the price of its accommodation. Once more on the road
to Thornfield, I felt like the messenger-pigeon flying home.
It was a journey of six-and-thirty hours. I had set out from
Whitcross on a Tuesday afternoon, and early on the succeeding
Thursday morning the coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside
inn, situated in the midst of scenery whose green hedges and large
fields and low pastoral hills (how mild of feature and verdant of
hue compared with the stern North-Midland moors of Morton!) met my
eye like the lineaments of a once familiar face. Yes, I knew the
character of this landscape: I was sure we were near my bourne.
"How far is Thornfield Hall from here?" I asked of the ostler.
"Just two miles, ma'am, across the fields."
"My journey is closed," I thought to myself. I got out of the
coach, gave a box I had into the ostler's charge, to be kept till
I called for it; paid my fare; satisfied the coachman, and was
going: the brightening day gleamed on the sign of the inn, and I
read in gilt letters, "The Rochester Arms." My heart leapt up: I
was already on my master's very lands. It fell again: the thought
struck it:-
"Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught
you know: and then, if he is at Thornfield Hall, towards which
you hasten, who besides him is there? His lunatic wife: and you
have nothing to do with him: you dare not speak to him or seek
his presence. You have lost your labour -- you had better go no
farther," urged the monitor. "Ask information of the people at the
inn; they can give you all you seek: they can solve your doubts at
once. Go up to that man, and inquire if Mr. Rochester be at home."
The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force myself to
act on it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair.
To prolong doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more see
the Hall under the ray of her star. There was the stile before
me -- the very fields through which I had hurried, blind, deaf,
distracted with a revengeful fury tracking and scourging me, on
the morning I fled from Thornfield: ere I well knew what course
I had resolved to take, I was in the midst of them. How fast I
walked! How I ran sometimes! How I looked forward to catch the
first view of the well-known woods! With what feelings I welcomed
single trees I knew, and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill
between them!
At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing
broke the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me: on I
hastened. Another field crossed -- a lane threaded -- and there
were the courtyard walls -- the back offices: the house itself,
the rookery still hid. "My first view of it shall be in front," I
determined, "where its bold battlements will strike the eye nobly at
once, and where I can single out my master's very window: perhaps
he will be standing at it -- he rises early: perhaps he is now
walking in the orchard, or on the pavement in front. Could I but
see him! -- but a moment! Surely, in that case, I should not be
so mad as to run to him? I cannot tell -- I am not certain. And
if I did -- what then? God bless him! What then? Who would be
hurt by my once more tasting the life his glance can give me? I
rave: perhaps at this moment he is watching the sun rise over the
Pyrenees, or on the tideless sea of the south."
I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard -- turned
its angle: there was a gate just there, opening into the meadow,
between two stone pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one
pillar I could peep round quietly at the full front of the mansion.
I advanced my head with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any
bedroom window-blinds were yet drawn up: battlements, windows,
long front -- all from this sheltered station were at my command.
The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this
survey. I wonder what they thought. They must have considered
I was very careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew
very bold and reckless. A peep, and then a long stare; and then
a departure from my niche and a straying out into the meadow; and
a sudden stop full in front of the great mansion, and a protracted,
hardy gaze towards it. "What affectation of diffidence was this
at first?" they might have demanded; "what stupid regardlessness
now?"
Hear an illustration, reader.
A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to
catch a glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals
softly over the grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses --
fancying she has stirred: he withdraws: not for worlds would he
be seen. All is still: he again advances: he bends above her;
a light veil rests on her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now
his eyes anticipate the vision of beauty -- warm, and blooming,
and lovely, in rest. How hurried was their first glance! But how
they fix! How he starts! How he suddenly and vehemently clasps
in both arms the form he dared not, a moment since, touch with
his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, and
gazes on it wildly! He thus grasps and cries, and gazes, because
he no longer fears to waken by any sound he can utter -- by any
movement he can make. He thought his love slept sweetly: he finds
she is stone dead.
I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a
blackened ruin.
No need to cower behind a gate-post, indeed! -- to peep up at
chamber lattices, fearing life was astir behind them! No need to
listen for doors opening -- to fancy steps on the pavement or the
gravel-walk! The lawn, the grounds were trodden and waste: the
portal yawned void. The front was, as I had once seen it in a
dream, but a well-like wall, very high and very fragile-looking,
perforated with paneless windows: no roof, no battlements, no
chimneys -- all had crashed in.
And there was the silence of death about it: the solitude of
a lonesome wild. No wonder that letters addressed to people here
had never received an answer: as well despatch epistles to a vault
in a church aisle. The grim blackness of the stones told by what
fate the Hall had fallen -- by conflagration: but how kindled?
What story belonged to this disaster? What loss, besides mortar and
marble and wood-work had followed upon it? Had life been wrecked
as well as property? If so, whose? Dreadful question: there was
no one here to answer it -- not even dumb sign, mute token.
In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated
interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late
occurrence. Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that
void arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements; for,
amidst the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation:
grass and weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen
rafters. And oh! where meantime was the hapless owner of this
wreck? In what land? Under what auspices? My eye involuntarily
wandered to the grey church tower near the gates, and I asked,
"Is he with Damer de Rochester, sharing the shelter of his narrow
marble house?"
Some answer must be had to these questions. I could find it nowhere
but at the inn, and thither, ere long, I returned. The host himself
brought my breakfast into the parlour. I requested him to shut the
door and sit down: I had some questions to ask him. But when he
complied, I scarcely knew how to begin; such horror had I of the
possible answers. And yet the spectacle of desolation I had just
left prepared me in a measure for a tale of misery. The host was
a respectable-looking, middle-aged man.
"You know Thornfield Hall, of course?" I managed to say at last.
"Yes, ma'am; I lived there once."
"Did you?" Not in my time, I thought: you are a stranger to me.
"I was the late Mr. Rochester's butler," he added.
The late! I seem to have received, with full force, the blow I
had been trying to evade.
"The late!" I gasped. "Is he dead?"
"I mean the present gentleman, Mr. Edward's father," he explained.
I breathed again: my blood resumed its flow. Fully assured by
these words that Mr. Edward -- MY Mr. Rochester (God bless him,
wherever he was!) -- was at least alive: was, in short, "the present
gentleman." Gladdening words! It seemed I could hear all that was
to come -- whatever the disclosures might be -- with comparative
tranquillity. Since he was not in the grave, I could bear, I
thought, to learn that he was at the Antipodes.
"Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now?" I asked, knowing,
of course, what the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring
the direct question as to where he really was.
"No, ma'am -- oh, no! No one is living there. I suppose you are
a stranger in these parts, or you would have heard what happened
last autumn, -- Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin: it was burnt down
just about harvest-time. A dreadful calamity! such an immense
quantity of valuable property destroyed: hardly any of the furniture
could be saved. The fire broke out at dead of night, and before
the engines arrived from Millcote, the building was one mass of
flame. It was a terrible spectacle: I witnessed it myself."
"At dead of night!" I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour
of fatality at Thornfield. "Was it known how it originated?" I
demanded.
"They guessed, ma'am: they guessed. Indeed, I should say it was
ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not perhaps aware," he continued,
edging his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking low, "that
there was a lady -- a -- a lunatic, kept in the house?"
"I have heard something of it."
"She was kept in very close confinement, ma'am: people even for
some years was not absolutely certain of her existence. No one
saw her: they only knew by rumour that such a person was at the
Hall; and who or what she was it was difficult to conjecture. They
said Mr. Edward had brought her from abroad, and some believed she
had been his mistress. But a queer thing happened a year since --
a very queer thing."
I feared now to hear my own story. I endeavoured to recall him to
the main fact.
"And this lady?"
"This lady, ma'am," he answered, "turned out to be Mr. Rochester's
wife! The discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There
was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in -- "
"But the fire," I suggested.
"I'm coming to that, ma'am -- that Mr. Edward fell in love with.
The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was:
he was after her continually. They used to watch him -- servants
will, you know, ma'am -- and he set store on her past everything:
for all, nobody but him thought her so very handsome. She was
a little small thing, they say, almost like a child. I never saw
her myself; but I've heard Leah, the house-maid, tell of her. Leah
liked her well enough. Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this
governess not twenty; and you see, when gentlemen of his age fall
in love with girls, they are often like as if they were bewitched.
Well, he would marry her."
"You shall tell me this part of the story another time," I said;
"but now I have a particular reason for wishing to hear all about
the fire. Was it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had
any hand in it?"
"You've hit it, ma'am: it's quite certain that it was her, and
nobody but her, that set it going. She had a woman to take care
of her called Mrs. Poole -- an able woman in her line, and very
trustworthy, but for one fault -- a fault common to a deal of them
nurses and matrons -- she KEPT A PRIVATE BOTTLE OF GIN BY HER,
and now and then took a drop over-much. It is excusable, for she
had a hard life of it: but still it was dangerous; for when Mrs.
Poole was fast asleep after the gin and water, the mad lady, who
was as cunning as a witch, would take the keys out of her pocket,
let herself out of her chamber, and go roaming about the house,
doing any wild mischief that came into her head. They say she had
nearly burnt her husband in his bed once: but I don't know about
that. However, on this night, she set fire first to the hangings
of the room next her own, and then she got down to a lower storey,
and made her way to the chamber that had been the governess's --
(she was like as if she knew somehow how matters had gone on, and
had a spite at her) -- and she kindled the bed there; but there
was nobody sleeping in it, fortunately. The governess had run away
two months before; and for all Mr. Rochester sought her as if she
had been the most precious thing he had in the world, he never
could hear a word of her; and he grew savage -- quite savage on
his disappointment: he never was a wild man, but he got dangerous
after he lost her. He would be alone, too. He sent Mrs. Fairfax,
the housekeeper, away to her friends at a distance; but he did it
handsomely, for he settled an annuity on her for life: and she
deserved it -- she was a very good woman. Miss Adele, a ward he
had, was put to school. He broke off acquaintance with all the
gentry, and shut himself up like a hermit at the Hall."
"What! did he not leave England?"
"Leave England? Bless you, no! He would not cross the door-stones
of the house, except at night, when he walked just like a ghost
about the grounds and in the orchard as if he had lost his senses
-- which it is my opinion he had; for a more spirited, bolder, keener
gentleman than he was before that midge of a governess crossed him,
you never saw, ma'am. He was not a man given to wine, or cards,
or racing, as some are, and he was not so very handsome; but he
had a courage and a will of his own, if ever man had. I knew him
from a boy, you see: and for my part, I have often wished that
Miss Eyre had been sunk in the sea before she came to Thornfield
Hall."
"Then Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire broke out?"
"Yes, indeed was he; and he went up to the attics when all was
burning above and below, and got the servants out of their beds
and helped them down himself, and went back to get his mad wife out
of her cell. And then they called out to him that she was on the
roof, where she was standing, waving her arms, above the battlements,
and shouting out till they could hear her a mile off: I saw her
and heard her with my own eyes. She was a big woman, and had long
black hair: we could see it streaming against the flames as she
stood. I witnessed, and several more witnessed, Mr. Rochester ascend
through the sky-light on to the roof; we heard him call 'Bertha!'
We saw him approach her; and then, ma'am, she yelled and gave a
spring, and the next minute she lay smashed on the pavement."
"Dead?"
"Dead! Ay, dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were
scattered."
"Good God!"
"You may well say so, ma'am: it was frightful!"
He shuddered.
"And afterwards?" I urged.
"Well, ma'am, afterwards the house was burnt to the ground: there
are only some bits of walls standing now."
"Were any other lives lost?"
"No -- perhaps it would have been better if there had."
"What do you mean?"
"Poor Mr. Edward!" he ejaculated, "I little thought ever to have
seen it! Some say it was a just judgment on him for keeping his
first marriage secret, and wanting to take another wife while he
had one living: but I pity him, for my part."
"You said he was alive?" I exclaimed.
"Yes, yes: he is alive; but many think he had better he dead."
"Why? How?" My blood was again running cold. "Where is he?" I
demanded. "Is he in England?"
"Ay -- ay -- he's in England; he can't get out of England, I fancy
-- he's a fixture now."
What agony was this! And the man seemed resolved to protract it.
"He is stone-blind," he said at last. "Yes, he is stone-blind, is
Mr. Edward."
I had dreaded worse. I had dreaded he was mad. I summoned strength
to ask what had caused this calamity.
"It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness,
in a way, ma'am: he wouldn't leave the house till every one else
was out before him. As he came down the great staircase at last,
after Mrs. Rochester had flung herself from the battlements, there
was a great crash -- all fell. He was taken out from under the
ruins, alive, but sadly hurt: a beam had fallen in such a way as
to protect him partly; but one eye was knocked out, and one hand so
crushed that Mr. Carter, the surgeon, had to amputate it directly.
The other eye inflamed: he lost the sight of that also. He is
now helpless, indeed -- blind and a cripple."
"Where is he? Where does he now live?"
"At Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he has, about thirty miles
off: quite a desolate spot."
"Who is with him?"
"Old John and his wife: he would have none else. He is quite
broken down, they say."
"Have you any sort of conveyance?"
"We have a chaise, ma'am, a very handsome chaise."
"Let it be got ready instantly; and if your post-boy can drive me
to Ferndean before dark this day, I'll pay both you and him twice
the hire you usually demand."
CHAPTER XXXVII
The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity,
moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in
a wood. I had heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often spoke of
it, and sometimes went there. His father had purchased the estate
for the sake of the game covers. He would have let the house, but
could find no tenant, in consequence of its ineligible and insalubrious
site. Ferndean then remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the
exception of some two or three rooms fitted up for the accommodation
of the squire when he went there in the season to shoot.
To this house I came just ere dark on an evening marked by the
characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and continued small penetrating
rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the
chaise and driver with the double remuneration I had promised. Even
when within a very short distance of the manor-house, you could
see nothing of it, so thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy
wood about it. Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where
to enter, and passing through them, I found myself at once in the
twilight of close-ranked trees. There was a grass-grown track
descending the forest aisle between hoar and knotty shafts and
under branched arches. I followed it, expecting soon to reach the
dwelling; but it stretched on and on, it would far and farther:
no sign of habitation or grounds was visible.
I thought I had taken a wrong direction and lost my way. The
darkness of natural as well as of sylvan dusk gathered over me. I
looked round in search of another road. There was none: all was
interwoven stem, columnar trunk, dense summer foliage -- no opening
anywhere.
I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little;
presently I beheld a railing, then the house -- scarce, by this
dim light, distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were
its decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch,
I stood amidst a space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept
away in a semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only
a broad gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the
heavy frame of the forest. The house presented two pointed gables
in its front; the windows were latticed and narrow: the front
door was narrow too, one step led up to it. The whole looked, as
the host of the Rochester Arms had said, "quite a desolate spot."
It was as still as a church on a week-day: the pattering rain on
the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its vicinage.
"Can there be life here?" I asked.
Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement -- that
narrow front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue
from the grange.
It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood
on the step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as
if to feel whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised
him -- it was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.
I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him -- to
examine him, myself unseen, and alas! to him invisible. It was
a sudden meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check
by pain. I had no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation,
my step from hasty advance.
His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his
port was still erect, his hair was still raven black; nor were his
features altered or sunk: not in one year's space, by any sorrow,
could his athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime blighted.
But in his countenance I saw a change: that looked desperate and
brooding -- that reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild
beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe. The caged
eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look
as looked that sightless Samson.
And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity? --
if you do, you little know me. A soft hope blest with my sorrow
that soon I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and
on those lips so sternly sealed beneath it: but not yet. I would
not accost him yet.
He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards
the grass-plat. Where was his daring stride now? Then he paused,
as if he knew not which way to turn. He lifted his hand and opened
his eyelids; gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky,
and toward the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him
was void darkness. He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the
mutilated one, he kept hidden in his bosom); he seemed to wish by
touch to gain an idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy
still; for the trees were some yards off where he stood. He
relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and stood quiet and
mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this
moment John approached him from some quarter.
"Will you take my arm, sir?" he said; "there is a heavy shower
coming on: had you not better go in?"
"Let me alone," was the answer.
John withdrew without having observed me. Mr. Rochester now tried
to walk about: vainly, -- all was too uncertain. He groped his
way back to the house, and, re-entering it, closed the door.
I now drew near and knocked: John's wife opened for me. "Mary,"
I said, "how are you?"
She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her
hurried "Is it really you, miss, come at this late hour to this
lonely place?" I answered by taking her hand; and then I followed
her into the kitchen, where John now sat by a good fire. I explained
to them, in few words, that I had heard all which had happened since
I left Thornfield, and that I was come to see Mr. Rochester. I
asked John to go down to the turn-pike-house, where I had dismissed
the chaise, and bring my trunk, which I had left there: and
then, while I removed my bonnet and shawl, I questioned Mary as to
whether I could be accommodated at the Manor House for the night;
and finding that arrangements to that effect, though difficult,
would not be impossible, I informed her I should stay. Just at
this moment the parlour-bell rang.
"When you go in," said I, "tell your master that a person wishes
to speak to him, but do not give my name."
"I don't think he will see you," she answered; "he refuses everybody."
When she returned, I inquired what he had said. "You are to send
in your name and your business," she replied. She then proceeded
to fill a glass with water, and place it on a tray, together with
candles.
"Is that what he rang for?" I asked.
"Yes: he always has candles brought in at dark, though he is
blind."
"Give the tray to me; I will carry it in."
I took it from her hand: she pointed me out the parlour door. The
tray shook as I held it; the water spilt from the glass; my heart
struck my ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me, and
shut it behind me.
This parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low
in the grate; and, leaning over it, with his head supported against
the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant
of the room. His old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of
the way, and coiled up as if afraid of being inadvertently trodden
upon. Pilot pricked up his ears when I came in: then he jumped
up with a yelp and a whine, and bounded towards me: he almost
knocked the tray from my hands. I set it on the table; then patted
him, and said softly, "Lie down!" Mr. Rochester turned mechanically
to SEE what the commotion was: but as he SAW nothing, he returned
and sighed.
"Give me the water, Mary," he said.
I approached him with the now only half-filled glass; Pilot followed
me, still excited.
"What is the matter?" he inquired.
"Down, Pilot!" I again said. He checked the water on its way to
his lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and put the glass down.
"This is you, Mary, is it not?"
"Mary is in the kitchen," I answered.
He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where
I stood, he did not touch me. "Who is this? Who is this?" he
demanded, trying, as it seemed, to SEE with those sightless eyes
-- unavailing and distressing attempt! "Answer me -- speak again!"
he ordered, imperiously and aloud.
"Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was
in the glass," I said.
"WHO is it? WHAT is it? Who speaks?"
"Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only
this evening," I answered.
"Great God! -- what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness
has seized me?"
"No delusion -- no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for
delusion, your health too sound for frenzy."
"And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I CANNOT
see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst.
Whatever -- whoever you are -- be perceptible to the touch or I
cannot live!"
He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both
mine.
"Her very fingers!" he cried; "her small, slight fingers! If so
there must be more of her."
The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my
shoulder -- neck -- waist -- I was entwined and gathered to him.
"Is it Jane? WHAT is it? This is her shape -- this is her size -- "
"And this her voice," I added. "She is all here: her heart, too.
God bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you again."
"Jane Eyre! -- Jane Eyre," was all he said.
"My dear master," I answered, "I am Jane Eyre: I have found you
out -- I am come back to you."
"In truth? -- in the flesh? My living Jane?"
"You touch me, sir, -- you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold
like a corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?"
"My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her
features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a
dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her
once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus -- and
felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me."
"Which I never will, sir, from this day."
"Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an
empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned -- my life dark,
lonely, hopeless -- my soul athirst and forbidden to drink -- my
heart famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling
in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled
before you: but kiss me before you go -- embrace me, Jane."
"There, sir -- and there!"'
I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes --
I swept his hair from his brow, and kissed that too. He suddenly
seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all
this seized him.
"It is you -- is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?"
"I am."
"And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you
are not a pining outcast amongst strangers?"
"No, sir! I am an independent woman now."
"Independent! What do you mean, Jane?"
"My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds."
"Ah! this is practical -- this is real!" he cried: "I should
never dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers,
so animating and piquant, as well as soft: it cheers my withered
heart; it puts life into it. -- What, Janet! Are you an independent
woman? A rich woman?"
"If you won't let me live with you, I can build a house of my own
close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when
you want company of an evening."
"But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who
will look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a
blind lameter like me?"
"I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own
mistress."
"And you will stay with me?"
"Certainly -- unless you object. I will be your neighbour,
your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your
companion -- to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you,
to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so
melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long
as I live."
He replied not: he seemed serious -- abstracted; he sighed;
he half-opened his lips as if to speak: he closed them again. I
felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped
conventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my
inconsiderateness. I had indeed made my proposal from the idea
that he wished and would ask me to be his wife: an expectation,
not the less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that
he would claim me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect
escaping him and his countenance becoming more overcast, I suddenly
remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing
the fool unwittingly; and I began gently to withdraw myself from
his arms -- but he eagerly snatched me closer.
"No -- no -- Jane; you must not go. No -- I have touched you,
heard you, felt the comfort of your presence -- the sweetness of
your consolation: I cannot give up these joys. I have little left
in myself -- I must have you. The world may laugh -- may call me
absurd, selfish -- but it does not signify. My very soul demands
you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on
its frame."
"Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so."
"Yes -- but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I
understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be
about my hand and chair -- to wait on me as a kind little nurse
(for you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which
prompt you to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought
to suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none
but fatherly feelings for you: do you think so? Come -- tell me."
"I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your
nurse, if you think it better."
"But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are young -- you
must marry one day."
"I don't care about being married."
"You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try
to make you care -- but -- a sightless block!"
He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more
cheerful, and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an
insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty
with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I
resumed a livelier vein of conversation.
"It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you," said I, parting
his thick and long uncut locks; "for I see you are being metamorphosed
into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a 'faux air' of
Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair
reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your nails are grown like
birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed."
"On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails," he said, drawing
the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. "It is
a mere stump -- a ghastly sight! Don't you think so, Jane?"
"It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes -- and the
scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in
danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of
you."
"I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and
my cicatrised visage."
"Did you? Don't tell me so -- lest I should say something
disparaging to your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant,
to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell
when there is a good fire?"
"Yes; with the right eye I see a glow -- a ruddy haze."
"And you see the candles?"
"Very dimly -- each is a luminous cloud."
"Can you see me?"
"No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you."
"When do you take supper?"
"I never take supper."
"But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry: so are you, I
daresay, only you forget."
Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I
prepared him, likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were
excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper,
and for a long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no
repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at
perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed
either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It
brought to life and light my whole nature: in his presence I
thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine. Blind as he was, smiles
played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead: his lineaments
softened and warmed.
After supper, he began to ask me many questions, of where I had
been, what I had been doing, how I had found him out; but I gave
him only very partial replies: it was too late to enter into
particulars that night. Besides, I wished to touch no deep-thrilling
chord -- to open no fresh well of emotion in his heart: my sole
present aim was to cheer him. Cheered, as I have said, he was:
and yet but by fits. If a moment's silence broke the conversation,
he would turn restless, touch me, then say, "Jane."
"You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?"
"I conscientiously believe so, Mr. Rochester."
"Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly
rise on my lone hearth? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water
from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question,
expecting John's wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my
ear."
"Because I had come in, in Mary's stead, with the tray."
"And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with
you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged
on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night
in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go
out, of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow,
and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again.
Yes: for her restoration I longed, far more than for that of my
lost sight. How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves
me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I
fear I shall find her no more."
A commonplace, practical reply, out of the train of his own
disturbed ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring for
him in this frame of mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows,
and remarked that they were scorched, and that I would apply
something which would make them grow as broad and black as ever.
"Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit,
when, at some fatal moment, you will again desert me -- passing
like a shadow, whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining
afterwards undiscoverable?
"Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir?"
"What for, Jane?"
"Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather
alarming, when I examine you close at hand: you talk of my being
a fairy, but I am sure, you are more like a brownie."
"Am I hideous, Jane?"
"Very, sir: you always were, you know."
"Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever
you have sojourned."
"Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a hundred
times better people; possessed of ideas and views you never
entertained in your life: quite more refined and exalted."
"Who the deuce have you been with?"
"If you twist in that way you will make me pull the hair out of
your head; and then I think you will cease to entertain doubts of
my substantiality."
"Who have you been with, Jane?"
"You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir; you must wait till
to-morrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know, be a sort
of security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish
it. By the bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth with only
a glass of water then: I must bring an egg at the least, to say
nothing of fried ham."
"You mocking changeling -- fairy-born and human-bred! You make me
feel as I have not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have
had you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised
without the aid of the harp."
"There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I'll leave you:
I have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am
tired. Good night."
"Just one word, Jane: were there only ladies in the house where
you have been?"
I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs.
"A good idea!" I thought with glee. "I see I have the means of
fretting him out of his melancholy for some time to come."
Very early the next morning I heard him up and astir, wandering
from one room to another. As soon as Mary came down I heard the
question: "Is Miss Eyre here?" Then: "Which room did you put her
into? Was it dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants anything;
and when she will come down."
I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast.
Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he
discovered my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to witness the
subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He
sat in his chair -- still, but not at rest: expectant evidently;
the lines of now habitual sadness marking his strong features. His
countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be re-lit
-- and alas! it was not himself that could now kindle the lustre
of animated expression: he was dependent on another for that
office! I had meant to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness
of the strong man touched my heart to the quick: still I accosted
him with what vivacity I could.
"It is a bright, sunny morning, sir," I said. "The rain is over
and gone, and there is a tender shining after it: you shall have
a walk soon."
I had wakened the glow: his features beamed.
"Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not
gone: not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing
high over the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than
the rising sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated
in my Jane's tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a
silent one): all the sunshine I can feel is in her presence."
The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence;
just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced
to entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be
lachrymose: I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself with
preparing breakfast.
Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of
the wet and wild wood into some cheerful fields: I described to
him how brilliantly green they were; how the flowers and hedges
looked refreshed; how sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought a
seat for him in a hidden and lovely spot, a dry stump of a tree;
nor did I refuse to let him, when seated, place me on his knee. Why
should I, when both he and I were happier near than apart? Pilot
lay beside us: all was quiet. He broke out suddenly while
clasping me in his arms -
"Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered
you had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you;
and, after examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken
no money, nor anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl
necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little casket; your
trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for
the bridal tour. What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute
and penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now."
Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last
year. I softened considerably what related to the three days of
wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would have
been to inflict unnecessary pain: the little I did say lacerated
his faithful heart deeper than I wished.
I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of
making my way: I should have told him my intention. I should have
confided in him: he would never have forced me to be his mistress.
Violent as he had seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me
far too well and too tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he
would have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as
a kiss in return, rather than I should have flung myself friendless
on the wide world. I had endured, he was certain, more than I had
confessed to him.
"Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short," I
answered: and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received
at Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, &c.
The accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed
in due order. Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in frequently
in the progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was
immediately taken up.
"This St. John, then, is your cousin?"
"Yes."
"You have spoken of him often: do you like him?"
"He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him."
"A good man. Does that mean a respectable well-conducted man of
fifty? Or what does it mean?"
"St John was only twenty-nine, sir."
"'Jeune encore,' as the French say. Is he a person of low stature,
phlegmatic, and plain. A person whose goodness consists rather in
his guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue."
"He is untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he
lives to perform."
"But his brain? That is probably rather soft? He means well: but
you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?"
"He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. His
brain is first-rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous."
"Is he an able man, then?"
"Truly able."
"A thoroughly educated man?"
"St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar."
"His manners, I think, you said are not to your taste? -- priggish
and parsonic?"
"I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste,
they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike."
"His appearance, -- I forget what description you gave of his
appearance; -- a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white
neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?"
"St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with
blue eyes, and a Grecian profile."
(Aside.) "Damn him!" -- (To me.) "Did you like him, Jane?"
"Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but you asked me that before."
I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy
had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary:
it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would
not, therefore, immediately charm the snake.
"Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Eyre?"
was the next somewhat unexpected observation.
"Why not, Mr. Rochester?"
"The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too
overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily
a graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination, -- tall,
fair, blue-eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a
Vulcan, -- a real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered: and blind
and lame into the bargain."
"I never thought of it, before; but you certainly are rather like
Vulcan, sir."
"Well, you can leave me, ma'am: but before you go" (and he retained
me by a firmer grasp than ever), "you will be pleased just to answer
me a question or two." He paused.
"What questions, Mr. Rochester?"
Then followed this cross-examination.
"St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were
his cousin?"
"Yes."
"You would often see him? He would visit the school sometimes?"
"Daily."
"He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they would be clever,
for you are a talented creature!"
"He approved of them -- yes."
"He would discover many things in you he could not have expected
to find? Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary."
"I don't know about that."
"You had a little cottage near the school, you say: did he ever
come there to see you?"
"Now and then?"
"Of an evening?"
"Once or twice."
A pause.
"How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship
was discovered?"
"Five months."
"Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?"
"Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near
the window, and we by the table."
"Did he study much?"
"A good deal."
"What?"
"Hindostanee."
"And what did you do meantime?"
"I learnt German, at first."
"Did he teach you?"
"He did not understand German."
"Did he teach you nothing?"
"A little Hindostanee."
"Rivers taught you Hindostanee?"
"Yes, sir."
"And his sisters also?"
"No."
"Only you?"
"Only me."
"Did you ask to learn?"
"No."
"He wished to teach you?"
"Yes."
A second pause.
"Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostanee be to you?"
"He intended me to go with him to India."
"Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry
him?"
"He asked me to marry him."
"That is a fiction -- an impudent invention to vex me."
"I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than
once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could
be."
"Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say
the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my
knee, when I have given you notice to quit?"
"Because I am comfortable there."
"No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not
with me: it is with this cousin -- this St. John. Oh, till this
moment, I thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she
loved me even when she left me: that was an atom of sweet in much
bitter. Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over
our separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her, she
was loving another! But it is useless grieving. Jane, leave me:
go and marry Rivers."
"Shake me off, then, sir, -- push me away, for I'll not leave you
of my own accord."
"Jane, I ever like your tone of voice: it still renews hope, it
sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I
forget that you have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool -- go -- "
"Where must I go, sir?"
"Your own way -- with the husband you have chosen."
"Who is that?"
"You know -- this St. John Rivers."
"He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me: I
do not love him. He loves (as he CAN love, and that is not as you
love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry
me only because he thought I should make a suitable missionary's
wife, which she would not have done. He is good and great, but
severe; and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir:
I am not happy at his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no
indulgence for me -- no fondness. He sees nothing attractive in
me; not even youth -- only a few useful mental points. -- Then I
must leave you, sir, to go to him?"
I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my
blind but beloved master. He smiled.
"What, Jane! Is this true? Is such really the state of matters
between you and Rivers?"
"Absolutely, sir! Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease
you a little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better
than grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how
much I DO love you, you would be proud and content. All my heart
is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain,
were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence for ever."
Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect. "My
scarred vision! My crippled strength!" he murmured regretfully.
I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking,
and wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside
his face a minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid,
and trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled.
"I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in
Thornfield orchard," he remarked ere long. "And what right would
that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with
freshness?"
"You are no ruin, sir -- no lightning-struck tree: you are green
and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask
them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow;
and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you,
because your strength offers them so safe a prop."
Again he smiled: I gave him comfort.
"You speak of friends, Jane?" he asked.
"Yes, of friends," I answered rather hesitatingly: for I knew
I meant more than friends, but could not tell what other word to
employ. He helped me.
"Ah! Jane. But I want a wife."
"Do you, sir?"
"Yes: is it news to you?"
"Of course: you said nothing about it before."
"Is it unwelcome news?"
"That depends on circumstances, sir -- on your choice."
"Which you shall make for me, Jane. I will abide by your decision."
"Choose then, sir -- HER WHO LOVES YOU BEST."
"I will at least choose -- HER I LOVE BEST. Jane, will you marry
me?"
"Yes, sir."
"A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?"
"Yes, sir."
"A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have
to wait on?"
"Yes, sir."
"Truly, Jane?"
"Most truly, sir."
"Oh! my darling! God bless you and reward you!"
"Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life -- if ever I
thought a good thought -- if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless
prayer -- if ever I wished a righteous wish, -- I am rewarded now.
To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth."
"Because you delight in sacrifice."
"Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation
for content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value
-- to press my lips to what I love -- to repose on what I trust:
is that to make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in
sacrifice."
"And to bear with my infirmities, Jane: to overlook my deficiencies."
"Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can really
be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud independence,
when you disdained every part but that of the giver and protector."
"Hitherto I have hated to be helped -- to be led: henceforth, I
feel I shall hate it no more. I did not like to put my hand into
a hireling's, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane's little
fingers. I preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance
of servants; but Jane's soft ministry will be a perpetual joy.
Jane suits me: do I suit her?"
"To the finest fibre of my nature, sir."
"The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for: we
must be married instantly."
He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising.
"We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but
the licence to get -- then we marry."
"Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from
its meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let
me look at your watch."
"Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward: I
have no use for it."
"It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, sir. Don't you feel
hungry?"
"The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane. Never mind
fine clothes and jewels, now: all that is not worth a fillip."
"The sun has dried up all the rain-drops, sir. The breeze is still:
it is quite hot."
"Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl necklace at this moment
fastened round my bronze scrag under my cravat? I have worn it
since the day I lost my only treasure, as a memento of her."
"We will go home through the wood: that will be the shadiest way."
He pursued his own thoughts without heeding me.
"Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart
swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just
now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man
judges, but far more wisely. I did wrong: I would have sullied
my innocent flower -- breathed guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent
snatched it from me. I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed
the dispensation: instead of bending to the decree, I defied it.
Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I
was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. HIS
chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for
ever. You know I was proud of my strength: but what is it now,
when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its
weakness? Of late, Jane -- only -- only of late -- I began to see
and acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience
remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. I
began sometimes to pray: very brief prayers they were, but very
sincere.
"Some days since: nay, I can number them -- four; it was last Monday
night, a singular mood came over me: one in which grief replaced
frenzy -- sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression that
since I could nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that night
-- perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o'clock -- ere I
retired to my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that, if it seemed
good to Him, I might soon be taken from this life, and admitted to
that world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane.
"I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which was open:
it soothed me to feel the balmy night-air; though I could see no
stars and only by a vague, luminous haze, knew the presence of a
moon. I longed for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with
soul and flesh! I asked of God, at once in anguish and humility,
if I had not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and
might not soon taste bliss and peace once more. That I merited all
I endured, I acknowledged -- that I could scarcely endure more,
I pleaded; and the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broke
involuntarily from my lips in the words -- 'Jane! Jane! Jane!'"
"Did you speak these words aloud?"
"I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought
me mad: I pronounced them with such frantic energy."
"And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?"
"Yes; but the time is of no consequence: what followed is the
strange point. You will think me superstitious, -- some superstition
I have in my blood, and always had: nevertheless, this is true --
true at least it is that I heard what I now relate.
"As I exclaimed 'Jane! Jane! Jane!' a voice -- I cannot tell
whence the voice came, but I know whose voice it was -- replied,
'I am coming: wait for me;' and a moment after, went whispering
on the wind the words -- 'Where are you?'
"I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words opened
to my mind: yet it is difficult to express what I want to express.
Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where sound falls
dull, and dies unreverberating. 'Where are you?' seemed spoken
amongst mountains; for I heard a hill-sent echo repeat the words.
Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my brow:
I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane were
meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt
were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul
wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were your accents
-- as certain as I live -- they were yours!"
Reader, it was on Monday night -- near midnight -- that I too had
received the mysterious summons: those were the very words by
which I replied to it. I listened to Mr. Rochester's narrative,
but made no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too
awful and inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told
anything, my tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound
impression on the mind of my hearer: and that mind, yet from its
sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the
supernatural. I kept these things then, and pondered them in my
heart.
"You cannot now wonder," continued my master, "that when you rose
upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing
you any other than a mere voice and vision, something that would melt
to silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain
echo had melted before. Now, I thank God! I know it to be otherwise.
Yes, I thank God!"
He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from
his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in
mute devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible.
"I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered
mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead
henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!"
Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand,
held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder:
being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop
and guide. We entered the wood, and wended homeward.
CHAPTER XXXVIII -- CONCLUSION
Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson
and clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I went
into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking
the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said -
"Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning." The
housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic
order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate
a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having
one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently
stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and
she did stare at me: the ladle with which she was basting a pair
of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang
suspended in air; and for the same space of time John's knives
also had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending
again over the roast, said only -
"Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!"
A short time after she pursued -- "I seed you go out with the
master, but I didn't know you were gone to church to be wed;" and
she basted away. John, when I turned to him, was grinning from
ear to ear.
"I telled Mary how it would be," he said: "I knew what Mr. Edward"
(John was an old servant, and had known his master when he was
the cadet of the house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian
name) -- "I knew what Mr. Edward would do; and I was certain he would
not wait long neither: and he's done right, for aught I know. I
wish you joy, Miss!" and he politely pulled his forelock.
"Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary
this." I put into his hand a five-pound note. Without waiting to
hear more, I left the kitchen. In passing the door of
that sanctum some time after, I caught the words -
"She'll happen do better for him nor ony o't' grand ladies." And
again, "If she ben't one o' th' handsomest, she's noan faal and
varry good-natured; and i' his een she's fair beautiful, onybody
may see that."
I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say what I
had done: fully explaining also why I had thus acted. Diana and
Mary approved the step unreservedly. Diana announced that she
would just give me time to get over the honeymoon, and then she
would come and see me.
"She had better not wait till then, Jane," said Mr. Rochester, when
I read her letter to him; "if she does, she will be too late, for
our honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade
over your grave or mine."
How St. John received the news, I don't know: he never answered
the letter in which I communicated it: yet six months after he
wrote to me, without, however, mentioning Mr. Rochester's name or
alluding to my marriage. His letter was then calm, and, though very
serious, kind. He has maintained a regular, though not frequent,
correspondence ever since: he hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not
of those who live without God in the world, and only mind earthly
things.
You have not quite forgotten little Adele, have you, reader? I
had not; I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr. Rochester, to go
and see her at the school where he had placed her. Her frantic
joy at beholding me again moved me much. She looked pale and thin:
she said she was not happy. I found the rules of the establishment
were too strict, its course of study too severe for a child of her
age: I took her home with me. I meant to become her governess
once more, but I soon found this impracticable; my time and cares
were now required by another -- my husband needed them all. So I
sought out a school conducted on a more indulgent system, and near
enough to permit of my visiting her often, and bringing her home
sometimes. I took care she should never want for anything that
could contribute to her comfort: she soon settled in her new abode,
became very happy there, and made fair progress in her studies.
As she grew up, a sound English education corrected in a great
measure her French defects; and when she left school, I found in
her a pleasing and obliging companion: docile, good-tempered, and
well-principled. By her grateful attention to me and mine, she
has long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had it in my
power to offer her.
My tale draws to its close: one word respecting my experience of
married life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose
names have most frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have
done.
I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live
entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself
supremely blest -- blest beyond what language can express; because
I am my husband's life as fully is he is mine. No woman was ever
nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his
bone and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward's
society: he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the
pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently,
we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as
free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe,
all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an
audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his
confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character
-- perfect concord is the result.
Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union;
perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near -- that
knit us so very close: for I was then his vision, as I am still
his right hand. Literally, I was (what he often called me) the
apple of his eye. He saw nature -- he saw books through me; and
never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into
words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam -- of
the landscape before us; of the weather round us -- and impressing
by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye.
Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of conducting
him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished to be
done. And there was a pleasure in my services, most full, most
exquisite, even though sad -- because he claimed these services
without painful shame or damping humiliation. He loved me so truly,
that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance: he felt
I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge
my sweetest wishes.
One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter
to his dictation, he came and bent over me, and said -- "Jane, have
you a glittering ornament round your neck?"
I had a gold watch-chain: I answered "Yes."
"And have you a pale blue dress on?"
I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the
obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense; and that now
he was sure of it.
He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent oculist;
and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot
now see very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he can
find his way without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer
a blank to him -- the earth no longer a void. When his first-born
was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his
own eyes, as they once were -- large, brilliant, and black. On
that occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God
had tempered judgment with mercy.
My Edward and I, then, are happy: and the more so, because those
we most love are happy likewise. Diana and Mary Rivers are both
married: alternately, once every year, they come to see us, and
we go to see them. Diana's husband is a captain in the navy, a
gallant officer and a good man. Mary's is a clergyman, a college
friend of her brother's, and, from his attainments and principles,
worthy of the connection. Both Captain Fitzjames and Mr. Wharton
love their wives, and are loved by them.
As to St. John Rivers, he left England: he went to India. He
entered on the path he had marked for himself; he pursues it still.
A more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks
and dangers. Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and
zeal, and truth, he labours for his race; he clears their painful
way to improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed
and caste that encumber it. He may be stern; he may be exacting;
he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior
Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of
Apollyon. His is the exaction of the apostle, who speaks but for
Christ, when he says -- "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross and follow me." His is the ambition
of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first
rank of those who are redeemed from the earth -- who stand without
fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty victories
of the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful.
St. John is unmarried: he never will marry now. Himself has
hitherto sufficed to the toil, and the toil draws near its close:
his glorious sun hastens to its setting. The last letter I received
from him drew from my eyes human tears, and yet filled my heart
with divine joy: he anticipated his sure reward, his incorruptible
crown. I know that a stranger's hand will write to me next, to say
that the good and faithful servant has been called at length into
the joy of his Lord. And why weep for this? No fear of death
will darken St. John's last hour: his mind will be unclouded, his
heart will be undaunted, his hope will be sure, his faith
steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this -
"My Master," he says, "has forewarned me. Daily He announces more
distinctly, -- 'Surely I come quickly!' and hourly I more eagerly
respond, -- 'Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!'"
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