Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition

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Chapter 20


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

Good God!  What a cry!

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

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

It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead.  And
overhead __ yes, in the room just above my chamber_ceiling __ I now
heard a struggle:  a deadly one it seemed from the noise;
and a half_smothered voice shouted _

"Help!  help!  help!"  three times rapidly.

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

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

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

I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued
from my apartment.  The sleepers were all aroused:  ejaculations,
terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed;
one looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled.  Gentlemen
and ladies alike had quitted their beds; and "Oh!  what is it?" __
"Who is hurt?" __ "What has happened?" __ "Fetch a light!" __ "Is
it fire?" __ "Are there robbers?" __ "Where shall we run?"  was
demanded confusedly on all hands.  But for the 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 storey.
One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm:  it was
Miss Ingram.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Am I wanted?"  I asked.

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

"Yes, sir."

"And dressed?"

"Yes."

"Come out, then, quietly."

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

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

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

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

"Yes, sir."

"Have you any salts __ volatile salts?"

"Yes."

"Go back and fetch both."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sir?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But is he fit to move, sir?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I thought I could have done some good."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Impossible to forget this night!"

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

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

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

I retired as directed.

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

"No, sir; all was very still."

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

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

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

I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.

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

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

"That will do; __ now wet the lip of the phial."

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

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

"But will it hurt me? __ is it inflammatory?"

"Drink!  drink!  drink!"

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

"Now I am sure you can get on your feet," he said __ "try."

The patient rose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The fresh air revives me, Fairfax."

"Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind __
good_ bye, Dick."

"Fairfax __ "

"Well what is it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Jane, will you have a flower?"

He gathered a half_blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered
it to me.

"Thank you, sir."

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

"I do, very much."

"You have passed a strange night, Jane."

"Yes, sir."

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

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

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

"Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?"

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

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

"Never fear __ I will take care of myself."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No, sir; I am content."

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

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

Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Curse you?  No, sir."

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

"Whenever I can be useful, sir."

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

"Yes, sir."

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

"Yes, sir."

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

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

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



Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 21


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Mr. John?"

"Yes."

"And how does his mother bear it?"

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

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

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

I was silent:  the things 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 schoolroom
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 that distance?"

"Her name is Reed, sir __ Mrs. Reed."

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

"It is his widow, sir."

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

"Mr. Reed was my uncle __ my mother's brother."

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

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

"Why?"

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

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

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

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

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

"How long will you stay?"

"As short a time as possible, sir."

"Promise me only to stay a week __ "

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

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

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

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

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

"A person to be trusted?"

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

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

"Early to_morrow morning, sir."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes; what then?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Just let me look at the cash."

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

"Jane!"

"Sir?"

"Promise me one thing."

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

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

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

"Very well!  very well!  I'll pledge my word on it.  You go to_morrow,
then?"

"Yes, sir; early."

"Shall you come down to the drawing_room after dinner?"

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

"Then you and I must bid good_bye for a little while?"

"I suppose so, sir."

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

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

"Then say it."

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

"What must I say?"

"The same, if you like, sir."

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

"Yes?"

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

"It is enough, sir:  as much good_will may be conveyed in one hearty
word as in many."

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

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

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

"Bless you! __ I knew you would come!"  exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as
I entered.

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

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

"Has she mentioned me lately?"

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

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

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

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

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

In such conversation an hour was soon gone:  Bessie restored to me
my bonnet, &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 harbourage of Lowood:  that
bourne so far away and unexplored.  The same hostile roof now again
rose before me:  my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an
aching heart.  I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth;
but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and
less withering dread of oppression.  The gaping wound of my wrongs,
too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.

"You shall go into the breakfast_room first," said Bessie, as she
preceded me through the hall; "the young ladies will be there."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Mrs. Reed?  Ah!  mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly:  I doubt
if you can see her to_night."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is this Jane Eyre?"  she said.

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

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

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

"I am Jane Eyre."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She closed her lips.

"You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that
tirade," answered Georgiana.  "Everybody knows you are the most
selfish, heartless creature in existence:  and I know your spiteful
hatred towards me:  I have had a specimen of it before in the
trick you played me about Lord Edwin Vere:  you could not bear me
to be raised above you, to have a title, to be received into circles
where you dare not show your face, and so you acted the spy and
informer, and ruined my prospects for ever."  Georgiana took out
her handkerchief and blew her nose for an hour afterwards; Eliza
sat cold, 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 savourless for the want of it.  Feeling without judgment
is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is
too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.

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

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

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

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

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

"It is I, Aunt Reed."

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

"She is at the lodge, aunt."

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

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

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

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

I assured her we were alone.

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

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

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

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

It was short, and thus conceived:_

"Madam, __ Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my
niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is?  It is my intention to
write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira.  Providence
has blessed my endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am
unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and
bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave. __ I am,
Madam, &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 shrank from my touch __ the glazing
eyes shunned my gaze.

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

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

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

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

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



Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 22


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

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

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

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

When we parted, she said:  "Good_bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you
well:  you have some sense."

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

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

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

My journey seemed tedious __ very tedious:  fifty miles one day, a
night spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day.  During the first
twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her
disfigured and discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered
voice.  I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black
train of tenants and servants __ few was the number of relatives
__ the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service.  Then
I thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I beheld one the cynosure of a
ball_room, the other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on
and analysed their separate peculiarities of person and character.
The evening 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 dreamt of Miss
Ingram all the night:  in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing
the gates of Thornfield against me and pointing me out another
road; and Mr. Rochester looked on with his arms folded __ smiling
sardonically, as it seemed, at both her and me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes; I suppose you found that out by second_sight."

"Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future:  I stopped
my cars against the voice that kept warning me of near separation
and coming grief.  When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken
her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adele,
kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense of
mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace,
I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon;
but when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and
looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group
so amicable __ when he said he supposed the old lady was all right
now that she had got her adopted daughter back again, and added
that he saw Adele was "prete e croquer sa petite maman Anglaise"
__ I half ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage,
keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his protection,
and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.

A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall.
Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparation
going on for such an event.  Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax
if she had yet heard anything decided:  her answer was always in
the negative.  Once she said she had actually put the question to
Mr. Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but
he had answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and
she could not tell what to make of him.

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



Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 23


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Jane, come and look at this fellow."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, sir."

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

"I am attached to it, indeed."

"And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have
acquired a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adele,
too; and even for simple dame Fairfax?"

"Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affection for both."

"And would be sorry to part with them?"

"Yes."

"Pity!"  he said, and sighed and paused.  "It is always the way
of events in this life," he continued presently:  "no sooner have
you got settled in a pleasant resting_place, than a voice calls
out to you to rise and move on, for the hour of repose is expired."

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

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

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

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

"It is come now __ I must give it to_night."

"Then you ARE going to be married, sir?"

"Ex_act_ly __ pre_cise_ly:  with your usual acuteness, you have
hit the nail straight on the head."

"Soon, sir?"

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

"Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately:  and meantime, I suppose
__ " I was going to say, "I suppose I may stay here, till I find
another shelter to betake myself to:"  but I stopped, feeling it
would not do to risk a long sentence, for my voice was not quite
under command.

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

"Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give __ "

"Oh, no need to apologise!  I consider that when a 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 avoided sobbing.  The thought of Mrs. O'Gall and Bitternutt
Lodge struck cold to my heart; and colder the thought of all the
brine and foam, destined, as it seemed, to rush between me and the
master at whose side I now walked, and coldest the remembrance of
the wider ocean __ wealth, caste, custom intervened between me and
what I naturally and inevitably loved.

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

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

"Yes, sir."

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

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

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

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

"That I NEVER should, sir:  You know __ " Impossible to proceed.

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

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

"Because you are sorry to leave it?"

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

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

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

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

"In what shape?"

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

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

"But you will have."

"Yes; __ I will! __ I will!"  He set his teeth.

"Then I must go:_ you have said it yourself."

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

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

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

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

"Where, Jane?  To Ireland?"

"Yes __ to Ireland.  I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere
now."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Jane, be still a few moments:  you are over_excited:  I will be
still too."

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

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

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

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

I was silent:  I thought he mocked me.

"Come, Jane __ come hither."

"Your bride stands between us."

He rose, and with a stride reached me.

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

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

"Do you doubt me, Jane?"

"Entirely."

"You have no faith in me?"

"Not a whit."

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

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

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

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

"Why?"

"Because I want to read your countenance __ turn!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Then, sir, I will marry you."

"Edward __ my little wife!"

"Dear Edward!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rain rushed down.  He hurried me up the walk, through the grounds,
and into the house; but we were quite wet before we could pass the
threshold.  He was taking off my shawl in the hall, and shaking
the water out of my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax emerged from
her room.  I did not observe her at first, nor did Mr. Rochester.
The lamp was lit.  The 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 upstairs.  "Explanation will do for another time,"
thought I. Still, when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the
idea she should even temporarily misconstrue what she had seen.  But
joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew,
near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the
lightning gleamed, cataract_like as the rain fell during a storm
of two hours' duration, I experienced no fear and little awe.  Mr.
Rochester came thrice to my door in the course of it, to ask if
I was safe and tranquil:  and that was comfort, that was strength
for anything.

Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adele came running
in to tell me that the great horse_chestnut at the bottom of the
orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it
split away.



Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 24


As I rose and dressed, I thought over what had happened, and wondered
if it were a dream.  I could not be certain of the reality till I
had seen Mr. Rochester again, and heard him renew his words of love
and promise.

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

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

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

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

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

"Where is he?"

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

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

"Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty," said he:
"truly pretty this morning.  Is this my pale, little elf?  Is this
my mustard_seed?  This little sunny_faced girl with the dimpled
cheek and rosy lips; the satin_smooth hazel hair, and the radiant
hazel eyes?"  (I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the
mistake:  for him they were new_dyed, I suppose.)

"It is Jane Eyre, sir."

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

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

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

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

"Yes, Mrs. Rochester," said he; "young Mrs. Rochester __ Fairfax
Rochester's girl_bride."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Shall I travel? __ and with you, sir?"

"You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples:  at Florence,
Venice, and Vienna:  all the ground I have wandered over shall be
re_trodden by you:  wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot
shall step also.  Ten years since, I flew through Europe half mad;
with disgust, hate, and rage as my companions:  now I shall revisit
it healed and 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 ardour extends.  Yet, after all, as a friend and companion,
I hope never to become quite distasteful to my dear master."

"Distasteful!  and like you again!  I think I shall like you again,
and yet again:  and I will make you confess I do not only LIKE,
but LOVE you __ with truth, fervour, constancy."

"Yet are you not capricious, sir?"

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

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

"I love it now."

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

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

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

"You were, you little elfish __ "

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

"Ask me something now, Jane, __ the least thing:  I desire
to be entreated __ "

"Indeed I will, sir; I have my petition all ready."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

"He tells me so."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Not it:  she will be a restraint."

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

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

"I would far rather she went, sir."

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

She obeyed him with what speed she might.

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

Adele, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing
her gratitude for my intercession:  she was instantly stowed away
into a corner on the other side of him.  She then peeped round to
where I sat; so stern a neighbour was too restrictive to him, in
his present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor
ask of him any information.

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

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

Adele heard him, and asked if she was to go to school "sans
mademoiselle?"

"Yes," he replied, "absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to take
mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of
the white valleys among the volcano_tops, and mademoiselle shall
live with me there, and only me."

"She will have nothing to eat:  you will starve her," observed
Adele.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"In that field, Adele, I was walking late one evening about
a fortnight since __ the evening of the day you helped me to make
hay in the orchard meadows; and, as I was tired with raking swaths,
I sat down to rest me on a stile; and there I took out a little book
and a pencil, and began to write about a misfortune that befell me
long ago, and a wish I had for happy days to come:  I was writing
away very fast, though daylight was fading from the leaf, when
something came up the path and stopped two yards off me.  I looked
at it.  It was a little thing with a veil of gossamer on its head.
I beckoned it to come near me; it stood soon at my knee.  I never
spoke to it, and it never spoke to me, in words; but I read its eyes,
and it read mine; and our speechless colloquy was to this effect _

"It was a fairy, and come from Elf_land, it said; and its errand
was to make me happy:  I must go with it out of the common world to
a lonely place __ such as the moon, for instance __ and it nodded
its head towards her horn, rising over 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, Adele, is in my breeches_pocket, under the disguise of
a sovereign:  but I mean soon to change it to a ring again."

"But what has mademoiselle to do with it?  I don't care for the
fairy:  you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon?"

"Mademoiselle is a fairy," he said, whispering mysteriously.  Whereupon
I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part, evinced
a fund of genuine French scepticism:  denominating Mr. Rochester "un
vrai menteur," and assuring him that she made no account whatever
of his "contes de fee," and that "du reste, il n'y avait pas de
fees, et quand meme il y en avait:"  she was sure they would never
appear to him, nor ever give him rings, or offer to live with him
in the moon.

The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me.  Mr.
Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse:  there I
was ordered to choose half_a_dozen dresses.  I hated the business,
I begged leave to defer it:  no __ it should be gone through with
now.  By dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I
reduced the half_dozen to two:  these however, he vowed he would
select himself.  With anxiety I watched his eye rove over the gay
stores:  he fixed on a rich silk of the most brilliant amethyst dye,
and a superb pink satin.  I told him in a new series of whispers,
that he might as well buy me a gold gown and a silver bonnet at
once:  I should certainly never venture to wear his choice.  With
infinite difficulty, for he was stubborn as a stone, I persuaded him
to make an exchange in favour of a sober black satin and pearl_grey
silk.  "It might pass for the present," he said; "but he would yet
see me glittering like a parterre."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, but what?"

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

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

"No, thank you, sir."

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

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

"Till what?  You delight in half_phrases."

"Till I can't help it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening.  I had prepared
an occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend the whole
time in a tete_e_tete conversation.  I remembered his fine voice;
I knew he liked to sing __ good singers generally do.  I was
no vocalist myself, and, in his fastidious judgment, no musician,
either; but I delighted in listening when the performance was good.
No sooner had twilight, that hour of romance, began to lower her
blue and starry banner over the lattice, than I rose, opened the
piano, and entreated him, for the love of heaven, to give me a
song.  He said I was a capricious witch, and that he would rather
sing another time; but I averred that no time was like the present.

"Did I like his voice?"  he asked.

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

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

"Very well, sir, I will try."

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

"No:  I would rather be excused."

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

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

"Would I be quiet and talk rationally?"

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

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

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

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

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

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