JANE EYRE
PART 8
CHAPTER XI
A new
chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up
the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn
at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inn rooms have; such
a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints,
including a portrait of George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales,
and a representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by
the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent
fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the
table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen
hours’ exposure to the rawness of an October day: I left Lowton at four o’clock
a.m., and the Millcote town clock is now just striking eight.
Reader,
though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my
mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some one to
meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden steps the “boots”
placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced, and to see
some description of carriage waiting to convey me to Thornfield. Nothing
of the sort was visible; and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to
inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no resource
but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while
all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.
It is a very
strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the
world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it
is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to
that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the
glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with
me became predominant when half-an-hour elapsed and still I was alone. I
bethought myself to ring the bell.
“Is there
a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?” I asked of the waiter who
answered the summons.
“Thornfield?
I don’t know, ma’am; I’ll inquire at the bar.” He vanished, but
reappeared instantly—
“Is your
name Eyre, Miss?”
“Yes.”
“Person
here waiting for you.”
I jumped
up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the inn-passage: a man was
standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit street I dimly saw a one-horse
conveyance.
“This will
be your luggage, I suppose?” said the man rather abruptly when he saw me,
pointing to my trunk in the passage.
“Yes.”
He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and then I got in;
before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to Thornfield.
“A matter
of six miles.”
“How long
shall we be before we get there?”
“Happen an
hour and a half.”
He
fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set off.
Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I was content to
be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I leaned back in the
comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I meditated much at my ease.
“I
suppose,” thought I, “judging from the plainness of the servant and carriage,
Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better; I never lived
amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I
wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any
degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her; I will do my best;
it is a pity that doing one’s best does not always answer. At Lowood,
indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with
Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray God
Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not
bound to stay with her! let the worst come to the worst, I can advertise
again. How far are we on our road now, I wonder?”
I let down
the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by the number of its
lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude, much larger than
Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort of common; but
there were houses scattered all over the district; I felt we were in a
different region to Lowood, more populous, less picturesque; more stirring,
less romantic.
The roads
were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk all the way, and
the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two hours; at last he turned
in his seat and said—
“You’re
noan so far fro’ Thornfield now.”
Again I
looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower against the
sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow galaxy of lights too,
on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About ten minutes after, the
driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed
to behind us. We now slowly ascended a drive, and came upon the long
front of a house: candlelight gleamed from one curtained bow-window; all the
rest were dark. The car stopped at the front door; it was opened by a
maid-servant; I alighted and went in.
“Will you
walk this way, ma’am?” said the girl; and I followed her across a square hall
with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose double illumination
of fire and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting as it did with the darkness
to which my eyes had been for two hours inured; when I could see, however, a
cosy and agreeable picture presented itself to my view.
A snug
small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high-backed and
old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little elderly lady, in
widow’s cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron; exactly like what I had
fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder looking. She was
occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing in short
was wanting to complete the beau-ideal of domestic comfort. A more
reassuring introduction for a new governess could scarcely be conceived; there
was no grandeur to overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered,
the old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.
“How do
you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John drives so
slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire.”
“Mrs.
Fairfax, I suppose?” said I.
“Yes, you
are right: do sit down.”
She
conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and untie my
bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so much trouble.
“Oh, it is
no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with cold. Leah,
make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are the keys of the
storeroom.”
And she
produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and delivered them
to the servant.
“Now,
then, draw nearer to the fire,” she continued. “You’ve brought your
luggage with you, haven’t you, my dear?”
“Yes,
ma’am.”
“I’ll see
it carried into your room,” she said, and bustled out.
“She
treats me like a visitor,” thought I. “I little expected such a
reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is not like what I
have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult too soon.”
She
returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a book or two
from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now brought, and then
herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather confused at being the
object of more attention than I had ever before received, and, that too, shown
by my employer and superior; but as she did not herself seem to consider she
was doing anything out of her place, I thought it better to take her civilities
quietly.
“Shall I
have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?” I asked, when I had
partaken of what she offered me.
“What did
you say, my dear? I am a little deaf,” returned the good lady,
approaching her ear to my mouth.
I repeated
the question more distinctly.
“Miss
Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your
future pupil.”
“Indeed!
Then she is not your daughter?”
“No,—I
have no family.”
I should
have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss Varens was
connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to ask too many
questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time.
“I am so
glad,” she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took the cat on her
knee; “I am so glad you are come; it will be quite pleasant living here now
with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for Thornfield
is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a
respectable place; yet you know in winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in
the best quarters. I say alone—Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John
and his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are only servants,
and one can’t converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at
due distance, for fear of losing one’s authority. I’m sure last winter
(it was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it
rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house,
from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting
night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don’t
think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt it confining. In spring
and summer one got on better: sunshine and long days make such a difference;
and then, just at the commencement of this autumn, little Adela Varens came and
her nurse: a child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I
shall be quite gay.”
My heart
really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew my chair a
little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish that she might find my
company as agreeable as she anticipated.
“But I’ll
not keep you sitting up late to-night,” said she; “it is on the stroke of
twelve now, and you have been travelling all day: you must feel tired. If
you have got your feet well warmed, I’ll show you your bedroom. I’ve had
the room next to mine prepared for you; it is only a small apartment, but I
thought you would like it better than one of the large front chambers: to be
sure they have finer furniture, but they are so dreary and solitary, I never
sleep in them myself.”
I thanked
her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued with my long
journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her candle, and I
followed her from the room. First she went to see if the hall-door was
fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the way upstairs.
The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed;
both it and the long gallery into which the bedroom doors opened looked as if
they belonged to a church rather than a house. A very chill and
vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of
space and solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to
find it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style.
When Mrs.
Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my door, gazed
leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that
wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and that long, cold gallery, by
the livelier aspect of my little room, I remembered that, after a day of bodily
fatigue and mental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven. The impulse
of gratitude swelled my heart, and I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up
thanks where thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my
further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly
offered me before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that night;
my solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I slept soon and
soundly: when I awoke it was broad day.
The
chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in between the
gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and a carpeted floor, so
unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood, that my spirits rose at
the view. Externals have a great effect on the young: I thought that a
fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and
pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused by the
change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir. I
cannot precisely define what they expected, but it was something pleasant: not
perhaps that day or that month, but at an indefinite future period.
I rose; I
dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain—for I had no article of attire
that was not made with extreme simplicity—I was still by nature solicitous to
be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful of appearance or careless
of the impression I made: on the contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I
could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I
sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy
cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately,
and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so
pale, and had features so irregular and so marked. And why had I these aspirations
and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then
distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason
too. However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black
frock—which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a
nicety—and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do respectably
enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least
recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my chamber window, and seen
that I left all things straight and neat on the toilet table, I ventured forth.
Traversing
the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of oak; then I
gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some pictures on the
walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady
with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the
ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon
black with time and rubbing. Everything appeared very stately and
imposing to me; but then I was so little accustomed to grandeur. The
hall-door, which was half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the
threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on
embrowned groves and still green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up
and surveyed the front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of
proportions not vast, though considerable: a gentleman’s manor-house, not a
nobleman’s seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look.
Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing
tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in
a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an
array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once
explained the etymology of the mansion’s designation. Farther off were
hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers
of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and
seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find
existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet,
whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills;
the church of the district stood nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked
over a knoll between the house and gates.
I was yet
enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet listening with delight
to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the hall,
and thinking what a great place it was for one lonely little dame like Mrs.
Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady appeared at the door.
“What! out
already?” said she. “I see you are an early riser.” I went up to
her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand.
“How do
you like Thornfield?” she asked. I told her I liked it very much.
“Yes,” she
said, “it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out of order, unless
Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come and reside here permanently;
or, at least, visit it rather oftener: great houses and fine grounds require
the presence of the proprietor.”
“Mr.
Rochester!” I exclaimed. “Who is he?”
“The owner
of Thornfield,” she responded quietly. “Did you not know he was called
Rochester?”
Of course
I did not—I had never heard of him before; but the old lady seemed to regard
his existence as a universally understood fact, with which everybody must be
acquainted by instinct.
“I
thought,” I continued, “Thornfield belonged to you.”
“To
me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the
housekeeper—the manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the
Rochesters by the mother’s side, or at least my husband was; he was a clergyman,
incumbent of Hay—that little village yonder on the hill—and that church near
the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester’s mother was a Fairfax, and
second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on the connection—in fact, it
is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in the light of an ordinary
housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and I expect nothing more.”
“And the
little girl—my pupil!”
“She is
Mr. Rochester’s ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for her. He
intended to have her brought up in ---shire, I believe. Here she comes,
with her ‘bonne,’ as she calls her nurse.” The enigma then was explained:
this affable and kind little widow was no great dame; but a dependant like
myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on the contrary, I felt
better pleased than ever. The equality between her and me was real; not
the mere result of condescension on her part: so much the better—my position
was all the freer.
As I was
meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her attendant, came
running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not at first appear to
notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or eight years old, slightly
built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls
to her waist.
“Good
morning, Miss Adela,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Come and speak to the lady who
is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day.” She
approached.
“C’est là
ma gouverante!” said she, pointing to me, and addressing her nurse; who answered—
“Mais oui,
certainement.”
“Are they
foreigners?” I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.
“The nurse
is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I believe, never left
it till within six months ago. When she first came here she could speak
no English; now she can make shift to talk it a little: I don’t understand her,
she mixes it so with French; but you will make out her meaning very well, I
dare say.”
Fortunately
I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had
always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and
had besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart
daily—applying myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as
possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of
readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a
loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came and shook hand with me when she
heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed
some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after
we were seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her
large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.
“Ah!”
cried she, in French, “you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I
can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She will be glad:
nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my
nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that
smoked—how it did smoke!—and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr.
Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the
salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell
out of mine; it was like a shelf. And Mademoiselle—what is your name?”
“Eyre—Jane
Eyre.”
“Aire?
Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before
it was quite daylight, at a great city—a huge city, with very dark houses and
all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester
carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we
all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than
this and finer, called an hotel. We stayed there nearly a week: I and
Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the
Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful
birds in it, that I fed with crumbs.”
“Can you
understand her when she runs on so fast?” asked Mrs. Fairfax.
I
understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of
Madame Pierrot.
“I wish,”
continued the good lady, “you would ask her a question or two about her
parents: I wonder if she remembers them?”
“Adèle,” I
inquired, “with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you
spoke of?”
“I lived
long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama used to
teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and
ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their
knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?”
She had
finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of her accomplishments.
Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my knee; then,
folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls and
lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some
opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the
perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her
in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one
that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how
little his desertion has affected her.
The
subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the point
of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with
the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was: at least I thought
so.
Adèle sang
the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the naïveté of her age.
This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, “Now, Mademoiselle, I will
repeat you some poetry.”
Assuming
an attitude, she began, “La Ligue des Rats: fable de La Fontaine.” She
then declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis,
a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual indeed
at her age, and which proved she had been carefully trained.
“Was it
your mama who taught you that piece?” I asked.
“Yes, and
she just used to say it in this way: ‘Qu’ avez vous donc? lui dit un de ces
rats; parlez!’ She made me lift my hand—so—to remind me to raise my voice
at the question. Now shall I dance for you?”
“No, that
will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you say, with whom did
you live then?”
“With
Madame Frédéric and her husband: she took care of me, but she is nothing
related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a house as
mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would like
to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. Rochester
before I knew Madame Frédéric, and he was always kind to me and gave me pretty
dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his word, for he has brought me
to England, and now he is gone back again himself, and I never see him.”
After
breakfast, Adèle and I withdrew to the library, which room, it appears, Mr.
Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom. Most of the
books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one bookcase left open
containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, and
several volumes of light literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few
romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that these were all the
governess would require for her private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me
amply for the present; compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then
been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of
entertainment and information. In this room, too, there was a cabinet
piano, quite new and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of
globes.
I found my
pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she had not been used
to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be injudicious to
confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to her a great deal, and
got her to learn a little, and when the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed
her to return to her nurse. I then proposed to occupy myself till
dinner-time in drawing some little sketches for her use.
As I was
going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax called to me:
“Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose,” said she. She was in
a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in when she addressed
me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a
Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast window rich in slanted glass,
and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases
of fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard.
“What a
beautiful room!” I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never before seen
any half so imposing.
“Yes; this
is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in a little air
and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments that are seldom
inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault.”
She
pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it with a
Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad steps,
and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy place, so bright
to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was merely a very
pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread with white carpets,
on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers; both ceiled with snowy
mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in rich
contrast crimson couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian
mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows
large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and fire.
“In what
order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!” said I. “No dust, no canvas
coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were
inhabited daily.”
“Why, Miss
Eyre, though Mr. Rochester’s visits here are rare, they are always sudden and
unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed
up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to
keep the rooms in readiness.”
“Is Mr.
Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?”
“Not
particularly so; but he has a gentleman’s tastes and habits, and he expects to
have things managed in conformity to them.”
“Do you
like him? Is he generally liked?”
“Oh, yes;
the family have always been respected here. Almost all the land in this
neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the Rochesters time out
of mind.”
“Well,
but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he liked
for himself?”
“I have no
cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is considered a just and
liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never lived much amongst them.”
“But has
he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?”
“Oh! his
character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps: he
has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should
think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much conversation with
him.”
“In what
way is he peculiar?”
“I don’t
know—it is not easy to describe—nothing striking, but you feel it when he
speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest,
whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don’t thoroughly understand him, in
short—at least, I don’t: but it is of no consequence, he is a very good
master.”
This was
all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and mine. There
are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or observing
and describing salient points, either in persons or things: the good lady
evidently belonged to this class; my queries puzzled, but did not draw her
out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed
proprietor—nothing more: she inquired and searched no further, and evidently
wondered at my wish to gain a more definite notion of his identity.
When we
left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of the house; and I
followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I went; for all was well
arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I thought especially
grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were
interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture once appropriated
to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions
changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement showed
bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their
strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs’ heads, like types of the Hebrew
ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated,
on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries,
wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All
these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home
of the past: a shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the
quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night’s
repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors
of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick
work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest
human beings,—all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam
of moonlight.
“Do the
servants sleep in these rooms?” I asked.
“No; they
occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever sleeps here: one
would almost say that, if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this would be
its haunt.”
“So I
think: you have no ghost, then?”
“None that
I ever heard of,” returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.
“Nor any
traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?”
“I believe
not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a violent than a
quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the reason they rest
tranquilly in their graves now.”
“Yes—‘after
life’s fitful fever they sleep well,’” I muttered. “Where are you going
now, Mrs. Fairfax?” for she was moving away.
“On to the
leads; will you come and see the view from thence?” I followed still, up
a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a ladder and through a
trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on a level with the crow
colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning over the battlements and
looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map: the bright and
velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a
park, dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path
visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the
church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn
day’s sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly
white. No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was
pleasing. When I turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could
scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared
with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit
scene of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and
over which I had been gazing with delight.
Mrs.
Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by drift of groping,
found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow garret
staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating
the front and back rooms of the third storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only
one little window at the far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black
doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard’s castle.
While I
paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region, a
laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal,
mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it began
again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It passed
off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every lonely chamber;
though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed out the door whence
the accents issued.
“Mrs.
Fairfax!” I called out: for I now heard her descending the great stairs.
“Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?”
“Some of
the servants, very likely,” she answered: “perhaps Grace Poole.”
“Did you
hear it?” I again inquired.
“Yes,
plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms. Sometimes Leah
is with her; they are frequently noisy together.”
The laugh
was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an odd murmur.
“Grace!”
exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.
I really
did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural
a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no
circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation; but that
neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously
afraid. However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a
sense even of surprise.
The door
nearest me opened, and a servant came out,—a woman of between thirty and forty;
a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face: any
apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely be conceived.
“Too much
noise, Grace,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Remember directions!” Grace
curtseyed silently and went in.
“She is a
person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid’s work,” continued the
widow; “not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but she does well
enough. By-the-bye, how have you got on with your new pupil this
morning?”
The
conversation, thus turned on Adèle, continued till we reached the light and
cheerful region below. Adèle came running to meet us in the hall,
exclaiming—
“Mesdames,
vous êtes servies!” adding, “J’ai bien faim, moi!”
We found
dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax’s room.
To be continued
