JANE EYRE
PART 16
CHAPTER XXII
Mr.
Rochester had given me but one week’s leave of absence: yet a month elapsed
before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave immediately after the
funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off to London,
whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down
to direct his sister’s interment and settle the family affairs. Georgiana
said she dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy
in her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore
with her feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could,
and did my best in sewing for her and packing her dresses. It is true,
that while I worked, she would idle; and I thought to myself, “If you and I
were destined to live always together, cousin, we would commence matters on a
different footing. I should not settle tamely down into being the
forbearing party; I should assign you your share of labour, and compel you to
accomplish it, or else it should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your
keeping some of those drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in your own
breast. It is only because our connection happens to be very transitory,
and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so
patient and compliant on my part.”
At last I
saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza’s turn to request me to stay another
week. Her plans required all her time and attention, she said; she was
about to depart for some unknown bourne; and all day long she stayed in her own
room, her door bolted within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers,
and holding no communication with any one. She wished me to look after
the house, to see callers, and answer notes of condolence.
One
morning she told me I was at liberty. “And,” she added, “I am obliged to
you for your valuable services and discreet conduct! There is some
difference between living with such an one as you and with Georgiana: you
perform your own part in life and burden no one. To-morrow,” she
continued, “I set out for the Continent. I shall take up my abode in a
religious house near Lisle—a nunnery you would call it; there I shall be quiet
and unmolested. I shall devote myself for a time to the examination of
the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful study of the workings of their
system: if I find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to
ensure the doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the
tenets of Rome and probably take the veil.”
I neither
expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade her from
it. “The vocation will fit you to a hair,” I thought: “much good may it
do you!”
When we
parted, she said: “Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well: you have some
sense.”
I then
returned: “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have, I
suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent.
However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don’t much care.”
“You are in
the right,” said she; and with these words we each went our separate way.
As I shall not have occasion to refer either to her or her sister again, I may
as well mention here, that Georgiana made an advantageous match with a wealthy
worn-out man of fashion, and that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this
day superior of the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and
which she endowed with her fortune.
How people
feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not
know: I had never experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to
come back to Gateshead when a child after a long walk, to be scolded for
looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was to come back from church to
Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get
either. Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no
magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the
nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried.
My journey
seemed tedious—very tedious: fifty miles one day, a night spent at an inn;
fifty miles the next day. During the first twelve hours I thought of Mrs.
Reed in her last moments; I saw her disfigured and discoloured face, and heard
her strangely altered voice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the
hearse, the black train of tenants and servants—few was the number of
relatives—the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service. Then I
thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the
other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on and analysed their separate
peculiarities of person and character. The evening 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 Adèle will clap her hands and jump to
see you: but you know very well you are thinking of another than they, and that
he is not thinking of you.”
But what
is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience? These
affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of again looking on
Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and they added—“Hasten! hasten!
be with him while you may: but a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are parted
from him 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 Adèle was half wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs. Fairfax
received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and even
Sophie bid me “bon soir” with glee. This was very pleasant; there is no
happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that
your presence is an addition to their comfort.
I that
evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my ears against
the voice that kept warning me of near separation and coming grief. When
tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low
seat near her, and Adèle, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me,
and a sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden
peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but
when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us,
seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable—when he said he
supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter
back again, and added that he saw Adèle was “prête à croquer sa petite maman
Anglaise”—I half ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage, keep
us together somewhere under the shelter of his protection, and not quite exiled
from the sunshine of his presence.
A
fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall. Nothing
was said of the master’s marriage, and I saw no preparation going on for such
an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had yet heard
anything decided: her answer was always in the negative. Once she said
she had actually put the question to Mr. Rochester as to when he was going to
bring his bride home; but he had answered her only by a joke and one of his
queer looks, and she could not tell what to make of him.
One thing
specially surprised me, and that was, there were no journeyings backward and
forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be sure it was twenty miles off, on the
borders of another county; but what was that distance to an ardent lover?
To so practised and indefatigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but
a morning’s ride. I began to cherish hopes I had no right to conceive:
that the match was broken off; that rumour had been mistaken; that one or both
parties had changed their minds. I used to look at my master’s face to
see if it were sad or fierce; but I could not remember the time when it had
been so uniformly clear of clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I
and my pupil spent with him, I lacked spirits and sank into inevitable
dejection, he became even gay. Never had he called me more frequently to
his presence; never been kinder to me when there—and, alas! never had I loved
him so well.
CHAPTER XXIII
A splendid
Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so radiant as were then seen
in long succession, seldom favour even singly, our wave-girt land. It was
as if a band of Italian days had come from the South, like a flock of glorious
passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The
hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads
white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime; hedge and wood,
full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the
cleared meadows between.
On
Midsummer-eve, Adèle, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay Lane half
the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop asleep, and
when I left her, I sought the garden.
It was now
the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:—“Day its fervid fires had wasted,” and
dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit. 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 Adèle, too; and even for simple dame
Fairfax?”
“Yes, sir;
in different ways, I have an affection for both.”
“And would
be sorry to part with them?”
“Yes.”
“Pity!” he
said, and sighed and paused. “It is always the way of events in this
life,” he continued presently: “no sooner have you got settled in a pleasant
resting-place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on, for the hour
of repose is expired.”
“Must I
move on, sir?” I asked. “Must I leave Thornfield?”
“I believe
you must, Jane. I am sorry, Janet, but I believe indeed you must.”
This was a
blow: but I did not let it prostrate me.
“Well,
sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes.”
“It is
come now—I must give it to-night.”
“Then you are
going to be married, sir?”
“Ex-act-ly—pre-cise-ly:
with your usual acuteness, you have hit the nail straight on the head.”
“Soon,
sir?”
“Very
soon, my—that is, Miss Eyre: and you’ll remember, Jane, the first time I, or
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 Adèle had
better trot forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur conveyed in this
suggestion on the character of my beloved; indeed, when you are far away,
Janet, I’ll try to forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom; which is such
that I have made it my law of action. Adèle must go to school; and you,
Miss Eyre, must get a new situation.”
“Yes, sir,
I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I suppose—” I was going to say, “I
suppose I may stay here, till I find another shelter to betake myself to:” but
I stopped, feeling it would not do to risk a long sentence, for my voice was
not quite under command.
“In about
a month I hope to be a bridegroom,” continued Mr. Rochester; “and in the
interim, I shall myself look out for employment and an asylum for you.”
“Thank
you, sir; I am sorry to give—”
“Oh, no
need to 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 Adèle came running in to tell me that the
great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been struck by lightning
in the night, and half of it split away.
To be continued
