JANE EYRE
PART 21
CHAPTER XXX
The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them. In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could sit up all day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana and Mary in all their occupations; converse with them as much as they wished, and aid them when and where they would allow me. There was a reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time—the pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles.
I liked to
read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they
approved, I reverenced. They loved their sequestered home. I, too,
in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its latticed
casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firs—all grown aslant under
the stress of mountain winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly—and where no
flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom—found a charm both potent and
permanent. They clung to the purple moors behind and around their
dwelling—to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from
their gate descended, and which wound between fern-banks first, and then
amongst a few of the wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness
of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their
little mossy-faced lambs:—they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect
enthusiasm of attachment. I could comprehend the feeling, and share both
its strength and truth. I saw the fascination of the locality. I
felt the consecration of its loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline of swell
and sweep—on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by
heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow granite
crag. These details were just to me what they were to them—so many pure
and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast and the soft breeze; the
rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and sunset; the moonlight and
the clouded night, developed for me, in these regions, the same attraction as
for them—wound round my faculties the same spell that entranced theirs.
Indoors we
agreed equally well. They were both more accomplished and better read
than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the path of knowledge they had
trodden before me. I devoured the books they lent me: then it was full
satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening what I had perused during the
day. Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short,
perfectly.
If in our
trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana. Physically, she far
excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous. In her animal spirits
there was an affluence of life and certainty of flow, such as excited my
wonder, while it baffled my comprehension. I could talk a while when the
evening commenced, but the first gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain
to sit on a stool at Diana’s feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen
alternately to her and Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I
had but touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I liked to learn
of her: I saw the part of instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar
pleased and suited me no less. Our natures dovetailed: mutual affection—of
the strongest kind—was the result. They discovered I could draw: their
pencils and colour-boxes were immediately at my service. My skill,
greater in this one point than theirs, surprised and charmed them. Mary
would sit and watch me by the hour together: then she would take lessons; and a
docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made. Thus occupied, and
mutually entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks like days.
As to Mr.
St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and rapidly between me and
his sisters did not extend to him. One reason of the distance yet
observed between us was, that he was comparatively seldom at home: a large
proportion of his time appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the
scattered population of his parish.
No weather
seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions: rain or fair, he would, when
his hours of morning study were over, take his hat, and, followed by his
father’s old pointer, Carlo, go out on his mission of love or duty—I scarcely
know in which light he regarded it. Sometimes, when the day was very
unfavourable, his sisters would expostulate. He would then say, with a
peculiar smile, more solemn than cheerful—
“And if I
let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks,
what preparation would such sloth be for the future I propose to myself?”
Diana and
Mary’s general answer to this question was a sigh, and some minutes of
apparently mournful meditation.
But
besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to friendship with
him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even of a brooding
nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his life and
habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content,
which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and practical
philanthropist. Often, of an evening, when he sat at the window, his desk
and papers before him, he would cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his
hand, and deliver himself up to I know not what course of thought; but that it
was perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent flash and changeful
dilation of his eye.
I think,
moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight it was to his
sisters. He expressed once, and but once in my hearing, a strong sense of
the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affection for the dark roof and
hoary walls he called his home; but there was more of gloom than pleasure in
the tone and words in which the sentiment was manifested; and never did he seem
to roam the moors for the sake of their soothing silence—never seek out or
dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights they could yield.
Incommunicative
as he was, some time elapsed before I had an opportunity of gauging his
mind. I first got an idea of its calibre when I heard him preach in his
own church at Morton. I wish I could describe that sermon: but it is past
my power. I cannot even render faithfully the effect it produced on me.
It began
calm—and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, it was calm to the
end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal breathed soon in the
distinct accents, and prompted the nervous language. This grew to
force—compressed, condensed, controlled. The heart was thrilled, the mind
astonished, by the power of the preacher: neither were softened.
Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory
gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines—election, predestination,
reprobation—were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded like a
sentence pronounced for doom. When he had done, instead of feeling
better, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse, I experienced an
inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to me—I know not whether equally so to
others—that the eloquence to which I had been listening had sprung from a depth
where lay turbid dregs of disappointment—where moved troubling impulses of
insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John
Rivers—pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was—had not yet found that
peace of God which passeth all understanding: he had no more found it, I
thought, than had I with my concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol
and lost elysium—regrets to which I have latterly avoided referring, but which
possessed me and tyrannised over me ruthlessly.
Meantime a
month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor House, and return
to the far different life and scene which awaited them, as governesses in a
large, fashionable, south-of-England city, where each held a situation in
families by whose wealthy and haughty members they were regarded only as humble
dependants, and who neither knew nor sought out their innate excellences, and
appreciated only their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated the skill
of their cook or the taste of their waiting-woman. Mr. St. John had said
nothing to me yet about the employment he had promised to obtain for me; yet it
became urgent that I should have a vocation of some kind. One morning,
being left alone with him a few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to approach
the window-recess—which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of
study—and I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what words to
frame my inquiry—for it is at all times difficult to break the ice of reserve
glassing over such natures as his—when he saved me the trouble by being the
first to commence a dialogue.
Looking up
as I drew near—“You have a question to ask of me?” he said.
“Yes; I
wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer myself to
undertake?”
“I found
or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you seemed both useful and
happy here—as my sisters had evidently become attached to you, and your society
gave them unusual pleasure—I deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual
comfort till their approaching departure from Marsh End should render yours
necessary.”
“And they
will go in three days now?” I said.
“Yes; and
when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton: Hannah will accompany
me; and this old house will be shut up.”
I waited a
few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject first broached: but he
seemed to have entered another train of reflection: his look denoted
abstraction from me and my business. I was obliged to recall him to a
theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious interest to me.
“What is
the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers? I hope this delay will not
have increased the difficulty of securing it.”
“Oh, no;
since it is an employment which depends only on me to give, and you to accept.”
He again
paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue. I grew impatient: a
restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting glance fastened on his
face, conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as words could have done, and
with less trouble.
“You need
be in no hurry to hear,” he said: “let me frankly tell you, I have nothing
eligible or profitable to suggest. Before I explain, recall, if you
please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped you, it must be as the blind
man would help the lame. I am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my
father’s debts, all the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling
grange, the row of scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil, with the
yew-trees and holly-bushes in front. I am obscure: Rivers is an old name;
but of the three sole descendants of the race, two earn the dependant’s crust
among strangers, and the third considers himself an alien from his native
country—not only for life, but in death. Yes, and deems, and is bound to
deem, himself honoured by the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross
of separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the
Head of that church-militant of whose humblest members he is one, shall give
the word, ‘Rise, follow Me!’”
St. John
said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a quiet, deep voice; with
an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating radiance of glance. He resumed—
“And since
I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service of poverty and
obscurity. You may even think it degrading—for I see now your
habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes lean to the ideal,
and your society has at least been amongst the educated; but I consider
that no service degrades which can better our race. I hold that the more
arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian labourer’s task of tillage is
appointed him—the scantier the meed his toil brings—the higher the
honour. His, under such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and
the first pioneers of the Gospel were the Apostles—their captain was Jesus, the
Redeemer, Himself.”
“Well?” I
said, as he again paused—“proceed.”
He looked
at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to read my face, as if
its features and lines were characters on a page. The conclusions drawn
from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his succeeding observations.
“I believe
you will accept the post I offer you,” said he, “and hold it for a while: not
permanently, though: any more than I could permanently keep the narrow and
narrowing—the tranquil, hidden office of English country incumbent; for in your
nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a
different kind.”
“Do
explain,” I urged, when he halted once more.
“I will;
and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,—how trivial—how cramping. I
shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead, and that I am my own
master. I shall leave the place probably in the course of a twelve-month;
but while I do stay, I will exert myself to the utmost for its
improvement. Morton, when I came to it two years ago, had no school: the
children of the poor were excluded from every hope of progress. I established
one for boys: I mean now to open a second school for girls. I have hired
a building for the purpose, with a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the
mistress’s house. Her salary will be thirty pounds a year: her house is
already furnished, very simply, but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady,
Miss Oliver; the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parish—Mr. Oliver,
the proprietor of a needle-factory and iron-foundry in the valley. The
same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse,
on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected
with her own house and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent
her having time to discharge in person. Will you be this mistress?”
He put the
question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an indignant, or at least a
disdainful rejection of the offer: not knowing all my thoughts and feelings,
though guessing some, he could not tell in what light the lot would appear to
me. In truth it was humble—but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe
asylum: it was plodding—but then, compared with that of a governess in a rich
house, it was independent; and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my
soul like iron: it was not ignoble—not unworthy—not mentally degrading, I made
my decision.
“I thank
you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers, and I accept it with all my heart.”
“But you
comprehend me?” he said. “It is a village school: your scholars will be
only poor girls—cottagers’ children—at the best, farmers’ daughters.
Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will be all you will have to
teach. What will you do with your accomplishments? What, with the
largest portion of your mind—sentiments—tastes?”
“Save them
till they are wanted. They will keep.”
“You know
what you undertake, then?”
“I do.”
He now
smiled: and not a bitter or a sad smile, but one well pleased and deeply
gratified.
“And when
will you commence the exercise of your function?”
“I will go
to my house to-morrow, and open the school, if you like, next week.”
“Very
well: so be it.”
He rose
and walked through the room. Standing still, he again looked at me.
He shook his head.
“What do
you disapprove of, Mr. Rivers?” I asked.
“You will
not stay at Morton long: no, no!”
“Why?
What is your reason for saying so?”
“I read it
in your eye; it is not of that description which promises the maintenance of an
even tenor in life.”
“I am not
ambitious.”
He started
at the word “ambitious.” He repeated, “No. What made you think of
ambition? Who is ambitious? I know I am: but how did you find it
out?”
“I was
speaking of myself.”
“Well, if
you are not ambitious, you are—” He paused.
“What?”
“I was
going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have misunderstood the word,
and been displeased. I mean, that human affections and sympathies have a
most powerful hold on you. I am sure you cannot long be content to pass
your leisure in solitude, and to devote your working hours to a monotonous
labour wholly void of stimulus: any more than I can be content,” he added, with
emphasis, “to live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains—my nature,
that God gave me, contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed, paralysed—made
useless. You hear now how I contradict myself. I, who preached
contentment with a humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of
wood and drawers of water in God’s service—I, His ordained minister, almost
rave in my restlessness. Well, propensities and principles must be
reconciled by some means.”
He left
the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than in the whole
previous month: yet still he puzzled me.
Diana and
Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached for leaving their
brother and their home. They both tried to appear as usual; but the sorrow
they had to struggle against was one that could not be entirely conquered or
concealed. Diana intimated that this would be a different parting from
any they had ever yet known. It would probably, as far as St. John was
concerned, be a parting for years: it might be a parting for life.
“He will
sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves,” she said: “natural affection and
feelings more potent still. St. John looks quiet, Jane; but he hides a
fever in his vitals. You would think him gentle, yet in some things he is
inexorable as death; and the worst of it is, my conscience will hardly permit
me to dissuade him from his severe decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment
blame him for it. It is right, noble, Christian: yet it breaks my
heart!” And the tears gushed to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head
low over her work.
“We are
now without father: we shall soon be without home and brother,” she murmured.
At that
moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by fate purposely to
prove the truth of the adage, that “misfortunes never come singly,” and to add
to their distresses the vexing one of the slip between the cup and the
lip. St. John passed the window reading a letter. He entered.
“Our uncle
John is dead,” said he.
Both the
sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the tidings appeared in their
eyes rather momentous than afflicting.
“Dead?”
repeated Diana.
“Yes.”
She
riveted a searching gaze on her brother’s face. “And what then?” she
demanded, in a low voice.
“What
then, Die?” he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of feature. “What
then? Why—nothing. Read.”
He threw
the letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed it to
Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her brother.
All three looked at each other, and all three smiled—a dreary, pensive smile
enough.
“Amen!
We can yet live,” said Diana at last.
“At any
rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before,” remarked Mary.
“Only it
forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what might have been,”
said Mr. Rivers, “and contrasts it somewhat too vividly with what is.”
He folded
the letter, locked it in his desk, and again went out.
For some
minutes no one spoke. Diana then turned to me.
“Jane, you
will wonder at us and our mysteries,” she said, “and think us hard-hearted
beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a relation as an uncle; but
we have never seen him or known him. He was my mother’s brother. My
father and he quarrelled long ago. It was by his advice that my father
risked most of his property in the speculation that ruined him. Mutual
recrimination passed between them: they parted in anger, and were never
reconciled. My uncle engaged afterwards in more prosperous undertakings:
it appears he realised a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He was never
married, and had no near kindred but ourselves and one other person, not more
closely related than we. My father always cherished the idea that he
would atone for his error by leaving his possessions to us; that letter informs
us that he has bequeathed every penny to the other relation, with the exception
of thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers, for
the purchase of three mourning rings. He had a right, of course, to do as
he pleased: and yet a momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the receipt of
such news. Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with a thousand
pounds each; and to St. John such a sum would have been valuable, for the good
it would have enabled him to do.”
This
explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further reference made to it
by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The next day I left Marsh End for
Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it for distant B-. In
a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage: and so the old grange
was abandoned.
To b
continued
