JANE EYRE
PART 22
CHAPTER XXXI
My home,
then, when I at last find a home,—is a cottage; a little room with whitewashed
walls and a sanded floor, containing four painted chairs and a table, a clock,
a cupboard, with two or three plates and dishes, and a set of tea-things in
delf. Above, a chamber of the same dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal
bedstead and chest of drawers; small, yet too large to be filled with my scanty
wardrobe: though the kindness of my gentle and generous friends has increased
that, by a modest stock of such things as are necessary.
It is
evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little orphan
who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the hearth. This
morning, the village school opened. I had twenty scholars. But
three of the number can read: none write or cipher. Several knit, and a
few sew a little. They speak with the broadest accent of the
district. At present, they and I have a difficulty in understanding each
other’s language. Some of them are unmannered, rough, intractable, as
well as ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to learn, and evince a
disposition that pleases me. I must not forget that these coarsely-clad
little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest
genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement, intelligence,
kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the
best-born. My duty will be to develop these germs: surely I shall find
some happiness in discharging that office. Much enjoyment I do not expect
in the life opening before me: yet it will, doubtless, if I regulate my mind,
and exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live on from day to day.
Was I very
gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder bare, humble
schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to deceive myself, I must
reply—No: I felt desolate to a degree. I felt—yes, idiot that I am—I felt
degraded. I doubted I had taken a step which sank instead of raising me
in the scale of social existence. I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance,
the poverty, the coarseness of all I heard and saw round me. But let me
not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be
wrong—that is a great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them.
To-morrow, I trust, I shall get the better of them partially; and in a few
weeks, perhaps, they will be quite subdued. In a few months, it is
possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the better in my
scholars may substitute gratification for disgust.
Meantime,
let me ask myself one question—Which is better?—To have surrendered to
temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort—no struggle;—but to
have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it;
wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have
been now living in France, Mr. Rochester’s mistress; delirious with his love
half my time—for he would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a
while. He did love me—no one will ever love me so again. I
shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for
never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond
and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I
wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it
better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with
delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and
shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy
mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?
Yes; I
feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and
crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a
correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!
Having
brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my door, and looked
at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet fields before my cottage,
which, with the school, was distant half a mile from the village. The
birds were singing their last strains—
“The air
was mild, the dew was balm.”
While I
looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself ere long
weeping—and why? For the doom which had reft me from adhesion to my
master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate grief and fatal
fury—consequences of my departure—which might now, perhaps, be dragging him
from the path of right, too far to leave hope of ultimate restoration
thither. At this thought, I turned my face aside from the lovely sky of
eve and lonely vale of Morton—I say lonely, for in that bend of it
visible to me there was no building apparent save the church and the parsonage,
half-hid in trees, and, quite at the extremity, the roof of Vale Hall, where
the rich Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived. I hid my eyes, and leant my
head against the stone frame of my door; but soon a slight noise near the
wicket which shut in my tiny garden from the meadow beyond it made me look up.
A dog—old Carlo, Mr. Rivers’ pointer, as I saw in a moment—was pushing the gate
with his nose, and St. John himself leant upon it with folded arms; his brow
knit, his gaze, grave almost to displeasure, fixed on me. I asked him to
come in.
“No, I
cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters left for
you. I think it contains a colour-box, pencils, and paper.”
I
approached to take it: a welcome gift it was. He examined my face, I
thought, with austerity, as I came near: the traces of tears were doubtless
very visible upon it.
“Have you
found your first day’s work harder than you expected?” he asked.
“Oh,
no! On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my scholars very
well.”
“But
perhaps your accommodations—your cottage—your furniture—have disappointed your
expectations? They are, in truth, scanty enough; but—” I interrupted—
“My
cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and
commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am
not absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a carpet,
a sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had nothing—I was an
outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have acquaintance, a home, a
business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of my friends;
the bounty of my lot. I do not repine.”
“But you
feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind you is dark
and empty.”
“I have
hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less to grow
impatient under one of loneliness.”
“Very
well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate, your good sense
will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the vacillating fears of
Lot’s wife. What you had left before I saw you, of course I do not know;
but I counsel you to resist firmly every temptation which would incline you to
look back: pursue your present career steadily, for some months at least.”
“It is
what I mean to do,” I answered. St. John continued—
“It is
hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature;
but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has given us, in a
measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our energies seem to demand a
sustenance they cannot get—when our will strains after a path we may not follow—we
need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to
seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it
longed to taste—and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a
road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if
rougher than it.
“A year
ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had made a mistake in
entering the ministry: its uniform duties wearied me to death. I burnt
for the more active life of the world—for the more exciting toils of a literary
career—for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that
of a priest: yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of
glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate’s
surplice. I considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I
must die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and
relief fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without
bounds—my powers heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength,
spread their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me; to
bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and eloquence,
the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, were all needed: for
these all centre in the good missionary.
“A
missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind changed;
the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving nothing of
bondage but its galling soreness—which time only can heal. My father,
indeed, imposed the determination, but since his death, I have not a legitimate
obstacle to contend with; some affairs settled, a successor for Morton
provided, an entanglement or two of the feelings broken through or cut
asunder—a last conflict with human weakness, in which I know I shall overcome,
because I have vowed that I will overcome—and I leave Europe for the
East.”
He said
this, in his peculiar, subdued, yet emphatic voice; looking, when he had ceased
speaking, not at me, but at the setting sun, at which I looked too. Both
he and I had our backs towards the path leading up the field to the
wicket. We had heard no step on that grass-grown track; the water running
in the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and scene; we might well then
start when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed—
“Good
evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is
quicker to recognise his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his ears and
wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have your back
towards me now.”
It was
true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those musical
accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, he stood yet, at
the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in which the speaker had
surprised him—his arm resting on the gate, his face directed towards the
west. He turned at last, with measured deliberation. A vision, as
it seemed to me, had risen at his side. There appeared, within three feet
of him, a form clad in pure white—a youthful, graceful form: full, yet fine in
contour; and when, after bending to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and
threw back a long veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of perfect
beauty. Perfect beauty is a strong expression; but I do not retrace or
qualify it: as sweet features as ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as
pure hues of rose and lily as ever her humid gales and vapoury skies generated
and screened, justified, in this instance, the term. No charm was
wanting, no defect was perceptible; the young girl had regular and delicate
lineaments; eyes shaped and coloured as we see them in lovely pictures, large,
and dark, and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with
so soft a fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the white
smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties of tint and
ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh too, ruddy, healthy,
sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth without flaw; the small dimpled
chin; the ornament of rich, plenteous tresses—all advantages, in short, which,
combined, realise the ideal of beauty, were fully hers. I wondered, as I
looked at this fair creature: I admired her with my whole heart. Nature
had surely formed her in a partial mood; and, forgetting her usual stinted
step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her darling, with a grand-dame’s
bounty.
What did
St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally asked myself
that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her; and, as naturally, I
sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance. He had already
withdrawn his eye from the Peri, and was looking at a humble tuft of daisies
which grew by the wicket.
“A lovely
evening, but late for you to be out alone,” he said, as he crushed the snowy
heads of the closed flowers with his foot.
“Oh, I
only came home from S-” (she mentioned the name of a large town some twenty
miles distant) “this afternoon. Papa told me you had opened your school,
and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my bonnet after tea, and
ran up the valley to see her: this is she?” pointing to me.
“It is,”
said St. John.
“Do you
think you shall like Morton?” she asked of me, with a direct and naive
simplicity of tone and manner, pleasing, if child-like.
“I hope I
shall. I have many inducements to do so.”
“Did you
find your scholars as attentive as you expected?”
“Quite.”
“Do you
like your house?”
“Very
much.”
“Have I
furnished it nicely?”
“Very
nicely, indeed.”
“And made
a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood?”
“You have
indeed. She is teachable and handy.” (This then, I thought, is Miss
Oliver, the heiress; favoured, it seems, in the gifts of fortune, as well as in
those of nature! What happy combination of the planets presided over her
birth, I wonder?)
“I shall
come up and help you to teach sometimes,” she added. “It will be a change
for me to visit you now and then; and I like a change. Mr. Rivers, I have
been so gay during my stay at S-. Last night, or rather this
morning, I was dancing till two o’clock. The ---th regiment are stationed
there since the riots; and the officers are the most agreeable men in the
world: they put all our young knife-grinders and scissor merchants to shame.”
It seemed
to me that Mr. St. John’s under lip protruded, and his upper lip curled a
moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed, and the lower
part of his face unusually stern and square, as the laughing girl gave him this
information. He lifted his gaze, too, from the daisies, and turned it on
her. An unsmiling, a searching, a meaning gaze it was. She answered
it with a second laugh, and laughter well became her youth, her roses, her
dimples, her bright eyes.
As he
stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo. “Poor Carlo
loves me,” said she. “He is not stern and distant to his friends;
and if he could speak, he would not be silent.”
As she
patted the dog’s head, bending with native grace before his young and austere
master, I saw a glow rise to that master’s face. I saw his solemn eye
melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless emotion. Flushed and
kindled thus, he looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she for a woman.
His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of despotic constriction,
had expanded, despite the will, and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of
liberty. But he curbed it, I think, as a resolute rider would curb a
rearing steed. He responded neither by word nor movement to the gentle
advances made him.
“Papa says
you never come to see us now,” continued Miss Oliver, looking up. “You
are quite a stranger at Vale Hall. He is alone this evening, and not very
well: will you return with me and visit him?”
“It is not
a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver,” answered St. John.
“Not a
seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour when papa
most wants company: when the works are closed and he has no business to occupy
him. Now, Mr. Rivers, do come. Why are you so very shy, and
so very sombre?” She filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of
her own.
“I
forgot!” she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if shocked at
herself. “I am so giddy and thoughtless! Do excuse me.
It had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for
joining in my chatter. Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor House is
shut up, and you are so lonely. I am sure I pity you. Do come and
see papa.”
“Not
to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night.”
Mr. St.
John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew the effort it cost him
thus to refuse.
“Well, if
you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay any longer: the dew
begins to fall. Good evening!”
She held
out her hand. He just touched it. “Good evening!” he repeated, in a
voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned, but in a moment returned.
“Are you
well?” she asked. Well might she put the question: his face was blanched
as her gown.
“Quite
well,” he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She went one
way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she tripped
fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, never turned at all.
This
spectacle of another’s suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts from exclusive
meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had designated her brother “inexorable
as death.” She had not exaggerated.
To be continued
