JANE EYRE
PART 24
CHAPTER XXXIV
It was
near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of general holiday
approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care that the parting
should not be barren on my side. Good fortune opens the hand as well as
the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely received, is
but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the sensations. I had
long felt with pleasure that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we
parted, that consciousness was confirmed: they manifested their affection
plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find I had really a
place in their unsophisticated hearts: I promised them that never a week should
pass in future that I did not visit them, and give them an hour’s teaching in
their school.
Mr. Rivers
came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty girls, file out before
me, and locked the door, I stood with the key in my hand, exchanging a few
words of special farewell with some half-dozen of my best scholars: as decent,
respectable, modest, and well-informed young women as could be found in the
ranks of the British peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for
after all, the British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most
self-respecting of any in Europe: since those days I have seen paysannes and
Bäuerinnen; and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted,
compared with my Morton girls.
“Do you
consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?” asked Mr. Rivers,
when they were gone. “Does not the consciousness of having done some real
good in your day and generation give pleasure?”
“Doubtless.”
“And you
have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to the task of
regenerating your race be well spent?”
“Yes,” I
said; “but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy my own faculties as
well as to cultivate those of other people. I must enjoy them now; don’t
recall either my mind or body to the school; I am out of it and disposed for
full holiday.”
He looked
grave. “What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince?
What are you going to do?”
“To be
active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you to set Hannah at
liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you.”
“Do you
want her?”
“Yes, to
go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home in a week, and I
want to have everything in order against their arrival.”
“I
understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion. It
is better so: Hannah shall go with you.”
“Tell her
to be ready by to-morrow then; and here is the schoolroom key: I will give you
the key of my cottage in the morning.”
He took
it. “You give it up very gleefully,” said he; “I don’t quite understand
your light-heartedness, because I cannot tell what employment you propose to
yourself as a substitute for the one you are relinquishing. What aim,
what purpose, what ambition in life have you now?”
“My first
aim will be to clean down (do you comprehend the full force of the
expression?)—to clean down Moor House from chamber to cellar; my next to
rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it
glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet, with
mathematical precision; afterwards I shall go near to ruin you in coals and
peat to keep up good fires in every room; and lastly, the two days preceding
that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to
such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of
Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of
other culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the
uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an
absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday;
and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they come.”
St. John
smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied.
“It is all
very well for the present,” said he; “but seriously, I trust that when the first
flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little higher than domestic
endearments and household joys.”
“The best
things the world has!” I interrupted.
“No, Jane,
no: this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt to make it so: nor
of rest; do not turn slothful.”
“I mean,
on the contrary, to be busy.”
“Jane, I
excuse you for the present: two months’ grace I allow you for the full
enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with this late-found
charm of relationship; but then, I hope you will begin to look beyond
Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and the selfish calm and sensual
comfort of civilised affluence. I hope your energies will then once more
trouble you with their strength.”
I looked
at him with surprise. “St. John,” I said, “I think you are almost wicked
to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as a queen, and you try to
stir me up to restlessness! To what end?”
“To the
end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to your keeping;
and of which He will surely one day demand a strict account. Jane, I
shall watch you closely and anxiously—I warn you of that. And try to
restrain the disproportionate fervour with which you throw yourself into
commonplace home pleasures. Don’t cling so tenaciously to ties of the
flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate cause; forbear to waste
them on trite transient objects. Do you hear, Jane?”
“Yes; just
as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause to be happy,
and I will be happy. Goodbye!”
Happy at
Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah: she was charmed to see
how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a house turned topsy-turvy—how I
could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook. And really, after a day or
two of confusion worse confounded, it was delightful by degrees to invoke order
from the chaos ourselves had made. I had previously taken a journey to
S--- to purchase some new furniture: my cousins having given me carte
blanche to effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum having been set
aside for that purpose. The ordinary sitting-room and bedrooms I left
much as they were: for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure from
seeing again the old homely tables, and chairs, and beds, than from the spectacle
of the smartest innovations. Still some novelty was necessary, to give to
their return the piquancy with which I wished it to be invested. Dark
handsome new carpets and curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected
antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and
dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, answered the end: they looked fresh
without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom I refurnished
entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the
passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor
House as complete a model of bright modest snugness within, as it was, at this
season, a specimen of wintry waste and desert dreariness without.
The
eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark, and ere
dusk fires were lit upstairs and below; the kitchen was in perfect trim; Hannah
and I were dressed, and all was in readiness.
St. John
arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear of the house till
everything was arranged: and, indeed, the bare idea of the commotion, at once
sordid and trivial, going on within its walls sufficed to scare him to
estrangement. He found me in the kitchen, watching the progress of
certain cakes for tea, then baking. Approaching the hearth, he asked, “If
I was at last satisfied with housemaid’s work?” I answered by inviting
him to accompany me on a general inspection of the result of my labours.
With some difficulty, I got him to make the tour of the house. He just looked
in at the doors I opened; and when he had wandered upstairs and downstairs, he
said I must have gone through a great deal of fatigue and trouble to have
effected such considerable changes in so short a time: but not a syllable did
he utter indicating pleasure in the improved aspect of his abode.
This
silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed some
old associations he valued. I inquired whether this was the case: no
doubt in a somewhat crest-fallen tone.
“Not at
all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously respected every
association: he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed more thought on the matter
than it was worth. How many minutes, for instance, had I devoted to
studying the arrangement of this very room?—By-the-bye, could I tell him where
such a book was?”
I showed
him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and withdrawing to his accustomed
window recess, he began to read it.
Now, I did
not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he
had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The
humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him—its peaceful
enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire—after what was
good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others
resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a
white stone—at his fine lineaments fixed in study—I comprehended all at once
that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be
his wife. I understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love for
Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I
comprehended how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it
exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should
mistrust its ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw
he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes—Christian and
Pagan—her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for
great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous
column, gloomy and out of place.
“This
parlour is not his sphere,” I reflected: “the Himalayan ridge or Caffre bush,
even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp would suit him better. Well may
he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his element: there his faculties
stagnate—they cannot develop or appear to advantage. It is in scenes of
strife and danger—where courage is proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude
tasked—that he will speak and move, the leader and superior. A merry
child would have the advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to
choose a missionary’s career—I see it now.”
“They are
coming! they are coming!” cried Hannah, throwing open the parlour door.
At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran. It was now
dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had a lantern
lit. The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver opened the door:
first one well-known form, then another, stepped out. In a minute I had
my face under their bonnets, in contact first with Mary’s soft cheek, then with
Diana’s flowing curls. They laughed—kissed me—then Hannah: patted Carlo,
who was half wild with delight; asked eagerly if all was well; and being
assured in the affirmative, hastened into the house.
They were
stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and chilled with the
frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances expanded to the cheerful
firelight. While the driver and Hannah brought in the boxes, they
demanded St. John. At this moment he advanced from the parlour.
They both threw their arms round his neck at once. He gave each one quiet
kiss, said in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood a while to be talked to,
and then, intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the
parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.
I had lit
their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give hospitable orders
respecting the driver; this done, both followed me. They were delighted
with the renovation and decorations of their rooms; with the new drapery, and
fresh carpets, and rich tinted china vases: they expressed their gratification
ungrudgingly. I had the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met
their wishes exactly, and that what I had done added a vivid charm to their
joyous return home.
Sweet was
that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so eloquent in
narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St. John’s taciturnity: he
was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in their glow of fervour and flow of
joy he could not sympathise. The event of the day—that is, the return of
Diana and Mary—pleased him; but the accompaniments of that event, the glad
tumult, the garrulous glee of reception irked him: I saw he wished the calmer
morrow was come. In the very meridian of the night’s enjoyment, about an
hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered with the
intimation that “a poor lad was come, at that unlikely time, to fetch Mr.
Rivers to see his mother, who was drawing away.”
“Where
does she live, Hannah?”
“Clear up
at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and moss all the way.”
“Tell him
I will go.”
“I’m sure,
sir, you had better not. It’s the worst road to travel after dark that
can be: there’s no track at all over the bog. And then it is such a
bitter night—the keenest wind you ever felt. You had better send word,
sir, that you will be there in the morning.”
But he was
already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without one objection, one
murmur, he departed. It was then nine o’clock: he did not return till
midnight. Starved and tired enough he was: but he looked happier than
when he set out. He had performed an act of duty; made an exertion; felt
his own strength to do and deny, and was on better terms with himself.
I am
afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It was Christmas
week: we took to no settled employment, but spent it in a sort of merry
domestic dissipation. The air of the moors, the freedom of home, the dawn
of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary’s spirits like some life-giving elixir:
they were gay from morning till noon, and from noon till night. They
could always talk; and their discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms
for me, that I preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing anything
else. St. John did not rebuke our vivacity; but he escaped from it: he
was seldom in the house; his parish was large, the population scattered, and he
found daily business in visiting the sick and poor in its different districts.
One
morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for some minutes,
asked him, “If his plans were yet unchanged.”
“Unchanged
and unchangeable,” was the reply. And he proceeded to inform us that his
departure from England was now definitively fixed for the ensuing year.
“And
Rosamond Oliver?” suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape her lips
involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them, than she made a gesture as
if wishing to recall them. St. John had a book in his hand—it was his
unsocial custom to read at meals—he closed it, and looked up.
“Rosamond
Oliver,” said he, “is about to be married to Mr. Granby, one of the best
connected and most estimable residents in S-, grandson and heir to Sir Frederic
Granby: I had the intelligence from her father yesterday.”
His
sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked at him: he was
serene as glass.
“The match
must have been got up hastily,” said Diana: “they cannot have known each other
long.”
“But two
months: they met in October at the county ball at S-. But where there are
no obstacles to a union, as in the present case, where the connection is in
every point desirable, delays are unnecessary: they will be married as soon as
S--- Place, which Sir Frederic gives up to them, can he refitted for their
reception.”
The first
time I found St. John alone after this communication, I felt tempted to inquire
if the event distressed him: but he seemed so little to need sympathy, that, so
far from venturing to offer him more, I experienced some shame at the
recollection of what I had already hazarded. Besides, I was out of
practice in talking to him: his reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness
was congealed beneath it. He had not kept his promise of treating me like
his sisters; he continually made little chilling differences between us, which
did not at all tend to the development of cordiality: in short, now that I was
acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived under the same roof with him, I felt the
distance between us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the
village schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had once been
admitted to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity.
Such being
the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his head suddenly from
the desk over which he was stooping, and said—
“You see,
Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won.”
Startled
at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a moment’s
hesitation I answered—
“But are
you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors whose triumphs have
cost them too dear? Would not such another ruin you?”
“I think
not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall never be called upon to
contend for such another. The event of the conflict is decisive: my way
is now clear; I thank God for it!” So saying, he returned to his papers
and his silence.
As our
mutual happiness (i.e., Diana’s, Mary’s, and mine) settled into a
quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and regular studies, St.
John stayed more at home: he sat with us in the same room, sometimes for hours
together. While Mary drew, Diana pursued a course of encyclopædic reading
she had (to my awe and amazement) undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he
pondered a mystic lore of his own: that of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition
of which he thought necessary to his plans.
Thus
engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and absorbed enough; but
that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish-looking grammar, and
wandering over, and sometimes fixing upon us, his fellow-students, with a
curious intensity of observation: if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn;
yet ever and anon, it returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what
it meant: I wondered, too, at the punctual satisfaction he never failed to
exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment, namely, my weekly
visit to Morton school; and still more was I puzzled when, if the day was
unfavourable, if there was snow, or rain, or high wind, and his sisters urged
me not to go, he would invariably make light of their solicitude, and encourage
me to accomplish the task without regard to the elements.
“Jane is
not such a weakling as you would make her,” he would say: “she can bear a
mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well as any of
us. Her constitution is both sound and elastic;—better calculated to endure
variations of climate than many more robust.”
And when I
returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little weather-beaten, I never
dared complain, because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him: on all
occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse was a special annoyance.
One
afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really had a
cold. His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading
Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. As I exchanged a
translation for an exercise, I happened to look his way: there I found myself
under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye. How long it had been
searching me through and through, and over and over, I cannot tell: so keen was
it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious—as if I were sitting
in the room with something uncanny.
“Jane,
what are you doing?”
“Learning
German.”
“I want
you to give up German and learn Hindostanee.”
“You are
not in earnest?”
“In such
earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why.”
He then
went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was himself at present
studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget the commencement; that it
would assist him greatly to have a pupil with whom he might again and again go
over the elements, and so fix them thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had
hovered for some time between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on me
because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I do
him this favour? I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long,
as it wanted now barely three months to his departure.
St. John
was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every impression made on
him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent. I
consented. When Diana and Mary returned, the former found her scholar
transferred from her to her brother: she laughed, and both she and Mary agreed
that St. John should never have persuaded them to such a step. He
answered quietly—
“I know
it.”
I found
him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master: he expected me
to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his expectations, he, in his own way,
fully testified his approbation. By degrees, he acquired a certain
influence over me that took away my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were
more restraining than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh
freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me
that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so fully
aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his
presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under
a freezing spell. When he said “go,” I went; “come,” I came; “do this,” I
did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had
continued to neglect me.
One
evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding him
good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, as was equally his
custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who chanced to be in a frolicsome
humour (she was not painfully controlled by his will; for hers, in
another way, was as strong), exclaimed—
“St. John!
you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don’t treat her as such: you
should kiss her too.”
She pushed
me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt uncomfortably
confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St. John bent his head;
his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, his eyes questioned my eyes
piercingly—he kissed me. There are no such things as marble kisses or ice
kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin’s salute belonged to one of
these classes; but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment
kiss. When given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking:
I am sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I
felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted
the ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which I underwent
it, seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm.
As for me,
I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt daily more and more
that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties, wrest my tastes
from their original bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I
had no natural vocation. He wanted to train me to an elevation I could
never reach; it racked me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted.
The thing was as impossible as to mould my irregular features to his correct
and classic pattern, to give to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and
solemn lustre of his own.
Not his
ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of late it had
been easy enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil sat at my heart and
drained my happiness at its source—the evil of suspense.
Perhaps
you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst these changes of place
and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with me, because
it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse, nor a sand-traced effigy storms
could wash away; it was a name graven on a tablet, fated to last as long as the
marble it inscribed. The craving to know what had become of him followed
me everywhere; when I was at Morton, I re-entered my cottage every evening to
think of that; and now at Moor House, I sought my bedroom each night to brood
over it.
In the
course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about the will, I had
inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester’s present residence and state of
health; but, as St. John had conjectured, he was quite ignorant of all
concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs. Fairfax, entreating information on
the subject. I had calculated with certainty on this step answering my end:
I felt sure it would elicit an early answer. I was astonished when a
fortnight passed without reply; but when two months wore away, and day after
day the post arrived and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest
anxiety.
I wrote
again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed. Renewed hope
followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for some weeks, then, like
it, it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word reached me. When half a
year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out, and then I felt dark indeed.
A fine
spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer approached; Diana
tried to cheer me: she said I looked ill, and wished to accompany me to the
sea-side. This St. John opposed; he said I did not want dissipation, I
wanted employment; my present life was too purposeless, I required an aim; and,
I suppose, by way of supplying deficiencies, he prolonged still further my
lessons in Hindostanee, and grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment:
and I, like a fool, never thought of resisting him—I could not resist him.
One day I
had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb was occasioned by a
poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had told me in the morning there
was a letter for me, and when I went down to take it, almost certain that the
long-looked for tidings were vouchsafed me at last, I found only an unimportant
note from Mr. Briggs on business. The bitter check had wrung from me some
tears; and now, as I sat poring over the crabbed characters and flourishing
tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again.
St. John
called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice failed me:
words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of the parlour:
Diana was practising her music in the drawing-room, Mary was gardening—it was a
very fine May day, clear, sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no
surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said—
“We will
wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed.” And while I
smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on his
desk, and looking like a physician watching with the eye of science an expected
and fully understood crisis in a patient’s malady. Having stifled my
sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something about not being very well that
morning, I resumed my task, and succeeded in completing it. St. John put
away my books and his, locked his desk, and said—
“Now,
Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me.”
“I will
call Diana and Mary.”
“No; I
want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put on your
things; go out by the kitchen-door: take the road towards the head of Marsh
Glen: I will join you in a moment.”
I know no
medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive,
hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and
determined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the
very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and
as neither present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to
mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John’s directions; and in ten
minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by side with him.
The breeze
was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with scents of heath and rush;
the sky was of stainless blue; the stream descending the ravine, swelled with
past spring rains, poured along plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams
from the sun, and sapphire tints from the firmament. As we advanced and
left the track, we trod a soft turf, mossy fine and emerald green, minutely
enamelled with a tiny white flower, and spangled with a star-like yellow
blossom: the hills, meantime, shut us quite in; for the glen, towards its head,
wound to their very core.
“Let us
rest here,” said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers of a battalion of
rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck rushed down a waterfall;
and where, still a little farther, the mountain shook off turf and flower, had
only heath for raiment and crag for gem—where it exaggerated the wild to the
savage, and exchanged the fresh for the frowning—where it guarded the forlorn
hope of solitude, and a last refuge for silence.
I took a
seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and down the hollow;
his glance wandered away with the stream, and returned to traverse the
unclouded heaven which coloured it: he removed his hat, let the breeze stir his
hair and kiss his brow. He seemed in communion with the genius of the
haunt: with his eye he bade farewell to something.
“And I
shall see it again,” he said aloud, “in dreams when I sleep by the Ganges: and
again in a more remote hour—when another slumber overcomes me—on the shore of a
darker stream!”
Strange
words of a strange love! An austere patriot’s passion for his
fatherland! He sat down; for half-an-hour we never spoke; neither he to
me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced—
“Jane, I
go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman which sails on the
20th of June.”
“God will
protect you; for you have undertaken His work,” I answered.
“Yes,”
said he, “there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an infallible
Master. I am not going out under human guidance, subject to the defective
laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms: my king, my lawgiver, my
captain, is the All-perfect. It seems strange to me that all round me do
not burn to enlist under the same banner,—to join in the same enterprise.”
“All have
not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to wish to march with the
strong.”
“I do not
speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only such as are worthy of the
work, and competent to accomplish it.”
“Those are
few in number, and difficult to discover.”
“You say
truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up—to urge and exhort them to
the effort—to show them what their gifts are, and why they were given—to speak
Heaven’s message in their ear,—to offer them, direct from God, a place in the
ranks of His chosen.”
“If they
are really qualified for the task, will not their own hearts be the first to
inform them of it?”
I felt as
if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me: I trembled to hear
some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and rivet the spell.
“And what
does your heart say?” demanded St. John.
“My heart
is mute,—my heart is mute,” I answered, struck and thrilled.
“Then I
must speak for it,” continued the deep, relentless voice. “Jane, come
with me to India: come as my helpmeet and fellow-labourer.”
The glen
and sky spun round: the hills heaved! It was as if I had heard a summons
from Heaven—as if a visionary messenger, like him of Macedonia, had enounced,
“Come over and help us!” But I was no apostle,—I could not behold the
herald,—I could not receive his call.
“Oh, St.
John!” I cried, “have some mercy!”
I appealed
to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty, knew neither mercy
nor remorse. He continued—
“God and
nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not personal, but
mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for
love. A missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall be mine: I
claim you—not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s service.”
“I am not
fit for it: I have no vocation,” I said.
He had
calculated on these first objections: he was not irritated by them.
Indeed, as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his arms on his
chest, and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for a long and trying
opposition, and had taken in a stock of patience to last him to its
close—resolved, however, that that close should be conquest for him.
“Humility,
Jane,” said he, “is the groundwork of Christian virtues: you say right that you
are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it? Or who, that ever was
truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons? I, for instance, am
but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I acknowledge myself the chiefest of
sinners; but I do not suffer this sense of my personal vileness to daunt
me. I know my Leader: that He is just as well as mighty; and while He has
chosen a feeble instrument to perform a great task, He will, from the boundless
stores of His providence, supply the inadequacy of the means to the end.
Think like me, Jane—trust like me. It is the Rock of Ages I ask you to
lean on: do not doubt but it will bear the weight of your human weakness.”
“I do not
understand a missionary life: I have never studied missionary labours.”
“There I,
humble as I am, can give you the aid you want: I can set you your task from
hour to hour; stand by you always; help you from moment to moment. This I
could do in the beginning: soon (for I know your powers) you would be as strong
and apt as myself, and would not require my help.”
“But my
powers—where are they for this undertaking? I do not feel them.
Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light
kindling—no life quickening—no voice counselling or cheering. Oh, I wish
I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a rayless dungeon,
with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths—the fear of being persuaded by
you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!”
“I have an
answer for you—hear it. I have watched you ever since we first met: I
have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you in that time by
sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited? In the village school I
found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly, labour uncongenial to your
habits and inclinations; I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact: you
could win while you controlled. In the calm with which you learnt you had
become suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas:—lucre had no
undue power over you. In the resolute readiness with which you cut your
wealth into four shares, keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the
three others to the claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that
revelled in the flame and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability
with which, at my wish, you forsook a study in which you were interested, and
adopted another because it interested me; in the untiring assiduity with which
you have since persevered in it—in the unflagging energy and unshaken temper
with which you have met its difficulties—I acknowledge the complement of the
qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested,
faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease to
mistrust yourself—I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of
Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to
me invaluable.”
My iron
shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow sure step. Shut
my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in making the way, which
had seemed blocked up, comparatively clear. My work, which had appeared
so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded, and assumed
a definite form under his shaping hand. He waited for an answer. I
demanded a quarter of an hour to think, before I again hazarded a reply.
“Very
willingly,” he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance up the pass,
threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still.
“I can
do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge that,” I
meditated,—“that is, if life be spared me. But I feel mine is not the
existence to be long protracted under an Indian sun. What then? He
does not care for that: when my time came to die, he would resign me, in all
serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me. The case is very plain
before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty land—Mr.
Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to
me? My business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as
to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in
circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John once
said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one lost: is not the
occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God
assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results, the one best
calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affections and demolished
hopes? I believe I must say, Yes—and yet I shudder. Alas! If
I join St. John, I abandon half myself: if I go to India, I go to premature
death. And how will the interval between leaving England for India, and
India for the grave, be filled? Oh, I know well! That, too, is very
clear to my vision. By straining to satisfy St. John till my sinews ache,
I shall satisfy him—to the finest central point and farthest outward
circle of his expectations. If I do go with him—if I do
make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it absolutely: I will throw all on the
altar—heart, vitals, the entire victim. He will never love me; but he
shall approve me; I will show him energies he has not yet seen, resources he
has never suspected. Yes, I can work as hard as he can, and with as
little grudging.
“Consent,
then, to his demand is possible: but for one item—one dreadful item. It
is—that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a husband’s heart for me
than that frowning giant of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in yonder
gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon; and that is
all. Unmarried to him, this would never grieve me; but can I let him
complete his calculations—coolly put into practice his plans—go through the
wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the
forms of love (which I doubt not he would scrupulously observe) and know that
the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every
endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No: such a
martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it. As his
sister, I might accompany him—not as his wife: I will tell him so.”
I looked
towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column; his face turned
to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to his feet and
approached me.
“I am
ready to go to India, if I may go free.”
“Your
answer requires a commentary,” he said; “it is not clear.”
“You have
hitherto been my adopted brother—I, your adopted sister: let us continue as
such: you and I had better not marry.”
He shook
his head. “Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you were
my real sister it would be different: I should take you, and seek no
wife. But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed by
marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles oppose themselves to any
other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a moment—your strong
sense will guide you.”
I did
consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to the fact that
we did not love each other as man and wife should: and therefore it inferred we
ought not to marry. I said so. “St. John,” I returned, “I regard
you as a brother—you, me as a sister: so let us continue.”
“We
cannot—we cannot,” he answered, with short, sharp determination: “it would not
do. You have said you will go with me to India: remember—you have said
that.”
“Conditionally.”
“Well—well.
To the main point—the departure with me from England, the co-operation with me
in my future labours—you do not object. You have already as good as put
your hand to the plough: you are too consistent to withdraw it. You have
but one end to keep in view—how the work you have undertaken can best be
done. Simplify your complicated interests, feelings, thoughts, wishes,
aims; merge all considerations in one purpose: that of fulfilling with
effect—with power—the mission of your great Master. To do so, you must
have a coadjutor: not a brother—that is a loose tie—but a husband. I,
too, do not want a sister: a sister might any day be taken from me. I
want a wife: the sole helpmeet I can influence efficiently in life, and retain
absolutely till death.”
I
shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow—his hold on my limbs.
“Seek one
elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you.”
“One
fitted to my purpose, you mean—fitted to my vocation. Again I tell you it
is not the insignificant private individual—the mere man, with the man’s
selfish senses—I wish to mate: it is the missionary.”
“And I
will give the missionary my energies—it is all he wants—but not myself: that
would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For them he has no
use: I retain them.”
“You
cannot—you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half an
oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of
God I advocate: it is under His standard I enlist you. I cannot accept on
His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire.”
“Oh!
I will give my heart to God,” I said. “You do not want it.”
I will not
swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the
tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied
it. I had silently feared St. John till now, because I had not understood
him. He had held me in awe, because he had held me in doubt. How
much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could not heretofore tell: but
revelations were being made in this conference: the analysis of his nature was
proceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities: I comprehended
them. I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath,
and with that handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, caring as
I. The veil fell from his hardness and despotism. Having felt in
him the presence of these qualities, I felt his imperfection and took
courage. I was with an equal—one with whom I might argue—one whom, if I
saw good, I might resist.
He was
silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently risked an upward
glance at his countenance.
His eye,
bent on me, expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. “Is she
sarcastic, and sarcastic to me!” it seemed to say. “What does this
signify?”
“Do not
let us forget that this is a solemn matter,” he said ere long; “one of which we
may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I trust, Jane, you are in
earnest when you say you will serve your heart to God: it is all I want.
Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of
that Maker’s spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and
endeavour; you will be ready to do at once whatever furthers that end.
You will see what impetus would be given to your efforts and mine by our
physical and mental union in marriage: the only union that gives a character of
permanent conformity to the destinies and designs of human beings; and, passing
over all minor caprices—all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling—all
scruple about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal
inclination—you will hasten to enter into that union at once.”
“Shall I?”
I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in their harmony, but
strangely formidable in their still severity; at his brow, commanding but not
open; at his eyes, bright and deep and searching, but never soft; at his tall
imposing figure; and fancied myself in idea his wife. Oh! it would
never do! As his curate, his comrade, all would be right: I would cross
oceans with him in that capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts
with him in that office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and
vigour; accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his
ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man: profoundly
esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should suffer often, no
doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be under rather a
stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free. I should still have
my unblighted self to turn to: my natural unenslaved feelings with which to
communicate in moments of loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind
which would be only mine, to which he never came, and sentiments growing there
fresh and sheltered which his austerity could never blight, nor his measured
warrior-march trample down: but as his wife—at his side always, and always
restrained, and always checked—forced to keep the fire of my nature continually
low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned
flame consumed vital after vital—this would be unendurable.
“St.
John!” I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation.
“Well?” he
answered icily.
“I repeat
I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but not as your
wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you.”
“A part of
me you must become,” he answered steadily; “otherwise the whole bargain is
void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to India a girl
of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can we be for ever
together—sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage tribes—and unwed?”
“Very
well,” I said shortly; “under the circumstances, quite as well as if I were
either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like yourself.”
“It is
known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such: to attempt it
would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And for the rest,
though you have a man’s vigorous brain, you have a woman’s heart and—it would
not do.”
“It would
do,” I affirmed with some disdain, “perfectly well. I have a woman’s
heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a comrade’s
constancy; a fellow-soldier’s frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you like; a
neophyte’s respect and submission to his hierophant: nothing more—don’t fear.”
“It is
what I want,” he said, speaking to himself; “it is just what I want. And
there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane, you would
not repent marrying me—be certain of that; we must be married. I
repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of love would follow
upon marriage to render the union right even in your eyes.”
“I scorn
your idea of love,” I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him,
leaning my back against the rock. “I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you
offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it.”
He looked
at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so. Whether he
was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell: he could command
his countenance thoroughly.
“I
scarcely expected to hear that expression from you,” he said: “I think I have
done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn.”
I was
touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien.
“Forgive
me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have been roused to
speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on which our natures
are at variance—a topic we should never discuss: the very name of love is an
apple of discord between us. If the reality were required, what should we
do? How should we feel? My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of
marriage—forget it.”
“No,” said
he; “it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which can secure my great
end: but I shall urge you no further at present. To-morrow, I leave home
for Cambridge: I have many friends there to whom I should wish to say
farewell. I shall be absent a fortnight—take that space of time to
consider my offer: and do not forget that if you reject it, it is not me you
deny, but God. Through my means, He opens to you a noble career; as my
wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my wife, and you limit
yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity.
Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered with those who have denied the
faith, and are worse than infidels!”
He had
done. Turning from me, he once more
“Looked to
river, looked to hill.”
But this
time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy to hear them uttered.
As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt
towards me: the disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met
resistance where it expected submission—the disapprobation of a cool,
inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings and views in which
it has no power to sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to
coerce me into obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so
patiently with my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and
repentance.
That
night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to forget even to
shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I—who, though I had no
love, had much friendship for him—was hurt by the marked omission: so much hurt
that tears started to my eyes.
“I see you
and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane,” said Diana, “during your walk on the
moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in the passage expecting
you—he will make it up.”
I have not
much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be happy than
dignified; and I ran after him—he stood at the foot of the stairs.
“Good-night,
St. John,” said I.
“Good-night,
Jane,” he replied calmly.
“Then
shake hands,” I added.
What a
cold, loose touch, he impressed on my fingers! He was deeply displeased
by what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm, nor tears move
him. No happy reconciliation was to be had with him—no cheering smile or
generous word: but still the Christian was patient and placid; and when I asked
him if he forgave me, he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing
the remembrance of vexation; that he had nothing to forgive, not having been
offended.
And with
that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me down.
To be
continued
