Jane Eyre 13

JANE EYRE

PART 13

 

CHAPTER XVIII

Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: how different from the first three months of stillness, monotony, and solitude I had passed beneath its roof!  All sad feelings seemed now driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten: there was life everywhere, movement all day long.  You could not now traverse the gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chambers, once so tenantless, without encountering a smart lady’s-maid or a dandy valet.

The kitchen, the butler’s pantry, the servants’ hall, the entrance hall, were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void and still when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring weather called their occupants out into the grounds.  Even when that weather was broken, and continuous rain set in for some days, no damp seemed cast over enjoyment: indoor amusements only became more lively and varied, in consequence of the stop put to outdoor gaiety.

I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change of entertainment was proposed: they spoke of “playing charades,” but in my ignorance I did not understand the term.  The servants were called in, the dining-room tables wheeled away, the lights otherwise disposed, the chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the arch.  While Mr. Rochester and the other gentlemen directed these alterations, the ladies were running up and down stairs ringing for their maids.  Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to give information respecting the resources of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies of any kind; and certain wardrobes of the third storey were ransacked, and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets, &c., were brought down in armfuls by the abigails; then a selection was made, and such things as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing-room.

Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him, and was selecting certain of their number to be of his party.  “Miss Ingram is mine, of course,” said he: afterwards he named the two Misses Eshton, and Mrs. Dent.  He looked at me: I happened to be near him, as I had been fastening the clasp of Mrs. Dent’s bracelet, which had got loose.

“Will you play?” he asked.  I shook my head.  He did not insist, which I rather feared he would have done; he allowed me to return quietly to my usual seat.

He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party, which was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs.  One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to propose that I should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly negatived the notion.

“No,” I heard her say: “she looks too stupid for any game of the sort.”

Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up.  Within the arch, the bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had likewise chosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, on a table, lay open a large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton, draped in Mr. Rochester’s cloak, and holding a book in her hand.  Somebody, unseen, rang the bell merrily; then Adèle (who had insisted on being one of her guardian’s party), bounded forward, scattering round her the contents of a basket of flowers she carried on her arm.  Then appeared the magnificent figure of Miss Ingram, clad in white, a long veil on her head, and a wreath of roses round her brow; by her side walked Mr. Rochester, and together they drew near the table.  They knelt; while Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton, dressed also in white, took up their stations behind them.  A ceremony followed, in dumb show, in which it was easy to recognise the pantomime of a marriage.  At its termination, Colonel Dent and his party consulted in whispers for two minutes, then the Colonel called out—

“Bride!” Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell.

A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose.  Its second rising displayed a more elaborately prepared scene than the last.  The drawing-room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps above the dining-room, and on the top of the upper step, placed a yard or two back within the room, appeared a large marble basin—which I recognised as an ornament of the conservatory—where it usually stood, surrounded by exotics, and tenanted by gold fish—and whence it must have been transported with some trouble, on account of its size and weight.

Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr. Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head.  His dark eyes and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the costume exactly: he looked the very model of an Eastern emir, an agent or a victim of the bowstring.  Presently advanced into view Miss Ingram.  She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied sash-like round the waist: an embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples; her beautifully-moulded arms bare, one of them upraised in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head.  Both her cast of form and feature, her complexion and her general air, suggested the idea of some Israelitish princess of the patriarchal days; and such was doubtless the character she intended to represent.

She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head.  The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request:—“She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink.”  From the bosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears.  It was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were wanting.

The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated.  Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded “the tableau of the whole;” whereupon the curtain again descended.

On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and coarse drapery.  The marble basin was removed; in its place, stood a deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles being all extinguished.

Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands resting on his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground.  I knew Mr. Rochester; though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging loose from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back in a scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance, the rough, bristling hair might well have disguised him.  As he moved, a chain clanked; to his wrists were attached fetters.

“Bridewell!” exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved.

A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room.  Mr. Rochester led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting.

“Do you know,” said she, “that, of the three characters, I liked you in the last best?  Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier, what a gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!”

“Is all the soot washed from my face?” he asked, turning it towards her.

“Alas! yes: the more’s the pity!  Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian’s rouge.”

“You would like a hero of the road then?”

“An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine pirate.”

“Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour since, in the presence of all these witnesses.”  She giggled, and her colour rose.

“Now, Dent,” continued Mr. Rochester, “it is your turn.”  And as the other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats.  Miss Ingram placed herself at her leader’s right hand; the other diviners filled the chairs on each side of him and her.  I did not now watch the actors; I no longer waited with interest for the curtain to rise; my attention was absorbed by the spectators; my eyes, erewhile fixed on the arch, were now irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs.  What charade Colonel Dent and his party played, what word they chose, how they acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I still see the consultation which followed each scene: I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her incline her head towards him, till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his cheek; I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged glances; and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle returns in memory at this moment.

I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me—because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction—because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation.  I could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon marry this very lady—because I read daily in her a proud security in his intentions respecting her—because I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship which, if careless and choosing rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating, and in its very pride, irresistible.

There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances, though much to create despair.  Much too, you will think, reader, to engender jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume to be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram’s.  But I was not jealous: or very rarely;—the nature of the pain I suffered could not be explained by that word.  Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she was too inferior to excite the feeling.  Pardon the seeming paradox; I mean what I say.  She was very showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness.  She was not good; she was not original: she used to repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own.  She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were not in her.  Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adèle: pushing her away with some contumelious epithet if she happened to approach her; sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her with coldness and acrimony.  Other eyes besides mine watched these manifestations of character—watched them closely, keenly, shrewdly.  Yes; the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended a ceaseless surveillance; and it was from this sagacity—this guardedness of his—this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one’s defects—this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her, that my ever-torturing pain arose.

I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons, because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted to win from him that treasure.  This was the point—this was where the nerve was touched and teased—this was where the fever was sustained and fed: she could not charm him.

If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face, turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them.  If Miss Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour, kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two tigers—jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I should have admired her—acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my days: and the more absolute her superiority, the deeper would have been my admiration—the more truly tranquil my quiescence.  But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram’s efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeated failure—herself unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelled further and further what she wished to allure—to witness this, was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.

Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded.  Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester’s breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart—have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons a silent conquest might have been won.

“Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw so near to him?” I asked myself.  “Surely she cannot truly like him, or not like him with true affection!  If she did, she need not coin her smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous.  It seems to me that she might, by merely sitting quietly at his side, saying little and looking less, get nigher his heart.  I have seen in his face a far different expression from that which hardens it now while she is so vivaciously accosting him; but then it came of itself: it was not elicited by meretricious arts and calculated manoeuvres; and one had but to accept it—to answer what he asked without pretension, to address him when needful without grimace—and it increased and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed one like a fostering sunbeam.  How will she manage to please him when they are married?  I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest woman the sun shines on.”

I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester’s project of marrying for interest and connections.  It surprised me when I first discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a man unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice of a wife; but the longer I considered the position, education, &c., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood.  All their class held these principles: I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom.  It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of the advantages to the husband’s own happiness offered by this plan convinced me that there must be arguments against its general adoption of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all the world would act as I wished to act.

But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to my master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a sharp look-out.  It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment.  Now I saw no bad.  The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.  And as for the vague something—was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression?—that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves.  Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare—to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets and analyse their nature.

Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride—saw only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only their movements of importance—the rest of the party were occupied with their own separate interests and pleasures.  The Ladies Lynn and Ingram continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they nodded their two turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in confronting gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according to the theme on which their gossip ran, like a pair of magnified puppets.  Mild Mrs. Dent talked with good-natured Mrs. Eshton; and the two sometimes bestowed a courteous word or smile on me.  Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed politics, or county affairs, or justice business.  Lord Ingram flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and sang to and with one of the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly to the gallant speeches of the other.  Sometimes all, as with one consent, suspended their by-play to observe and listen to the principal actors: for, after all, Mr. Rochester and—because closely connected with him—Miss Ingram were the life and soul of the party.  If he was absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal over the spirits of his guests; and his re-entrance was sure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation.

The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was not likely to return till late.  The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred.  Some of the gentlemen were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together with the younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room.  The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards.  Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence.  The room and the house were silent: only now and then the merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above.

It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of the hour to dress for dinner, when little Adèle, who knelt by me in the drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed—

“Voilà, Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!”

I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the others, too, looked up from their several occupations; for at the same time a crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs became audible on the wet gravel.  A post-chaise was approaching.

“What can possess him to come home in that style?” said Miss Ingram.  “He rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went out? and Pilot was with him:—what has he done with the animals?”

As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments so near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the breaking of my spine: in her eagerness she did not observe me at first, but when she did, she curled her lip and moved to another casement.  The post-chaise stopped; the driver rang the door-bell, and a gentleman alighted attired in travelling garb; but it was not Mr. Rochester; it was a tall, fashionable-looking man, a stranger.

“How provoking!” exclaimed Miss Ingram: “you tiresome monkey!” (apostrophising Adèle), “who perched you up in the window to give false intelligence?” and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I were in fault.

Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new-comer entered.  He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady present.

“It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam,” said he, “when my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns.”

His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being somewhat unusual,—not precisely foreign, but still not altogether English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester’s,—between thirty and forty; his complexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he was a fine-looking man, at first sight especially.  On closer examination, you detected something in his face that displeased, or rather that failed to please.  His features were regular, but too relaxed: his eye was large and well cut, but the life looking out of it was a tame, vacant life—at least so I thought.

The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party.  It was not till after dinner that I saw him again: he then seemed quite at his ease.  But I liked his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as being at the same time unsettled and inanimate.  His eye wandered, and had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look, such as I never remembered to have seen.  For a handsome and not an unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly: there was no power in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape: no firmness in that aquiline nose and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, even forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye.

As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the girandoles on the mantelpiece beaming full over him—for he occupied an arm-chair drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as if he were cold, I compared him with Mr. Rochester.  I think (with deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater between a sleek gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek sheep and the rough-coated keen-eyed dog, its guardian.

He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend.  A curious friendship theirs must have been: a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old adage that “extremes meet.”

Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps of their conversation across the room.  At first I could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at intervals.  These last were discussing the stranger; they both called him “a beautiful man.”  Louisa said he was “a love of a creature,” and she “adored him;” and Mary instanced his “pretty little mouth, and nice nose,” as her ideal of the charming.

“And what a sweet-tempered forehead he has!” cried Louisa,—“so smooth—none of those frowning irregularities I dislike so much; and such a placid eye and smile!”

And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry Lynn summoned them to the other side of the room, to settle some point about the deferred excursion to Hay Common.

I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the fire, and I presently gathered that the new-comer was called Mr. Mason; then I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came from some hot country: which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the house.  Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little surprise I gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen and become acquainted with Mr. Rochester.  He spoke of his friend’s dislike of the burning heats, the hurricanes, and rainy seasons of that region.  I knew Mr. Rochester had been a traveller: Mrs. Fairfax had said so; but I thought the continent of Europe had bounded his wanderings; till now I had never heard a hint given of visits to more distant shores.

I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings.  Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red.  The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton’s chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, “old woman,”—“quite troublesome.”

“Tell her she shall be put in the stocks if she does not take herself off,” replied the magistrate.

“No—stop!” interrupted Colonel Dent.  “Don’t send her away, Eshton; we might turn the thing to account; better consult the ladies.”  And speaking aloud, he continued—“Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Common to visit the gipsy camp; Sam here says that one of the old Mother Bunches is in the servants’ hall at this moment, and insists upon being brought in before ‘the quality,’ to tell them their fortunes.  Would you like to see her?”

“Surely, colonel,” cried Lady Ingram, “you would not encourage such a low impostor?  Dismiss her, by all means, at once!”

“But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady,” said the footman; “nor can any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, entreating her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the chimney-corner, and says nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave to come in here.”

“What does she want?” asked Mrs. Eshton.

“‘To tell the gentry their fortunes,’ she says, ma’am; and she swears she must and will do it.”

“What is she like?” inquired the Misses Eshton, in a breath.

“A shockingly ugly old creature, miss; almost as black as a crock.”

“Why, she’s a real sorceress!” cried Frederick Lynn.  “Let us have her in, of course.”

“To be sure,” rejoined his brother; “it would be a thousand pities to throw away such a chance of fun.”

“My dear boys, what are you thinking about?” exclaimed Mrs. Lynn.

“I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding,” chimed in the Dowager Ingram.

“Indeed, mama, but you can—and will,” pronounced the haughty voice of Blanche, as she turned round on the piano-stool; where till now she had sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music.  “I have a curiosity to hear my fortune told: therefore, Sam, order the beldame forward.”

“My darling Blanche! recollect—”

“I do—I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will—quick, Sam!”

“Yes—yes—yes!” cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen.  “Let her come—it will be excellent sport!”

The footman still lingered.  “She looks such a rough one,” said he.

“Go!” ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went.

Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery and jests was proceeding when Sam returned.

“She won’t come now,” said he.  “She says it’s not her mission to appear before the ‘vulgar herd’ (them’s her words).  I must show her into a room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her one by one.”

“You see now, my queenly Blanche,” began Lady Ingram, “she encroaches.  Be advised, my angel girl—and—”

“Show her into the library, of course,” cut in the “angel girl.”  “It is not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd either: I mean to have her all to myself.  Is there a fire in the library?”

“Yes, ma’am—but she looks such a tinkler.”

“Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding.”

Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full flow once more.

“She’s ready now,” said the footman, as he reappeared.  “She wishes to know who will be her first visitor.”

“I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go,” said Colonel Dent.

“Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming.”

Sam went and returned.

“She says, sir, that she’ll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble themselves to come near her; nor,” he added, with difficulty suppressing a titter, “any ladies either, except the young, and single.”

“By Jove, she has taste!” exclaimed Henry Lynn.

Miss Ingram rose solemnly: “I go first,” she said, in a tone which might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach in the van of his men.

“Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause—reflect!” was her mama’s cry; but she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door which Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library.

A comparative silence ensued.  Lady Ingram thought it “le cas” to wring her hands: which she did accordingly.  Miss Mary declared she felt, for her part, she never dared venture.  Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered under their breath, and looked a little frightened.

The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the library-door again opened.  Miss Ingram returned to us through the arch.

Would she laugh?  Would she take it as a joke?  All eyes met her with a glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff and coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked stiffly to her seat, and took it in silence.

“Well, Blanche?” said Lord Ingram.

“What did she say, sister?” asked Mary.

“What did you think?  How do you feel?—Is she a real fortune-teller?” demanded the Misses Eshton.

“Now, now, good people,” returned Miss Ingram, “don’t press upon me.  Really your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited: you seem, by the importance of you all—my good mama included—ascribe to this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman.  I have seen a gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of palmistry and told me what such people usually tell.  My whim is gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in the stocks to-morrow morning, as he threatened.”

Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined further conversation.  I watched her for nearly half-an-hour: during all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment.  She had obviously not heard anything to her advantage: and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself, notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had been made her.

Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not go alone; and yet they all wished to go.  A negotiation was opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and fro, till, I think, the said Sam’s calves must have ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body.

Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram’s had been: we heard hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of their wits.

“I am sure she is something not right!” they cried, one and all.  “She told us such things!  She knows all about us!” and they sank breathless into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them.

Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of things they had said and done when they were mere children; described books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that different relations had presented to them.  They affirmed that she had even divined their thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of each the name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of what they most wished for.

Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity.  The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones.

In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully engaged in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I turned, and saw Sam.

“If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears she will not go till she has seen all.  I thought it must be you: there is no one else for it.  What shall I tell her?”

“Oh, I will go by all means,” I answered: and I was glad of the unexpected opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity.  I slipped out of the room, unobserved by any eye—for the company were gathered in one mass about the trembling trio just returned—and I closed the door quietly behind me.

“If you like, miss,” said Sam, “I’ll wait in the hall for you; and if she frightens you, just call and I’ll come in.”

“No, Sam, return to the kitchen: I am not in the least afraid.”  Nor was I; but I was a good deal interested and excited.

CHAPTER XIX

The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl—if Sibyl she were—was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the chimney-corner.  She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or rather, a broad-brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her chin.  An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a prayer-book, by the light of the blaze: she muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she read; she did not desist immediately on my entrance: it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.

I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire.  I felt now as composed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the gipsy’s appearance to trouble one’s calm.  She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one.  It looked all brown and black: elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze.

“Well, and you want your fortune told?” she said, in a voice as decided as her glance, as harsh as her features.

“I don’t care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I ought to warn you, I have no faith.”

“It’s like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold.”

“Did you?  You’ve a quick ear.”

“I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain.”

“You need them all in your trade.”

“I do; especially when I’ve customers like you to deal with.  Why don’t you tremble?”

“I’m not cold.”

“Why don’t you turn pale?”

“I am not sick.”

“Why don’t you consult my art?”

“I’m not silly.”

The old crone “nichered” a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to smoke.  Having indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent body, took the pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the fire, said very deliberately—“You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly.”

“Prove it,” I rejoined.

“I will, in few words.  You are cold, because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you.  You are sick; because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away from you.  You are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to meet it where it waits you.”

She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her smoking with vigour.

“You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a solitary dependent in a great house.”

“I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost any one?”

“In my circumstances.”

“Yes; just so, in your circumstances: but find me another precisely placed as you are.”

“It would be easy to find you thousands.”

“You could scarcely find me one.  If you knew it, you are peculiarly situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it.  The materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them.  Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss results.”

“I don’t understand enigmas.  I never could guess a riddle in my life.”

“If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm.”

“And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?”

“To be sure.”

I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot which she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned it, she told me to hold out my hand.  I did.  She approached her face to the palm, and pored over it without touching it.

“It is too fine,” said she.  “I can make nothing of such a hand as that; almost without lines: besides, what is in a palm?  Destiny is not written there.”

“I believe you,” said I.

“No,” she continued, “it is in the face: on the forehead, about the eyes, in the lines of the mouth.  Kneel, and lift up your head.”

“Ah! now you are coming to reality,” I said, as I obeyed her.  “I shall begin to put some faith in you presently.”

I knelt within half a yard of her.  She stirred the fire, so that a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare, however, as she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine, it illumined.

“I wonder with what feelings you came to me to-night,” she said, when she had examined me a while.  “I wonder what thoughts are busy in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic-lantern: just as little sympathetic communion passing between you and them as if they were really mere shadows of human forms, and not the actual substance.”

“I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes, but seldom sad.”

“Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with whispers of the future?”

“Not I.  The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my earnings to set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself.”

“A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that window-seat (you see I know your habits )—”

“You have learned them from the servants.”

“Ah! you think yourself sharp.  Well, perhaps I have: to speak truth, I have an acquaintance with one of them, Mrs. Poole—”

I started to my feet when I heard the name.

“You have—have you?” thought I; “there is diablerie in the business after all, then!”

“Don’t be alarmed,” continued the strange being; “she’s a safe hand is Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one may repose confidence in her.  But, as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of nothing but your future school?  Have you no present interest in any of the company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you?  Is there not one face you study? one figure whose movements you follow with at least curiosity?”

“I like to observe all the faces and all the figures.”

“But do you never single one from the rest—or it may be, two?”

“I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling a tale: it amuses me to watch them.”

“What tale do you like best to hear?”

“Oh, I have not much choice!  They generally run on the same theme—courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe—marriage.”

“And do you like that monotonous theme?”

“Positively, I don’t care about it: it is nothing to me.”

“Nothing to you?  When a lady, young and full of life and health, charming with beauty and endowed with the gifts of rank and fortune, sits and smiles in the eyes of a gentleman you—”

“I what?”

“You know—and perhaps think well of.”

“I don’t know the gentlemen here.  I have scarcely interchanged a syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I consider some respectable, and stately, and middle-aged, and others young, dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at liberty to be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my feeling disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me.”

“You don’t know the gentlemen here?  You have not exchanged a syllable with one of them?  Will you say that of the master of the house!”

“He is not at home.”

“A profound remark!  A most ingenious quibble!  He went to Millcote this morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance—blot him, as it were, out of existence?”

“No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the theme you had introduced.”

“I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of late so many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester’s eyes that they overflow like two cups filled above the brim: have you never remarked that?”

“Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests.”

“No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of all the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favoured with the most lively and the most continuous?”

“The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.”  I said this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk, voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream.  One unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings and taking record of every pulse.

“Eagerness of a listener!” repeated she: “yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; you have noticed this?”

“Grateful!  I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face.”

“Detecting!  You have analysed, then.  And what did you detect, if not gratitude?”

I said nothing.

“You have seen love: have you not?—and, looking forward, you have seen him married, and beheld his bride happy?”

“Humph!  Not exactly.  Your witch’s skill is rather at fault sometimes.”

“What the devil have you seen, then?”

“Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess.  Is it known that Mr. Rochester is to be married?”

“Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram.”

“Shortly?”

“Appearances would warrant that conclusion: and, no doubt (though, with an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem to question it), they will be a superlatively happy pair.  He must love such a handsome, noble, witty, accomplished lady; and probably she loves him, or, if not his person, at least his purse.  I know she considers the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her something on that point about an hour ago which made her look wondrous grave: the corners of her mouth fell half an inch.  I would advise her blackaviced suitor to look out: if another comes, with a longer or clearer rent-roll,—he’s dished—”

“But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester’s fortune: I came to hear my own; and you have told me nothing of it.”

“Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait contradicted another.  Chance has meted you a measure of happiness: that I know.  I knew it before I came here this evening.  She has laid it carefully on one side for you.  I saw her do it.  It depends on yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether you will do so, is the problem I study.  Kneel again on the rug.”

“Don’t keep me long; the fire scorches me.”

I knelt.  She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair.  She began muttering,—

“The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness.  It turns from me; it will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made,—to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only confirm me in my opinion.  The eye is favourable.

“As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would be silent on much the heart experiences.  Mobile and flexible, it was never intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of solitude: it is a mouth which should speak much and smile often, and have human affection for its interlocutor.  That feature too is propitious.

“I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say,—‘I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do.  I need not sell my soul to buy bliss.  I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.’  The forehead declares, ‘Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms.  The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision.  Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience.’

“Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected.  I have formed my plans—right plans I deem them—and in them I have attended to the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason.  I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution—such is not my taste.  I wish to foster, not to blight—to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood—no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet—That will do.  I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium.  I should wish now to protract this moment ad infinitum; but I dare not.  So far I have governed myself thoroughly.  I have acted as I inwardly swore I would act; but further might try me beyond my strength.  Rise, Miss Eyre: leave me; the play is played out’.”

Where was I?  Did I wake or sleep?  Had I been dreaming?  Did I dream still?  The old woman’s voice had changed: her accent, her gesture, and all were familiar to me as my own face in a glass—as the speech of my own tongue.  I got up, but did not go.  I looked; I stirred the fire, and I looked again: but she drew her bonnet and her bandage closer about her face, and again beckoned me to depart.  The flame illuminated her hand stretched out: roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at once noticed that hand.  It was no more the withered limb of eld than my own; it was a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a hundred times before.  Again I looked at the face; which was no longer turned from me—on the contrary, the bonnet was doffed, the bandage displaced, the head advanced.

“Well, Jane, do you know me?” asked the familiar voice.

“Only take off the red cloak, sir, and then—”

“But the string is in a knot—help me.”

“Break it, sir.”

“There, then—‘Off, ye lendings!’”  And Mr. Rochester stepped out of his disguise.

“Now, sir, what a strange idea!”

“But well carried out, eh?  Don’t you think so?”

“With the ladies you must have managed well.”

“But not with you?”

“You did not act the character of a gipsy with me.”

“What character did I act?  My own?”

“No; some unaccountable one.  In short, I believe you have been trying to draw me out—or in; you have been talking nonsense to make me talk nonsense.  It is scarcely fair, sir.”

“Do you forgive me, Jane?”

“I cannot tell till I have thought it all over.  If, on reflection, I find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall try to forgive you; but it was not right.”

“Oh, you have been very correct—very careful, very sensible.”

I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had.  It was a comfort; but, indeed, I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the interview.  Something of masquerade I suspected.  I knew gipsies and fortune-tellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman had expressed herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her anxiety to conceal her features.  But my mind had been running on Grace Poole—that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I considered her.  I had never thought of Mr. Rochester.

“Well,” said he, “what are you musing about?  What does that grave smile signify?”

“Wonder and self-congratulation, sir.  I have your permission to retire now, I suppose?”

“No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawing-room yonder are doing.”

“Discussing the gipsy, I daresay.”

“Sit down!—Let me hear what they said about me.”

“I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o’clock.  Oh, are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here since you left this morning?”

“A stranger!—no; who can it be?  I expected no one; is he gone?”

“No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the liberty of installing himself here till you returned.”

“The devil he did!  Did he give his name?”

“His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think.”

Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if to lead me to a chair.  As I spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive grip; the smile on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his breath.

“Mason!—the West Indies!” he said, in the tone one might fancy a speaking automaton to enounce its single words; “Mason!—the West Indies!” he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three times, growing, in the intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes: he hardly seemed to know what he was doing.

“Do you feel ill, sir?” I inquired.

“Jane, I’ve got a blow; I’ve got a blow, Jane!”  He staggered.

“Oh, lean on me, sir.”

“Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now.”

“Yes, sir, yes; and my arm.”

He sat down, and made me sit beside him.  Holding my hand in both his own, he chafed it; gazing on me, at the same time, with the most troubled and dreary look.

“My little friend!” said he, “I wish I were in a quiet island with only you; and trouble, and danger, and hideous recollections removed from me.”

“Can I help you, sir?—I’d give my life to serve you.”

“Jane, if aid is wanted, I’ll seek it at your hands; I promise you that.”

“Thank you, sir.  Tell me what to do,—I’ll try, at least, to do it.”

“Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from the dining-room: they will be at supper there; and tell me if Mason is with them, and what he is doing.”

I went.  I found all the party in the dining-room at supper, as Mr. Rochester had said; they were not seated at table,—the supper was arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he chose, and they stood about here and there in groups, their plates and glasses in their hands.  Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and conversation were general and animated.  Mr. Mason stood near the fire, talking to Colonel and Mrs. Dent, and appeared as merry as any of them.  I filled a wine-glass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me frowningly as I did so: she thought I was taking a liberty, I daresay), and I returned to the library.

Mr. Rochester’s extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more firm and stern.  He took the glass from my hand.

“Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!” he said.  He swallowed the contents and returned it to me.  “What are they doing, Jane?”

“Laughing and talking, sir.”

“They don’t look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard something strange?”

“Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety.”

“And Mason?”

“He was laughing too.”

“If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would you do, Jane?”

“Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could.”

He half smiled.  “But if I were to go to them, and they only looked at me coldly, and whispered sneeringly amongst each other, and then dropped off and left me one by one, what then?  Would you go with them?”

“I rather think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying with you.”

“To comfort me?”

“Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could.”

“And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?”

“I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I should care nothing about it.”

“Then, you could dare censure for my sake?”

“I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; as you, I am sure, do.”

“Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in his ear that Mr. Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show him in here and then leave me.”

“Yes, sir.”

I did his behest.  The company all stared at me as I passed straight among them.  I sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went upstairs.

At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors repair to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester’s voice, and heard him say, “This way, Mason; this is your room.”

He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease.  I was soon asleep.

To be continued

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Jane Eyre 12

JANE EYRE

PART 12

 

CHAPTER XVII

A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten days, and still he did not come.  Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be surprised if he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the Continent, and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to come; he had not unfrequently quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt and unexpected.  When I heard this, I was beginning to feel a strange chill and failing at the heart.  I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder—how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester’s movements a matter in which I had any cause to take a vital interest.  Not that I humbled myself by a slavish notion of inferiority: on the contrary, I just said—

“You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protégée, and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands.  Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him; so don’t make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth.  He is not of your order: keep to your caste, and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised.”

I went on with my day’s business tranquilly; but ever and anon vague suggestions kept wandering across my brain of reasons why I should quit Thornfield; and I kept involuntarily framing advertisements and pondering conjectures about new situations: these thoughts I did not think to check; they might germinate and bear fruit if they could.

Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of a fortnight, when the post brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter.

“It is from the master,” said she, as she looked at the direction.  “Now I suppose we shall know whether we are to expect his return or not.”

And while she broke the seal and perused the document, I went on taking my coffee (we were at breakfast): it was hot, and I attributed to that circumstance a fiery glow which suddenly rose to my face.  Why my hand shook, and why I involuntarily spilt half the contents of my cup into my saucer, I did not choose to consider.

“Well, I sometimes think we are too quiet; but we run a chance of being busy enough now: for a little while at least,” said Mrs. Fairfax, still holding the note before her spectacles.

Ere I permitted myself to request an explanation, I tied the string of Adèle’s pinafore, which happened to be loose: having helped her also to another bun and refilled her mug with milk, I said, nonchalantly—

“Mr. Rochester is not likely to return soon, I suppose?”

“Indeed he is—in three days, he says: that will be next Thursday; and not alone either.  I don’t know how many of the fine people at the Leas are coming with him: he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to be prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out; I am to get more kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Millcote, and from wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the gentlemen their valets: so we shall have a full house of it.”  And Mrs. Fairfax swallowed her breakfast and hastened away to commence operations.

The three days were, as she had foretold, busy enough.  I had thought all the rooms at Thornfield beautifully clean and well arranged; but it appears I was mistaken.  Three women were got to help; and such scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets, such taking down and putting up of pictures, such polishing of mirrors and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, such airing of sheets and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since.  Adèle ran quite wild in the midst of it: the preparations for company and the prospect of their arrival, seemed to throw her into ecstasies.  She would have Sophie to look over all her “toilettes,” as she called frocks; to furbish up any that were “passées,” and to air and arrange the new.  For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys.  From school duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her service, and I was all day in the storeroom, helping (or hindering) her and the cook; learning to make custards and cheese-cakes and French pastry, to truss game and garnish desert-dishes.

The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, in time for dinner at six.  During the intervening period I had no time to nurse chimeras; and I believe I was as active and gay as anybody—Adèle excepted.  Still, now and then, I received a damping check to my cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the region of doubts and portents, and dark conjectures.  This was when I chanced to see the third-storey staircase door (which of late had always been kept locked) open slowly, and give passage to the form of Grace Poole, in prim cap, white apron, and handkerchief; when I watched her glide along the gallery, her quiet tread muffled in a list slipper; when I saw her look into the bustling, topsy-turvy bedrooms,—just say a word, perhaps, to the charwoman about the proper way to polish a grate, or clean a marble mantelpiece, or take stains from papered walls, and then pass on.  She would thus descend to the kitchen once a day, eat her dinner, smoke a moderate pipe on the hearth, and go back, carrying her pot of porter with her, for her private solace, in her own gloomy, upper haunt.  Only one hour in the twenty-four did she pass with her fellow-servants below; all the rest of her time was spent in some low-ceiled, oaken chamber of the second storey: there she sat and sewed—and probably laughed drearily to herself,—as companionless as a prisoner in his dungeon.

The strangest thing of all was, that not a soul in the house, except me, noticed her habits, or seemed to marvel at them: no one discussed her position or employment; no one pitied her solitude or isolation.  I once, indeed, overheard part of a dialogue between Leah and one of the charwomen, of which Grace formed the subject.  Leah had been saying something I had not caught, and the charwoman remarked—

“She gets good wages, I guess?”

“Yes,” said Leah; “I wish I had as good; not that mine are to complain of,—there’s no stinginess at Thornfield; but they’re not one fifth of the sum Mrs. Poole receives.  And she is laying by: she goes every quarter to the bank at Millcote.  I should not wonder but she has saved enough to keep her independent if she liked to leave; but I suppose she’s got used to the place; and then she’s not forty yet, and strong and able for anything.  It is too soon for her to give up business.”

“She is a good hand, I daresay,” said the charwoman.

“Ah!—she understands what she has to do,—nobody better,” rejoined Leah significantly; “and it is not every one could fill her shoes—not for all the money she gets.”

“That it is not!” was the reply.  “I wonder whether the master—”

The charwoman was going on; but here Leah turned and perceived me, and she instantly gave her companion a nudge.

“Doesn’t she know?” I heard the woman whisper.

Leah shook her head, and the conversation was of course dropped.  All I had gathered from it amounted to this,—that there was a mystery at Thornfield; and that from participation in that mystery I was purposely excluded.

Thursday came: all work had been completed the previous evening; carpets were laid down, bed-hangings festooned, radiant white counterpanes spread, toilet tables arranged, furniture rubbed, flowers piled in vases: both chambers and saloons looked as fresh and bright as hands could make them.  The hall, too, was scoured; and the great carved clock, as well as the steps and banisters of the staircase, were polished to the brightness of glass; in the dining-room, the sideboard flashed resplendent with plate; in the drawing-room and boudoir, vases of exotics bloomed on all sides.

Afternoon arrived: Mrs. Fairfax assumed her best black satin gown, her gloves, and her gold watch; for it was her part to receive the company,—to conduct the ladies to their rooms, &c.  Adèle, too, would be dressed: though I thought she had little chance of being introduced to the party that day at least.  However, to please her, I allowed Sophie to apparel her in one of her short, full muslin frocks.  For myself, I had no need to make any change; I should not be called upon to quit my sanctum of the schoolroom; for a sanctum it was now become to me,—“a very pleasant refuge in time of trouble.”

It had been a mild, serene spring day—one of those days which, towards the end of March or the beginning of April, rise shining over the earth as heralds of summer.  It was drawing to an end now; but the evening was even warm, and I sat at work in the schoolroom with the window open.

“It gets late,” said Mrs. Fairfax, entering in rustling state.  “I am glad I ordered dinner an hour after the time Mr. Rochester mentioned; for it is past six now.  I have sent John down to the gates to see if there is anything on the road: one can see a long way from thence in the direction of Millcote.”  She went to the window.  “Here he is!” said she.  “Well, John” (leaning out), “any news?”

“They’re coming, ma’am,” was the answer.  “They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

Adèle flew to the window.  I followed, taking care to stand on one side, so that, screened by the curtain, I could see without being seen.

The ten minutes John had given seemed very long, but at last wheels were heard; four equestrians galloped up the drive, and after them came two open carriages.  Fluttering veils and waving plumes filled the vehicles; two of the cavaliers were young, dashing-looking gentlemen; the third was Mr. Rochester, on his black horse, Mesrour, Pilot bounding before him; at his side rode a lady, and he and she were the first of the party.  Her purple riding-habit almost swept the ground, her veil streamed long on the breeze; mingling with its transparent folds, and gleaming through them, shone rich raven ringlets.

“Miss Ingram!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax, and away she hurried to her post below.

The cavalcade, following the sweep of the drive, quickly turned the angle of the house, and I lost sight of it.  Adèle now petitioned to go down; but I took her on my knee, and gave her to understand that she must not on any account think of venturing in sight of the ladies, either now or at any other time, unless expressly sent for: that Mr. Rochester would be very angry, &c.  “Some natural tears she shed” on being told this; but as I began to look very grave, she consented at last to wipe them.

A joyous stir was now audible in the hall: gentlemen’s deep tones and ladies’ silvery accents blent harmoniously together, and distinguishable above all, though not loud, was the sonorous voice of the master of Thornfield Hall, welcoming his fair and gallant guests under its roof.  Then light steps ascended the stairs; and there was a tripping through the gallery, and soft cheerful laughs, and opening and closing doors, and, for a time, a hush.

“Elles changent de toilettes,” said Adèle; who, listening attentively, had followed every movement; and she sighed.

“Chez maman,” said she, “quand il y avait du monde, je le suivais partout, au salon et à leurs chambres; souvent je regardais les femmes de chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et c’était si amusant: comme cela on apprend.”

“Don’t you feel hungry, Adèle?”

“Mais oui, mademoiselle: voilà cinq ou six heures que nous n’avons pas mangé.”

“Well now, while the ladies are in their rooms, I will venture down and get you something to eat.”

And issuing from my asylum with precaution, I sought a back-stairs which conducted directly to the kitchen.  All in that region was fire and commotion; the soup and fish were in the last stage of projection, and the cook hung over her crucibles in a frame of mind and body threatening spontaneous combustion.  In the servants’ hall two coachmen and three gentlemen’s gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about everywhere.  Threading this chaos, I at last reached the larder; there I took possession of a cold chicken, a roll of bread, some tarts, a plate or two and a knife and fork: with this booty I made a hasty retreat.  I had regained the gallery, and was just shutting the back-door behind me, when an accelerated hum warned me that the ladies were about to issue from their chambers.  I could not proceed to the schoolroom without passing some of their doors, and running the risk of being surprised with my cargo of victualage; so I stood still at this end, which, being windowless, was dark: quite dark now, for the sun was set and twilight gathering.

Presently the chambers gave up their fair tenants one after another: each came out gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed lustrous through the dusk.  For a moment they stood grouped together at the other extremity of the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet subdued vivacity: they then descended the staircase almost as noiselessly as a bright mist rolls down a hill.  Their collective appearance had left on me an impression of high-born elegance, such as I had never before received.

I found Adèle peeping through the schoolroom door, which she held ajar.  “What beautiful ladies!” cried she in English.  “Oh, I wish I might go to them!  Do you think Mr. Rochester will send for us by-and-bye, after dinner?”

“No, indeed, I don’t; Mr. Rochester has something else to think about.  Never mind the ladies to-night; perhaps you will see them to-morrow: here is your dinner.”

She was really hungry, so the chicken and tarts served to divert her attention for a time.  It was well I secured this forage, or both she, I, and Sophie, to whom I conveyed a share of our repast, would have run a chance of getting no dinner at all: every one downstairs was too much engaged to think of us.  The dessert was not carried out till after nine and at ten footmen were still running to and fro with trays and coffee-cups.  I allowed Adèle to sit up much later than usual; for she declared she could not possibly go to sleep while the doors kept opening and shutting below, and people bustling about.  Besides, she added, a message might possibly come from Mr. Rochester when she was undressed; “et alors quel dommage!”

I told her stories as long as she would listen to them; and then for a change I took her out into the gallery.  The hall lamp was now lit, and it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the servants passing backwards and forwards.  When the evening was far advanced, a sound of music issued from the drawing-room, whither the piano had been removed; Adèle and I sat down on the top step of the stairs to listen.  Presently a voice blent with the rich tones of the instrument; it was a lady who sang, and very sweet her notes were.  The solo over, a duet followed, and then a glee: a joyous conversational murmur filled up the intervals.  I listened long: suddenly I discovered that my ear was wholly intent on analysing the mingled sounds, and trying to discriminate amidst the confusion of accents those of Mr. Rochester; and when it caught them, which it soon did, it found a further task in framing the tones, rendered by distance inarticulate, into words.

The clock struck eleven.  I looked at Adèle, whose head leant against my shoulder; her eyes were waxing heavy, so I took her up in my arms and carried her off to bed.  It was near one before the gentlemen and ladies sought their chambers.

The next day was as fine as its predecessor: it was devoted by the party to an excursion to some site in the neighbourhood.  They set out early in the forenoon, some on horseback, the rest in carriages; I witnessed both the departure and the return.  Miss Ingram, as before, was the only lady equestrian; and, as before, Mr. Rochester galloped at her side; the two rode a little apart from the rest.  I pointed out this circumstance to Mrs. Fairfax, who was standing at the window with me—

“You said it was not likely they should think of being married,” said I, “but you see Mr. Rochester evidently prefers her to any of the other ladies.”

“Yes, I daresay: no doubt he admires her.”

“And she him,” I added; “look how she leans her head towards him as if she were conversing confidentially; I wish I could see her face; I have never had a glimpse of it yet.”

“You will see her this evening,” answered Mrs. Fairfax.  “I happened to remark to Mr. Rochester how much Adèle wished to be introduced to the ladies, and he said: ‘Oh! let her come into the drawing-room after dinner; and request Miss Eyre to accompany her.’”

“Yes; he said that from mere politeness: I need not go, I am sure,” I answered.

“Well, I observed to him that as you were unused to company, I did not think you would like appearing before so gay a party—all strangers; and he replied, in his quick way—‘Nonsense!  If she objects, tell her it is my particular wish; and if she resists, say I shall come and fetch her in case of contumacy.’”

“I will not give him that trouble,” I answered.  “I will go, if no better may be; but I don’t like it.  Shall you be there, Mrs. Fairfax?”

“No; I pleaded off, and he admitted my plea.  I’ll tell you how to manage so as to avoid the embarrassment of making a formal entrance, which is the most disagreeable part of the business.  You must go into the drawing-room while it is empty, before the ladies leave the dinner-table; choose your seat in any quiet nook you like; you need not stay long after the gentlemen come in, unless you please: just let Mr. Rochester see you are there and then slip away—nobody will notice you.”

“Will these people remain long, do you think?”

“Perhaps two or three weeks, certainly not more.  After the Easter recess, Sir George Lynn, who was lately elected member for Millcote, will have to go up to town and take his seat; I daresay Mr. Rochester will accompany him: it surprises me that he has already made so protracted a stay at Thornfield.”

It was with some trepidation that I perceived the hour approach when I was to repair with my charge to the drawing-room.  Adèle had been in a state of ecstasy all day, after hearing she was to be presented to the ladies in the evening; and it was not till Sophie commenced the operation of dressing her that she sobered down.  Then the importance of the process quickly steadied her, and by the time she had her curls arranged in well-smoothed, drooping clusters, her pink satin frock put on, her long sash tied, and her lace mittens adjusted, she looked as grave as any judge.  No need to warn her not to disarrange her attire: when she was dressed, she sat demurely down in her little chair, taking care previously to lift up the satin skirt for fear she should crease it, and assured me she would not stir thence till I was ready.  This I quickly was: my best dress (the silver-grey one, purchased for Miss Temple’s wedding, and never worn since) was soon put on; my hair was soon smoothed; my sole ornament, the pearl brooch, soon assumed.  We descended.

Fortunately there was another entrance to the drawing-room than that through the saloon where they were all seated at dinner.  We found the apartment vacant; a large fire burning silently on the marble hearth, and wax candles shining in bright solitude, amid the exquisite flowers with which the tables were adorned.  The crimson curtain hung before the arch: slight as was the separation this drapery formed from the party in the adjoining saloon, they spoke in so low a key that nothing of their conversation could be distinguished beyond a soothing murmur.

Adèle, who appeared to be still under the influence of a most solemnising impression, sat down, without a word, on the footstool I pointed out to her.  I retired to a window-seat, and taking a book from a table near, endeavoured to read.  Adèle brought her stool to my feet; ere long she touched my knee.

“What is it, Adèle?”

“Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendrie une seule de ces fleurs magnifiques, mademoiselle?  Seulement pour completer ma toilette.”

“You think too much of your ‘toilette,’ Adèle: but you may have a flower.”  And I took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her sash.  She sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfaction, as if her cup of happiness were now full.  I turned my face away to conceal a smile I could not suppress: there was something ludicrous as well as painful in the little Parisienne’s earnest and innate devotion to matters of dress.

A soft sound of rising now became audible; the curtain was swept back from the arch; through it appeared the dining-room, with its lit lustre pouring down light on the silver and glass of a magnificent dessert-service covering a long table; a band of ladies stood in the opening; they entered, and the curtain fell behind them.

There were but eight; yet, somehow, as they flocked in, they gave the impression of a much larger number.  Some of them were very tall; many were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of array that seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the moon.  I rose and curtseyed to them: one or two bent their heads in return, the others only stared at me.

They dispersed about the room, reminding me, by the lightness and buoyancy of their movements, of a flock of white plumy birds.  Some of them threw themselves in half-reclining positions on the sofas and ottomans: some bent over the tables and examined the flowers and books: the rest gathered in a group round the fire: all talked in a low but clear tone which seemed habitual to them.  I knew their names afterwards, and may as well mention them now.

First, there was Mrs. Eshton and two of her daughters.  She had evidently been a handsome woman, and was well preserved still.  Of her daughters, the eldest, Amy, was rather little: naive, and child-like in face and manner, and piquant in form; her white muslin dress and blue sash became her well.  The second, Louisa, was taller and more elegant in figure; with a very pretty face, of that order the French term minois chiffoné: both sisters were fair as lilies.

Lady Lynn was a large and stout personage of about forty, very erect, very haughty-looking, richly dressed in a satin robe of changeful sheen: her dark hair shone glossily under the shade of an azure plume, and within the circlet of a band of gems.

Mrs. Colonel Dent was less showy; but, I thought, more lady-like.  She had a slight figure, a pale, gentle face, and fair hair.  Her black satin dress, her scarf of rich foreign lace, and her pearl ornaments, pleased me better than the rainbow radiance of the titled dame.

But the three most distinguished—partly, perhaps, because the tallest figures of the band—were the Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters, Blanche and Mary.  They were all three of the loftiest stature of women.  The Dowager might be between forty and fifty: her shape was still fine; her hair (by candle-light at least) still black; her teeth, too, were still apparently perfect.  Most people would have termed her a splendid woman of her age: and so she was, no doubt, physically speaking; but then there was an expression of almost insupportable haughtiness in her bearing and countenance.  She had Roman features and a double chin, disappearing into a throat like a pillar: these features appeared to me not only inflated and darkened, but even furrowed with pride; and the chin was sustained by the same principle, in a position of almost preternatural erectness.  She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye: it reminded me of Mrs. Reed’s; she mouthed her words in speaking; her voice was deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical,—very intolerable, in short.  A crimson velvet robe, and a shawl turban of some gold-wrought Indian fabric, invested her (I suppose she thought) with a truly imperial dignity.

Blanche and Mary were of equal stature,—straight and tall as poplars.  Mary was too slim for her height, but Blanche was moulded like a Dian.  I regarded her, of course, with special interest.  First, I wished to see whether her appearance accorded with Mrs. Fairfax’s description; secondly, whether it at all resembled the fancy miniature I had painted of her; and thirdly—it will out!—whether it were such as I should fancy likely to suit Mr. Rochester’s taste.

As far as person went, she answered point for point, both to my picture and Mrs. Fairfax’s description.  The noble bust, the sloping shoulders, the graceful neck, the dark eyes and black ringlets were all there;—but her face?  Her face was like her mother’s; a youthful unfurrowed likeness: the same low brow, the same high features, the same pride.  It was not, however, so saturnine a pride! she laughed continually; her laugh was satirical, and so was the habitual expression of her arched and haughty lip.

Genius is said to be self-conscious.  I cannot tell whether Miss Ingram was a genius, but she was self-conscious—remarkably self-conscious indeed.  She entered into a discourse on botany with the gentle Mrs. Dent.  It seemed Mrs. Dent had not studied that science: though, as she said, she liked flowers, “especially wild ones;” Miss Ingram had, and she ran over its vocabulary with an air.  I presently perceived she was (what is vernacularly termed) trailing Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on her ignorance—her trail might be clever, but it was decidedly not good-natured.  She played: her execution was brilliant; she sang: her voice was fine; she talked French apart to her mamma; and she talked it well, with fluency and with a good accent.

Mary had a milder and more open countenance than Blanche; softer features too, and a skin some shades fairer (Miss Ingram was dark as a Spaniard)—but Mary was deficient in life: her face lacked expression, her eye lustre; she had nothing to say, and having once taken her seat, remained fixed like a statue in its niche.  The sisters were both attired in spotless white.

And did I now think Miss Ingram such a choice as Mr. Rochester would be likely to make?  I could not tell—I did not know his taste in female beauty.  If he liked the majestic, she was the very type of majesty: then she was accomplished, sprightly.  Most gentlemen would admire her, I thought; and that he did admire her, I already seemed to have obtained proof: to remove the last shade of doubt, it remained but to see them together.

You are not to suppose, reader, that Adèle has all this time been sitting motionless on the stool at my feet: no; when the ladies entered, she rose, advanced to meet them, made a stately reverence, and said with gravity—

“Bon jour, mesdames.”

And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mocking air, and exclaimed, “Oh, what a little puppet!”

Lady Lynn had remarked, “It is Mr. Rochester’s ward, I suppose—the little French girl he was speaking of.”

Mrs. Dent had kindly taken her hand, and given her a kiss.

Amy and Louisa Eshton had cried out simultaneously—“What a love of a child!”

And then they had called her to a sofa, where she now sat, ensconced between them, chattering alternately in French and broken English; absorbing not only the young ladies’ attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton and Lady Lynn, and getting spoilt to her heart’s content.

At last coffee is brought in, and the gentlemen are summoned.  I sit in the shade—if any shade there be in this brilliantly-lit apartment; the window-curtain half hides me.  Again the arch yawns; they come.  The collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is very imposing: they are all costumed in black; most of them are tall, some young.  Henry and Frederick Lynn are very dashing sparks indeed; and Colonel Dent is a fine soldierly man.  Mr. Eshton, the magistrate of the district, is gentleman-like: his hair is quite white, his eyebrows and whiskers still dark, which gives him something of the appearance of a “père noble de théâtre.”  Lord Ingram, like his sisters, is very tall; like them, also, he is handsome; but he shares Mary’s apathetic and listless look: he seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of blood or vigour of brain.

And where is Mr. Rochester?

He comes in last: I am not looking at the arch, yet I see him enter.  I try to concentrate my attention on those netting-needles, on the meshes of the purse I am forming—I wish to think only of the work I have in my hands, to see only the silver beads and silk threads that lie in my lap; whereas, I distinctly behold his figure, and I inevitably recall the moment when I last saw it; just after I had rendered him, what he deemed, an essential service, and he, holding my hand, and looking down on my face, surveyed me with eyes that revealed a heart full and eager to overflow; in whose emotions I had a part.  How near had I approached him at that moment!  What had occurred since, calculated to change his and my relative positions?  Yet now, how distant, how far estranged we were!  So far estranged, that I did not expect him to come and speak to me.  I did not wonder, when, without looking at me, he took a seat at the other side of the room, and began conversing with some of the ladies.

No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and that I might gaze without being observed, than my eyes were drawn involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under control: they would rise, and the irids would fix on him.  I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking,—a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless.

Most true is it that “beauty is in the eye of the gazer.”  My master’s colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth,—all energy, decision, will,—were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite mastered me,—that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them in his.  I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and strong!  He made me love him without looking at me.

I compared him with his guests.  What was the gallant grace of the Lynns, the languid elegance of Lord Ingram,—even the military distinction of Colonel Dent, contrasted with his look of native pith and genuine power?  I had no sympathy in their appearance, their expression: yet I could imagine that most observers would call them attractive, handsome, imposing; while they would pronounce Mr. Rochester at once harsh-featured and melancholy-looking.  I saw them smile, laugh—it was nothing; the light of the candles had as much soul in it as their smile; the tinkle of the bell as much significance as their laugh.  I saw Mr. Rochester smile:—his stern features softened; his eye grew both brilliant and gentle, its ray both searching and sweet.  He was talking, at the moment, to Louisa and Amy Eshton.  I wondered to see them receive with calm that look which seemed to me so penetrating: I expected their eyes to fall, their colour to rise under it; yet I was glad when I found they were in no sense moved.  “He is not to them what he is to me,” I thought: “he is not of their kind.  I believe he is of mine;—I am sure he is—I feel akin to him—I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him.  Did I say, a few days since, that I had nothing to do with him but to receive my salary at his hands?  Did I forbid myself to think of him in any other light than as a paymaster?  Blasphemy against nature!  Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him.  I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me.  For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him.  I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:—and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.”

Coffee is handed.  The ladies, since the gentlemen entered, have become lively as larks; conversation waxes brisk and merry.  Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics; their wives listen.  The two proud dowagers, Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate together.  Sir George—whom, by-the-bye, I have forgotten to describe,—a very big, and very fresh-looking country gentleman, stands before their sofa, coffee-cup in hand, and occasionally puts in a word.  Mr. Frederick Lynn has taken a seat beside Mary Ingram, and is showing her the engravings of a splendid volume: she looks, smiles now and then, but apparently says little.  The tall and phlegmatic Lord Ingram leans with folded arms on the chair-back of the little and lively Amy Eshton; she glances up at him, and chatters like a wren: she likes him better than she does Mr. Rochester.  Henry Lynn has taken possession of an ottoman at the feet of Louisa: Adèle shares it with him: he is trying to talk French with her, and Louisa laughs at his blunders.  With whom will Blanche Ingram pair?  She is standing alone at the table, bending gracefully over an album.  She seems waiting to be sought; but she will not wait too long: she herself selects a mate.

Mr. Rochester, having quitted the Eshtons, stands on the hearth as solitary as she stands by the table: she confronts him, taking her station on the opposite side of the mantelpiece.

“Mr. Rochester, I thought you were not fond of children?”

“Nor am I.”

“Then, what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as that?” (pointing to Adèle).  “Where did you pick her up?”

“I did not pick her up; she was left on my hands.”

“You should have sent her to school.”

“I could not afford it: schools are so dear.”

“Why, I suppose you have a governess for her: I saw a person with her just now—is she gone?  Oh, no! there she is still, behind the window-curtain.  You pay her, of course; I should think it quite as expensive,—more so; for you have them both to keep in addition.”

I feared—or should I say, hoped?—the allusion to me would make Mr. Rochester glance my way; and I involuntarily shrank farther into the shade: but he never turned his eyes.

“I have not considered the subject,” said he indifferently, looking straight before him.

“No, you men never do consider economy and common sense.  You should hear mama on the chapter of governesses: Mary and I have had, I should think, a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the rest ridiculous, and all incubi—were they not, mama?”

“Did you speak, my own?”

The young lady thus claimed as the dowager’s special property, reiterated her question with an explanation.

“My dearest, don’t mention governesses; the word makes me nervous.  I have suffered a martyrdom from their incompetency and caprice.  I thank Heaven I have now done with them!”

Mrs. Dent here bent over to the pious lady and whispered something in her ear; I suppose, from the answer elicited, it was a reminder that one of the anathematised race was present.

“Tant pis!” said her Ladyship, “I hope it may do her good!”  Then, in a lower tone, but still loud enough for me to hear, “I noticed her; I am a judge of physiognomy, and in hers I see all the faults of her class.”

“What are they, madam?” inquired Mr. Rochester aloud.

“I will tell you in your private ear,” replied she, wagging her turban three times with portentous significancy.

“But my curiosity will be past its appetite; it craves food now.”

“Ask Blanche; she is nearer you than I.”

“Oh, don’t refer him to me, mama!  I have just one word to say of the whole tribe; they are a nuisance.  Not that I ever suffered much from them; I took care to turn the tables.  What tricks Theodore and I used to play on our Miss Wilsons, and Mrs. Greys, and Madame Jouberts!  Mary was always too sleepy to join in a plot with spirit.  The best fun was with Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor sickly thing, lachrymose and low-spirited, not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible; no blow took effect on her.  But poor Madame Joubert!  I see her yet in her raging passions, when we had driven her to extremities—spilt our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, tossed our books up to the ceiling, and played a charivari with the ruler and desk, the fender and fire-irons.  Theodore, do you remember those merry days?”

“Yaas, to be sure I do,” drawled Lord Ingram; “and the poor old stick used to cry out ‘Oh you villains childs!’—and then we sermonised her on the presumption of attempting to teach such clever blades as we were, when she was herself so ignorant.”

“We did; and, Tedo, you know, I helped you in prosecuting (or persecuting) your tutor, whey-faced Mr. Vining—the parson in the pip, as we used to call him.  He and Miss Wilson took the liberty of falling in love with each other—at least Tedo and I thought so; we surprised sundry tender glances and sighs which we interpreted as tokens of ‘la belle passion,’ and I promise you the public soon had the benefit of our discovery; we employed it as a sort of lever to hoist our dead-weights from the house.  Dear mama, there, as soon as she got an inkling of the business, found out that it was of an immoral tendency.  Did you not, my lady-mother?”

“Certainly, my best.  And I was quite right: depend on that: there are a thousand reasons why liaisons between governesses and tutors should never be tolerated a moment in any well-regulated house; firstly—”

“Oh, gracious, mama!  Spare us the enumeration!  Au reste, we all know them: danger of bad example to innocence of childhood; distractions and consequent neglect of duty on the part of the attached—mutual alliance and reliance; confidence thence resulting—insolence accompanying—mutiny and general blow-up.  Am I right, Baroness Ingram, of Ingram Park?”

“My lily-flower, you are right now, as always.”

“Then no more need be said: change the subject.”

Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding this dictum, joined in with her soft, infantine tone: “Louisa and I used to quiz our governess too; but she was such a good creature, she would bear anything: nothing put her out.  She was never cross with us; was she, Louisa?”

“No, never: we might do what we pleased; ransack her desk and her workbox, and turn her drawers inside out; and she was so good-natured, she would give us anything we asked for.”

“I suppose, now,” said Miss Ingram, curling her lip sarcastically, “we shall have an abstract of the memoirs of all the governesses extant: in order to avert such a visitation, I again move the introduction of a new topic.  Mr. Rochester, do you second my motion?”

“Madam, I support you on this point, as on every other.”

“Then on me be the onus of bringing it forward.  Signior Eduardo, are you in voice to-night?”

“Donna Bianca, if you command it, I will be.”

“Then, signior, I lay on you my sovereign behest to furbish up your lungs and other vocal organs, as they will be wanted on my royal service.”

“Who would not be the Rizzio of so divine a Mary?”

“A fig for Rizzio!” cried she, tossing her head with all its curls, as she moved to the piano.  “It is my opinion the fiddler David must have been an insipid sort of fellow; I like black Bothwell better: to my mind a man is nothing without a spice of the devil in him; and history may say what it will of James Hepburn, but I have a notion, he was just the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to gift with my hand.”

“Gentlemen, you hear!  Now which of you most resembles Bothwell?” cried Mr. Rochester.

“I should say the preference lies with you,” responded Colonel Dent.

“On my honour, I am much obliged to you,” was the reply.

Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the piano, spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, commenced a brilliant prelude; talking meantime.  She appeared to be on her high horse to-night; both her words and her air seemed intended to excite not only the admiration, but the amazement of her auditors: she was evidently bent on striking them as something very dashing and daring indeed.

“Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the present day!” exclaimed she, rattling away at the instrument.  “Poor, puny things, not fit to stir a step beyond papa’s park gates: nor to go even so far without mama’s permission and guardianship!  Creatures so absorbed in care about their pretty faces, and their white hands, and their small feet; as if a man had anything to do with beauty!  As if loveliness were not the special prerogative of woman—her legitimate appanage and heritage!  I grant an ugly woman is a blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the gentlemen, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and valour: let their motto be:—Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not worth a fillip.  Such should be my device, were I a man.”

“Whenever I marry,” she continued after a pause which none interrupted, “I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me.  I will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided homage: his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he sees in his mirror.  Mr. Rochester, now sing, and I will play for you.”

“I am all obedience,” was the response.

“Here then is a Corsair-song.  Know that I doat on Corsairs; and for that reason, sing it con spirito.”

“Commands from Miss Ingram’s lips would put spirit into a mug of milk and water.”

“Take care, then: if you don’t please me, I will shame you by showing how such things should be done.”

“That is offering a premium on incapacity: I shall now endeavour to fail.”

“Gardez-vous en bien!  If you err wilfully, I shall devise a proportionate punishment.”

“Miss Ingram ought to be clement, for she has it in her power to inflict a chastisement beyond mortal endurance.”

“Ha! explain!” commanded the lady.

“Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must inform you that one of your frowns would be a sufficient substitute for capital punishment.”

“Sing!” said she, and again touching the piano, she commenced an accompaniment in spirited style.

“Now is my time to slip away,” thought I: but the tones that then severed the air arrested me.  Mrs. Fairfax had said Mr. Rochester possessed a fine voice: he did—a mellow, powerful bass, into which he threw his own feeling, his own force; finding a way through the ear to the heart, and there waking sensation strangely.  I waited till the last deep and full vibration had expired—till the tide of talk, checked an instant, had resumed its flow; I then quitted my sheltered corner and made my exit by the side-door, which was fortunately near.  Thence a narrow passage led into the hall: in crossing it, I perceived my sandal was loose; I stopped to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of the staircase.  I heard the dining-room door unclose; a gentleman came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it was Mr. Rochester.

“How do you do?” he asked.

“I am very well, sir.”

“Why did you not come and speak to me in the room?”

I thought I might have retorted the question on him who put it: but I would not take that freedom.  I answered—

“I did not wish to disturb you, as you seemed engaged, sir.”

“What have you been doing during my absence?”

“Nothing particular; teaching Adèle as usual.”

“And getting a good deal paler than you were—as I saw at first sight.  What is the matter?”

“Nothing at all, sir.”

“Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?”

“Not the least.”

“Return to the drawing-room: you are deserting too early.”

“I am tired, sir.”

He looked at me for a minute.

“And a little depressed,” he said.  “What about?  Tell me.”

“Nothing—nothing, sir.  I am not depressed.”

“But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes—indeed, they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to the flag.  If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this means.  Well, to-night I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don’t neglect it.  Now go, and send Sophie for Adèle.  Good-night, my—”  He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.

To be continued

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