“You mocking changeling — fairy-born and human-bred! You make me feel as I have not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have had you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without the aid of the harp.”
“There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I’ll leave you: I have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am tired. Good night.”
“Just one word, Jane: were there only ladies in the house where you have been?”
I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs. “A good idea!” I thought with glee. “I see I have the means of fretting him out of his melancholy for some time to come.”
Very early the next morning I heard him up and astir, wandering from one room to another. As soon as Mary came down I heard the question: “Is Miss Eyre here?” Then: “Which room did you put her into? Was it dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants anything; and when she will come down.”
I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast. Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he discovered my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to witness the subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat in his chair — still, but not at rest: expectant evidently; the lines of now habitual sadness marking his strong features. His countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be re-lit — and alas! it was not himself that could now kindle the lustre of animated expression: he was dependent on another for that office! I had meant to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the strong man touched my heart to the quick: still I accosted him with what vivacity I could.
“It is a bright, sunny morning, sir,” I said. “The rain is over and gone, and there is a tender shining after it: you shall have a walk soon.”
I had wakened the glow: his features beamed.
“Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not gone: not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high over the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than the rising sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my Jane’s tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a silent one): all the sunshine I can feel is in her presence.”
The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence; just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced to entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be lachrymose: I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself with preparing breakfast.
Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of the wet and wild wood into some cheerful fields: I described to him how brilliantly green they were; how the flowers and hedges looked refreshed; how sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought a seat for him in a hidden and lovely spot, a dry stump of a tree; nor did I refuse to let him, when seated, place me on his knee. Why should I, when both he and I were happier near than apart? Pilot lay beside us: all was quiet. He broke out suddenly while clasping me in his arms —
“Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered you had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you; and, after examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken no money, nor anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little casket; your trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for the bridal tour. What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now.”
Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last year. I softened considerably what related to the three days of wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would have been to inflict unnecessary pain: the little I did say lacerated his faithful heart deeper than I wished.
I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of making my way: I should have told him my intention. I should have confided in him: he would never have forced me to be his mistress. Violent as he had seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far too well and too tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he would have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in return, rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the wide world. I had endured, he was certain, more than I had confessed to him.
“Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short,” I answered: and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received at Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, &c. The accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in due order. Of course, St. John Rivers’ name came in frequently in the progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was immediately taken up.
“This St. John, then, is your cousin?”
“Yes.”
“You have spoken of him often: do you like him?”
“He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him.”
“A good man. Does that mean a respectable well-conducted man of fifty? Or what does it mean?”
“St John was only twenty-nine, sir.”
“‘ Jeune encore,’ as the French say. Is he a person of low stature, phlegmatic, and plain. A person whose goodness consists rather in his guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue.”
“He is untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he lives to perform.”
“But his brain? That is probably rather soft? He means well: but you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?”
“He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. His brain is first-rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous.”
“Is he an able man, then?”
“Truly able.”
“A thoroughly educated man?”
“St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar.”
“His manners, I think, you said are not to your taste? — priggish and parsonic?”
“I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste, they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike.”
“His appearance, — I forget what description you gave of his appearance; — a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?”
“St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with blue eyes, and a Grecian profile.”
(Aside.) “Damn him!” — (To me.) “Did you like him, Jane?”
“Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but you asked me that before.”
I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not, therefore, immediately charm the snake.
“Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Eyre?” was the next somewhat unexpected observation.
“Why not, Mr. Rochester?”
“The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination, — tall, fair, blue-eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan, — a real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered: and blind and lame into the bargain.”
“I never thought of it, before; but you certainly are rather like Vulcan, sir.”
“Well, you can leave me, ma’am: but before you go” (and he retained me by a firmer grasp than ever), “you will be pleased just to answer me a question or two.” He paused.
“What questions, Mr. Rochester?”
Then followed this cross-examination.
“St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were his cousin?”
“Yes.”
“You would often see him? He would visit the school sometimes?”
“Daily.”
“He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they would be clever, for you are a talented creature!”
“He approved of them — yes.”
“He would discover many things in you he could not have expected to find? Some of your accomplishments a
re not ordinary.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You had a little cottage near the school, you say: did he ever come there to see you?”
“Now and then?”
“Of an evening?”
“Once or twice.”
A pause.
“How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship was discovered?”
“Five months.”
“Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?”
“Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near the window, and we by the table.”
“Did he study much?”
“A good deal.”
“What?”
“Hindostanee.”
“And what did you do meantime?”
“I learnt German, at first.”
“Did he teach you?”
“He did not understand German.”
“Did he teach you nothing?”
“A little Hindostanee.”
“Rivers taught you Hindostanee?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And his sisters also?”
“No.”
“Only you?”
“Only me.”
“Did you ask to learn?”
“No.”
“He wished to teach you?”
“Yes.”
A second pause.
“Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostanee be to you?”
“He intended me to go with him to India.”
“Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him?”
“He asked me to marry him.”
“That is a fiction — an impudent invention to vex me.”
“I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be.”
“Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee, when I have given you notice to quit?”
“Because I am comfortable there.”
“No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not with me: it is with this cousin — this St. John. Oh, till this moment, I thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she loved me even when she left me: that was an atom of sweet in much bitter. Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her, she was loving another! But it is useless grieving. Jane, leave me: go and marry Rivers.”
“Shake me off, then, sir, — push me away, for I’ll not leave you of my own accord.”
“Jane, I ever like your tone of voice: it still renews hope, it sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I forget that you have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool — go — ”
“Where must I go, sir?”
“Your own way — with the husband you have chosen.”
“Who is that?”
“You know — this St. John Rivers.”
“He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me: I do not love him. He loves (as he can love, and that is not as you love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me only because he thought I should make a suitable missionary’s wife, which she would not have done. He is good and great, but severe; and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not happy at his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no indulgence for me — no fondness. He sees nothing attractive in me; not even youth — only a few useful mental points. — Then I must leave you, sir, to go to him?”
I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my blind but beloved master. He smiled.
“What, Jane! Is this true? Is such really the state of matters between you and Rivers?”
“Absolutely, sir! Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease you a little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better than grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much I do love you, you would be proud and content. All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence for ever.”
Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect.
“My seared vision! My crippled strength!” he murmured regretfully.
I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking, and wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his face a minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid, and trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled.
“I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard,” he remarked ere long. “And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?”
“You are no ruin, sir — no lightning-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.”
Again he smiled: I gave him comfort.
“You speak of friends, Jane?” he asked.
“Yes, of friends,” I answered rather hesitatingly: for I knew I meant more than friends, but could not tell what other word to employ. He helped me.
“Ah! Jane. But I want a wife.”
“Do you, sir?”
“Yes: is it news to you?”
“Of course: you said nothing about it before.”
“Is it unwelcome news?”
“That depends on circumstances, sir — on your choice.”
“Which you shall make for me, Jane. I will abide by your decision.”
“Choose then, sir — her who loves you best.”
“I will at least choose — her I love best. Jane, will you marry me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to wait on?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Truly, Jane?”
“Most truly, sir.”
“Oh! my darling! God bless you and reward you!”
“Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life — if ever I thought a good thought — if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer — if ever I wished a righteous wish, — I am rewarded now. To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth.”
“Because you delight in sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value — to press my lips to what I love — to repose on what I trust: is that to make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice.”
“And to bear with my infirmities, Jane: to overlook my deficiencies.”
“Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver and protector.”
“Hitherto I have hated to be helped — to be led: henceforth, I feel I shall hate it no more. I did not like to put my hand into a hireling’s, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane’s little fingers. I preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of servants; but Jane’s soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane suits me: do I suit her?”
“To the finest fibre of my nature, sir.”
“The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for: we must be married instantly.”
He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising.
“We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but the licence to get — then we marry.”
“Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from its meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let me look at your watch.”
“Fasten it i
nto your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward: I have no use for it.”
“It is nearly four o’clock in the afternoon, sir. Don’t you feel hungry?”
“The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane. Never mind fine clothes and jewels, now: all that is not worth a fillip.”
The Complete Novels of Charlotte Brontë Page 58