I felt glad as the road shortened before me—so glad that I stopped once to ask myself what that joy meant, and to remind reason that it was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival. “Mrs Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure,” said I, “and little Adèle will clap her hands and jump to see you, but you know very well you are thinking of another than they, and that he is not thinking of you.”
But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience? These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of again looking on Mr Rochester, whether he looked on me or not and they added—“Hasten! hasten! Be with him while you may, but a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him forever!” And then I strangled a new-born agony—a deformed thing which I could not persuade myself to own and rear—and ran on.
They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows, or rather, the labourers are just quitting their work, and returning home with their rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates. How full the hedges are of roses! But I have no time to gather any. I want to be at the house. I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path. I see the narrow stile with stone steps and I see—Mr Rochester sitting there, a book and a pencil in his hand. He is writing.
Well, he is not a ghost—yet every nerve I have is unstrung, for a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can stir, I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I know another way to the house. It does not signify if I knew twenty ways, for he has seen me.
“Hillo!” he cries and he puts up his book and his pencil. “There you are! Come on, if you please.”
I suppose I do come on, though in what fashion I know not. Being scarcely cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face—which I feel rebel insolently against my will, and struggle to express what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a veil—it is down, I may make shift yet to behave with decent composure.
“And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot? Yes—just one of your tricks, not to send for a carriage, and come clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to steal into the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with yourself this last month?”
“I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.”
“A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other world—from the abode of people who are dead and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I’d touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!—But I’d as soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh. Truant! Truant!” he added, when he had paused an instant. “Absent from me a whole month, and forgetting me quite, I’ll be sworn!”
I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him. But there was ever in Mr Rochester—so at least I thought—such a wealth of the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially. His last words were balm, they seemed to imply that it imported something to him whether I forgot him or not. And he had spoken of Thornfield as my home—would that it were my home!
He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I enquired soon if he had not been to London.
“Yes. I suppose you found that out by second-sight.”
“Mrs Fairfax told me in a letter.”
“And did she inform you what I went to do?”
“Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand.”
“You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don’t think it will suit Mrs Rochester exactly and whether she won’t look like Queen Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish, Jane, I were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now, fairy as you are—can’t you give me a charm, or a philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?”
“It would be past the power of magic, sir,” and, in thought, I added, A loving eye is all the charm needed, to such you are handsome enough; or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty.
Mr Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to me incomprehensible. In the present instance he took no notice of my abrupt vocal response, but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think it too good for common purposes, it was the real sunshine of feeling—he shed it over me now.
“Pass, Janet,” said he, making room for me to cross the stile, “go up home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend’s threshold.”
All I had now to do was to obey him in silence, no need for me to colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant to leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast—a force turned me round. He had called me Janet, a name unfamiliar to my ears. No one had ever used that variation on my name. I had noticed the way he addressed me; from the first I was Miss Eyre and then Jane Eyre. The first time he’d taken the liberty of calling me Jane, I’d momentarily lost my voice to shock. I had told myself the intimacy meant nothing. I was the drab governess, nothing more. Now he had called me Janet as if it were the most natural progression. Did this man intentionally confound me? Alas, no. I meant nothing to him, hence the name meant nothing special to anyone but me. Still I could not help the fact I felt giddy at being back and for having had a few moments with him. I said—or something in me said for me, and in spite of me, “Thank you, Mr Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you, and wherever you are is my home—my only home.”
“Allow me to welcome you back to your home properly,” said he.
I went to him as if being in his arms were the most natural place to be. This time there was no shyness or hesitation as I allowed myself to be gathered close to him.
“Kiss me,” I said.
“You’ve forgotten your place in the last month,” responded he, even as he traced my brow with his fingertip.
“It was a request, sir.”
“A request was it, Janet?”
“A plea, an entreaty. Call it anything you will, sir, but I have dreamt of this moment.” I tipped back my head to look at him. Not handsome was he, but beloved. “Please kiss me.”
“I have thought of you, Jane Eyre, remembering how perfectly you responded to me. I recollected the sight of your reddened buttocks. And the scream rendered from you when you shattered beneath the punishing force of my hand against your tender quim.”
“Was it only a thought, sir?”
“A bold one are you! I admit, miss, that I took pleasure myself, spurred by the images—indelibly seared as they are!—of your body spread wide with anticipation. Now, enough of the prattle! You shall kiss me, Miss Eyre.”
“I should kiss you, sir? I fear I know not what to do first.”
“Then choose not to, and be on your way.”
What an enigma my master was. He delighted in my submission, and in this instant, demanded I lead him.
“I left you with a kiss. Return to me with one. Show me how much you missed me.”
There was such a difference in our heights, and he made no accommodation. I was left with no choice but to lift up onto my toes and wrap my arms around the back of his neck. I pressed my lips to his gently, once, twice. Then tentatively, I used the tip of my tongue to seek entrance.
I was not quite as bold as he had been. I sought his tongue and touched it with mine.
His body felt hard agains
t mine. Even as I had leaned into him, he had tightened his grip, as if he was afraid I would try to escape.
His response emboldened me.
I gently took his lower lip between my teeth.
He went rigid. I suspected he would not allow me control much longer, so I seized the moment. With tenderness, I bit his lip and then instantly laved the tiny hurt. It was a pantomime of the way he’d used me, spanking my flesh and then heightening the pleasure with his touch.
I released him and plunged my tongue into his mouth. How I had missed the taste of him! He had had a glass of wine—I did not doubt it—and he had smoked one of his customary cigars. He was familiar to me, and dear.
I forced his head a bit lower so I could explore his recesses more.
The kiss was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was warm. It was soul-shaking in its length and breadth. I delighted in having momentary control. My quim was stirred; how perfectly did my body respond to his!
All too soon, he reached up and forced me to release my hands.
When he spoke, his single word was a rough sound almost like an animal’s growl. “Enough!”
“Sir?” He stunned me.
“Unless you wish me to take you here and now, miss, I suggest you cease.”
I tried to school my face into revealing nothing, but I felt a smile forming. I looked at his physiognomy. Indeed, he showed a physical reaction to the way I had explored him. “You liked the kiss, then, I take it, sir?”
“Insolent miss. Do not think that will go unpunished.”
The mere words were enough to tantalise me. How I had missed Thornfield! How I had missed my master.
Giving into impulse—something I had been wont to do my entire life—I reached for his manhood. I noticed the image of it. It was bigger than it had been when I first arrived. I touched him there, pressing my palm to his front. I was firm, and I felt him press back against me.
“A second insolent act, miss?”
He made no move to stop me, so I continued on, moving my hand up and down. I squeezed him. “That does not hurt, sir?”
“Nay, Miss Eyre. Quite the contrary.” He closed his eyes.
Such power did I experience! No wonder he enjoyed teasing me. Heady, indeed, was the knowledge you could bring pleasure to another.
I quit my touch and walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he tried. I gave in and smile broadly. It was good to be home! Little Adèle was half wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and even Sophie bid me “bon soir” with glee. This was very pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.
I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future. I stopped my cars against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs Fairfax had taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adèle, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace. I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon, but when, as we thus sat, Mr Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable—when he said he supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter back again, and added that he saw Adèle was “prête à croquer sa petite Maman Anglaise”. I half ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.
A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall. Nothing was said of the master’s marriage, and I saw no preparation going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs Fairfax if she had yet heard anything decided. Her answer was always in the negative. Once she said she had actually put the question to Mr Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home, but he had answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she could not tell what to make of him.
One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no journeyings backward and forwards, no visits to Ingram Park, to be sure it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county, but what was that distance to an ardent lover? To so practised and indefatigable a horseman as Mr Rochester, it would be but a morning’s ride. If I were Miss Ingram, I’d make the journey myself, anything to spend time in the presence of my beloved Mr Rochester. I began to cherish hopes I had no right to conceive, that the match was broken off, that rumour had been mistaken, that one or both parties had changed their minds. I used to look at my master’s face to see if it were sad or fierce, but I could not remember the time when it had been so uniformly clear of clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and my pupil spent with him, I lacked spirits and sank into inevitable dejection, he became even gay. Never had he called me more frequently to his presence, never been kinder to me when there, never had he spent more time teaching me wicked ways—and, alas! Never had I loved him so well.
Chapter Twenty-Three
A splendid Midsummer shone over England, skies so pure, suns so radiant as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour even singly, our wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got in, the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn, the roads white and baked, the trees were in their dark prime, hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows between.
On Midsummer-eve, Adèle, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden.
It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four—“Day its fervid fires had wasted,” and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple state—pure of the pomp of clouds—spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a casino and solitary star. Soon it would boast the moon, but she was yet beneath the horizon.
I walked a while on the pavement, but a subtle, well-known scent—that of a cigar—stole from some window. I saw the library casement open a handbreadth. I knew I might be watched thence, so I went apart into the orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like. It was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers, a very high wall shut it out from the court, on one side. On the other, a beech avenue screened it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence. Its sole separation from lonely fields, a winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade forever, but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my step is stayed—not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a warning fragrance.
Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense, this new scent is neither of shrub nor flower. It is—I know it well—it is Mr Rochester’s cigar. I look round and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible, but that perfume increases. I must flee. I make for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy recess, he will not stay long, he will soon return whence he came, and if I sit still he will never see me.
But no—eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive and h
e strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-tree branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are laden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to admire the dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes humming by me. It alights on a plant at Mr Rochester’s foot, he sees it, and bends to examine it.
Now, he has his back towards me, thought I, and he is occupied too; perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed.
I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly gravel might not betray me, he was standing among the beds at a yard or two distant from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged him. I shall get by very well, I meditated. As I crossed his shadow, thrown long over the garden by the moon, not yet risen high, he said quietly, without turning, “Jane, come and look at this fellow.”
I had made no noise, he had not eyes behind—could his shadow feel? Was he as aware of my presence as I was his? I started at first, and then I approached him.
“Look at his wings,” said he, “he reminds me rather of a West Indian insect, One does not often see so large and gay a night-rover in England. There! He is flown.”
The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also, but Mr Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said, “Turn back, on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house and surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at meeting with moonrise.”
It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing an excuse and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment. As much as I was in love with him, being near him, with him being promised to another, confounded my heart. I did not like to walk at this hour alone with Mr Rochester in the shadowy orchard, but I could not find a reason to allege for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and thoughts busily bent on discovering a means of extrication, but he himself looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any confusion. The evil—if evil existent or prospective there was—seemed to lie with me only, his mind was unconscious and quiet.
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