Of course, she knew her power, indeed, he did not, because he could not, conceal it from her. In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she went up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even fondly in his face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn. He seemed to say, with his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips, “I love you, and I know you prefer me. It is not despair of success that keeps me dumb. If I offered my heart, I believe you would accept it. But that heart is already laid on a sacred altar, the fire is arranged round it. It will soon be no more than a sacrifice consumed.”
And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily from his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic and so martyr-like. St. John, no doubt, would have given the world to follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him, but he would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of her love, one hope of the true, eternal Paradise. Besides, he could not bind all that he had in his nature—the rover, the aspirant, the poet, the priest—in the limits of a single passion. He could not—he would not—renounce his wild field of mission warfare for the parlours and the peace of Vale Hall. I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once, despite his reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence.
Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage. I had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise, she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured, vain—she could not help it, when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness—but not affected; liberal-handed. Innocent of the pride of wealth. Ingenuous, sufficiently intelligent, gay, lively, and unthinking, she was very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex like me, but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive. A very different sort of mind was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters of St. John. Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adèle, except that, for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult acquaintance.
She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr Rivers, only, certainly, she allowed, “not one-tenth so handsome, though I was a nice neat little soul enough, but he was an angel.” I was, however, good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was a lusus naturæ, she affirmed, as a village schoolmistress, she was sure my previous history, if known, would make a delightful romance.
One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and the table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then my drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a pretty little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars, and sundry views from nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surrounding moors. She was first transfixed with surprise, and then electrified with delight.
“Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a love—what a miracle I was! I drew better than her master in the first school. Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show to papa?”
“With pleasure,” I replied and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had then on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only ornament was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with all the wild grace of natural curls. I took a sheet of fine card-board, and drew a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of colouring it and, as it was getting late then, I told her she must come and sit another day.
She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr Oliver himself accompanied her next evening—a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright flower near a hoary turret. He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud personage, but he was very kind to me. The sketch of Rosamond’s portrait pleased him highly, he said I must make a finished picture of it. He insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend the evening at Vale Hall.
I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee and pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable and when he entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong terms his approbation of what I had done in Morton school, and said he only feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place, and would soon quit it for one more suitable.
“Indeed,” cried Rosamond, “she is clever enough to be a governess in a high family, papa.”
I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in the land. Mr Oliver spoke of Mr Rivers—of the Rivers family—with great respect. He said it was a very old name in that neighbourhood, that the ancestors of the house were wealthy, that all Morton had once belonged to them, that even now he considered the representative of that house might, if he liked, make an alliance with the best. He accounted it a pity that so fine and talented a young man should have formed the design of going out as a missionary. It was quite throwing a valuable life away. It appeared, then, that her father would throw no obstacle in the way of Rosamond’s union with St. John. Mr Oliver evidently regarded the young clergyman’s good birth, old name, and sacred profession as sufficient compensation for the want of fortune.
It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a penny for her aid. All about me was spotless and bright—scoured floor, polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs. I had also made myself neat, and had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would.
The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour, then I got my palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver’s miniature. The head was finished already, there was but the background to tint and the drapery to shade off, a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips—a soft curl here and there to the tresses—a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash under the azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the execution of these nice details, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting St. John Rivers.
“I am come to see how you are spending your holiday,” he said. “Not, I hope, in thought? No, that is well, while you draw you will not feel lonely. You see, I mistrust you still, though you have borne up wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening solace,” and he laid on the table a new publication—a poem, one of those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days—the golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era are less favoured. But courage! I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay, they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no, do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No, they not only live, but reign and redeem, and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell—the hell of your own meanness.
While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of ‘Marmion’—for ‘Marmion’ it was—St. John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall figure sprang erect again with a start, he said nothing. I looked up at him, he shunned my eye. I knew his thoughts well, and could read his heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler than he. I had then temporarily the advantage of him, and I conceived an inclination to do him some good, if I could.
“With all his firmness and self-control,” thought I, “he tasks himself too far, locks every feeling and pang within—expresses,
confesses, imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk a little about this sweet Rosamond, whom he thinks he ought not to marry. I will make him talk.”
I said first, “Take a chair, Mr Rivers.” But he answered, as he always did, that he could not stay. “Very well,” I responded, mentally, “stand if you like, but you shall not go just yet, I am determined, solitude is at least as bad for you as it is for me. I’ll try if I cannot discover the secret spring of your confidence, and find an aperture in that marble breast through which I can shed one drop of the balm of sympathy.”
“Is this portrait like?” I asked bluntly.
“Like! Like whom? I did not observe it closely.”
“You did, Mr Rivers.”
He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness, he looked at me astonished. “Oh, that is nothing yet,” I muttered within. “I don’t mean to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part. I’m prepared to go to considerable lengths.” I continued, “You observed it closely and distinctly, but I have no objection to your looking at it again,” and I rose and placed it in his hand.
“A well-executed picture,” he said, “very soft, clear colouring, very graceful and correct drawing.”
“Yes, yes. I know all that. But what of the resemblance? Who is it like?”
Mastering some hesitation, he answered, “Miss Oliver, I presume.”
“Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I will promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this very picture, provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable to you. I don’t wish to throw away my time and trouble on an offering you would deem worthless.”
He continued to gaze at the picture, the longer he looked, the firmer he held it, the more he seemed to covet it. “It is like!” he murmured, “the eye is well managed, the colour, light, expression, are perfect. It smiles!”
“Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting? Tell me that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India, would it be a consolation to have that memento in your possession? or would the sight of it bring recollections calculated to enervate and distress?”
He now furtively raised his eyes, he glanced at me, irresolute, disturbed, he again surveyed the picture.
“That I should like to have it is certain, whether it would be judicious or wise is another question.”
All too easily could I offer my sympathies—for I had created numerous pictures of Mr Rochester—some in his full glory—only to render them in two when the joy was overtaken by pain.
Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that her father was not likely to oppose the match, I—less exalted in my views than St. John—had been strongly disposed in my own heart to advocate their union. It seemed to me that, should he become the possessor of Mr Oliver’s large fortune, he might do as much good with it as if he went and laid his genius out to wither, and his strength to waste, under a tropical sun. With this persuasion I now answered—
“As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were to take to yourself the original at once.”
By this time he had sat down, he had laid the picture on the table before him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over it. I discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my audacity. I saw even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed unapproachable—to hear it thus freely handled—was beginning to be felt by him as a new pleasure—an unhoped-for relief. Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all and to ‘burst’ with boldness and good-will into ‘the silent sea’ of their souls is often to confer on them the first of obligations.
“She likes you, I am sure,” said I, as I stood behind his chair, “and her father respects you. Moreover, she is a sweet girl—rather thoughtless, but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself and her. You ought to marry her.”
“Does she like me?” he asked.
“Certainly; better than she likes anyone else. She talks of you continually, there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so often.”
“It is very pleasant to hear this,” he said—“very, go on for another quarter of an hour.” And he actually took out his watch and laid it upon the table to measure the time.
“But where is the use of going on,” I asked, “when you are probably preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to fetter your heart?”
“Don’t imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am doing, human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and with such labour prepared—so assiduously sown with the seeds of good intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a nectarous flood—the young germs swamped—delicious poison cankering them, now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing room at Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver’s feet, she is talking to me with her sweet voice—gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has copied so well—smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine—I am hers—this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say nothing—my heart is full of delight—my senses are entranced—let the time I marked pass in peace.”
I humoured him, the watch ticked on, he breathed fast and low. I stood silent. Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the watch, laid the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth.
“Now,” said he, “that little space was given to delirium and delusion. I rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck voluntarily under her yoke of flowers. I tasted her cup. The pillow was burning, there is an asp in the garland, the wine has a bitter taste, her promises are hollow—her offers false. I see and know all this.”
I gazed at him in wonder.
“It is strange,” pursued he, “that while I love Rosamond Oliver so wildly—with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating—I experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a good wife, that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage and that to twelve months’ rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know.”
“Strange indeed!” I could not help ejaculating.
“While something in me,” he went on, “is acutely sensible to her charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects, they are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to—co-operate in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female apostle? Rosamond a missionary’s wife? No!”
“But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme.”
“Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race—of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance—of substituting peace for war—freedom for bondage—religion for superstition—the hope of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to live for.”
After a considerable pause, I said—“And Miss Oliver? Are her disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?”
“Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers, in less than a month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will forget me and will marry, probably, someone who will make her far happier than I should do.”
“You speak coolly enough, but you suffer in the conflict. You are wasting away.”
“No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects, yet unsettled—my departure, continually procrastinated. Only this morning, I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I have been so long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three months
to come yet and perhaps the three months may extend to six.”
“You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the schoolroom.”
Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not imagined that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. I knew of what I spoke. For me, I felt at home in this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong, discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of confidence, and won a place by their heart’s very hearthstone.
“You are original,” said he, “and not timid. There is something brave in your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye, but allow me to assure you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think them more profound and potent than they are. You give me a larger allowance of sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I colour, and when I shade before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I know it is ignoble, a mere fever of the flesh, not, I declare, the convulsion of the soul. That is just as fixed as a rock, firm set in the depths of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am—a cold hard man.”
I smiled incredulously.
“You have taken my confidence by storm,” he continued, “and now it is much at your service. I am simply, in my original state—stripped of that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human deformity—a cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection only, of all the sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason, and not feeling, is my guide; my ambition is unlimited, my desire to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable. I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence. I watch your career with interest, because I consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic woman. Not because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through, or what you still suffer.”
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