The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash down.
“Once more, why this refusal?” he asked.
“Formerly,” I answered, “because you did not love me now, I reply, because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me. You are killing me now.”
His lips and cheeks turned white—quite white.
“I should kill—I am killing you? Your words are such as ought not to be used; violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an unfortunate state of mind; they merit severe reproof. They would seem inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow, even until seventy-and-seven times.”102
I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious surface another and far deeper impression; I had burned it in.
“Now you will indeed hate me,” I said. “It is useless to attempt to conciliate you; I see I have made an eternal enemy of you.”
A fresh wrong did these words inflict; the worse, because they touched on the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew the steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.
“You utterly misinterpret my words,” I said, at once seizing his hand; “I have no intention to grieve or pain you—indeed I have not.”
Most bitterly he smiled—most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine. “And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I presume?” said he, after a considerable pause.
“Yes I will, as your assistant,” I answered.
A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell; only singular gleams scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. He spoke at last.
“I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you in such terms as I should have thought would have prevented your ever again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret—for your sake.”
I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at once. “Keep to common sense, St. John; you are verging on nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked; for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I will be your curate, if you like, but never your wife.”
Again he turned lividlyia pale; but, as before, controlled his passion perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly—
“A female curate who is not my wife would never suit me. With me, then, it seems you cannot go; but if you are sincere in your offer I will, while in town, speak to a married missionary whose wife needs a coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society’s aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonor of breaking your promise and deserting the band you engaged to join.”
Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard, and much too despotic, for the occasion. I replied—
“There is no dishonor, no breach of promise, no desertion, in the case. I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with strangers. With you I would have ventured much, because I admire, confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am convinced that, go when and with whom I would, I should not live long in that climate.”
“Ah! you are afraid of yourself,” he said, curling his lip.
“I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish me, would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide. Moreover, before I definitely resolve on quitting England, I will know for certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than by leaving it.”
“What do you mean?”
“It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on which I have long endured painful doubt; and I can go nowhere till by some means that doubt is removed.”
“I know where your heart turns, and to what it clings. The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have crushed it; now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr. Rochester?”
It was true. I confessed it by silence.
“Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?”
“I must find out what has become of him.”
“It remains for me, then,” he said, “to remember you in my prayers, and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway.103 I had thought I recognized in you one of the chosen. But God sees not as man sees; His will be done.”104
He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. He was soon out of sight.
On reentering the parlor, I found Diana standing at the window, looking very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I; she put her hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face.
“Jane,” she said, ”you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure there is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and you have on hand. I have watched you this half hour from the window; you must forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I hardly know what. St. John is a strange being—”
She paused—I did not speak; soon she resumed—
“That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting you, I am sure; he has long distinguished you, by a notice and interest he never showed any one else—to what end? I wish he loved you—does he, Jane?”
I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; “No, Di, not one whit.”
“Then why does he follow you so with his eyes—and get you so frequently alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side? Mary and I had both concluded he wished you to marry him.”
“He does—he has asked me to be his wife.”
Diana clapped her hands. “That is just what we hoped and thought! And you will marry him, Jane, won’t you? And then he will stay in England.”
“Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a fitting fellow-laborer in his Indian toils.”
“What! he wishes you to go to India?”
“Yes.”
“Madness!” she exclaimed. “You would not live three months there, I am certain. You never shall go; you have not consented—have you, Jane?”
“I have refused to marry him—”
“And have, consequently, displeased him?” she suggested.
“Deeply; he will never forgive me, I fear; yet I offered to accompany him as his sister.”
“It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you undertook—one of incessant fatigue—where fatigue kills even the strong; and you are weak. St. John—you know him—would urge you to impossibilities; with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot hours; and, unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to refuse his hand. You do not love him, then, Jane?”
“Not as a husband.”
“And yet he is a handsome fellow.”
“And I am so plain, you see, Di. We should never suit.”
“Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good, to be grilled alive in Calcutta.” And again she earnestly conjured me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.
“I must indeed,” I said; “for when, just now, I repeated the offer of serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing to accompany him unmarried, as if I had not from the first hoped to find in him a brother, and habitually regarded him as such.”
“What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?”
“You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again explained that it is not himself, but his office, he wishes to mate. He has told me I am formed for labor—not for love—which is tru
e, no doubt. But in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange, Di, to be chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?”
“Insupportable—unnatural—out of the question!”
“And then,” I continued, “though I have only sisterly affection for him now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him, because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case, my lot would become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him; and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know he would.”
“And yet St. John is a good man,” said Diana.
“He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest, in his progress, he should trample them down. Here he comes! I will leave you, Diana.” And I hastened up stairs as I saw him entering the garden.
But I was forced to meet him again at supper. During that meal he appeared just as composed as usual. I had thought he would hardly speak to me, and I was certain he had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial scheme; the sequel showed I was mistaken on both points. He addressed me precisely in his ordinary manner, or what had, of late, been his ordinary manner—one scrupulously polite. No doubt he had invoked the help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had roused in him, and now believed he had forgiven me once more.
For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first chapter of Revelation. It was at all times pleasant to listen, while from his lips fell the words of the Bible; never did his fine voice sound at once so sweet and full—never did his manner become so impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the oracles of God; and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone, that manner a more thrilling meaning, as he sat in the midst of his household circle (the May moon shining in through the uncurtained window, and rendering almost unnecessary the light of the candle on the table); as he sat there, bending over the great old Bible, and described from its page the vision of the new heaven and the new earth—told how God would come to dwell with men—how he would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and promised that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more pain, because the former things were passed away.
The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them, especially as I felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in sound, that in uttering them his eye had turned on me.
“He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But,” was slowly, distinctly read, “the fearful, the unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”105
Henceforward I knew what fate St. John feared for me.
A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked his enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter. The reader believed his name was already written in the Lamb’s book oflife,106 and he yearned after the hour which should admit him to the city to which the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor—which has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered, all his stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and resolved on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the weak-hearted-guidance for wanderers from the fold—a return, even at the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were luring from the narrow path. He asked, he urged, he claimed, the boon of a brand snatched from the burning.107 Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed. He felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely, others who heard him plead for it could not but feel it too.
The prayer over, we took leave of him; he was to go at a very early hour in the morning. Diana and Mary, having kissed him, left the room, in compliance, I think, with a whispered hint from him; I tendered my hand, and wished him a pleasant journey.
“Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a fortnight; that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. If I listened to human pride, I should say no more to you of marriage with me; but I listen to my duty, and keep steadily in view my first aim—to do all things to the glory of God. My master was long suffering; so will I be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a vessel of wrath; repent—resolve, while there is yet time. Remember, we are bid to work while it is day—warned that ‘the night cometh when no man shall work.’108 Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good things in this life.109 God give you strength to choose that better part which shall not be taken from you!”110
He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had spoken earnestly, mildly; his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering sheep—or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is responsible. All men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not, whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots—provided only they be sincere—have their sublime moments, when they subdue and rule. I felt veneration for St. John—veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point I had so long shunned. I was tempted to cease struggling with him—to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my own. I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been once before, in a different way, by another. I was a fool both times. To have yielded then would have been an error of principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment. So I think at this hour, when I look back to the crisis through the quiet medium of time, I was unconscious of folly at the instant.
I stood motionless under my hierophant’s touch. My refusals were forgotten—my fears overcome—my wrestlings paralyzed. The impossible—i.e., my marriage with St. John—was fast becoming the possible. All was changing utterly, with a sudden sweep. Religion called—angels beckoned—God commanded—life rolled together like a scroll111-death’s gates opening, showed eternity beyond; it seemed that, for safety and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a second. The dim room was full of visions.
“Could you decide now?” asked the missionary. The inquiry was put in gentle tones; he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness! how far more potent is it than force! I could resist St. John’s wrath; I grew pliant as a reed under his kindness. Yet I knew all the time, if I yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day, of my former rebellion. His nature was not changed by one hour of solemn prayer; it was only elevated.
“I could decide if I were but certain,” I answered; “were I but convinced that it is God’s will I should marry you, I could vow to marry you here and now—come afterward what would!”
“My prayers are heard!” ejaculated St. John. He pressed his hand firmer on my head, as if he claimed me; he surrounded me with his arm, almost as if he loved me (I say almost—I knew the difference—for I had felt what it was to be loved; but like him, I had now put love out of the question, and thought only of duty); I contended with my inward dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely, deeply, fervently longed to do what was right, and only that. “Show me—show me the path!” I entreated of Heaven. I was excited more than I had ever been; and whether what followed was the effect of excitement, the reader shall judge.
All the house was still, for I believe all except St. John and myself were now retired to rest. The one candle was dying out; the room was full of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick; I heard it throb. Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it through
, and passed at once to my head and extremities. The feeling was not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling; it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now summoned and forced to wake. They rose expectant; eye and ear waited, while the flesh quivered on my bones.
“What have you heard! What do you see?” asked St. John. I saw nothing, but I heard a voice somewhere cry,
“Jane! Jane! Jane!” nothing more.
“Oh, God! what is it?” I gasped.
I might have said, “Where is it?” for it did not seem in the room—nor in the house—nor in the garden; it did not come out of the air—nor from under the earth—nor from overhead. I had heard it—where or whence, forever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human being—a known, loved, well-remembered voice—that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe—wildly, eerily, urgently.
“I am coming!” I cried. “Wait for me! Oh, I will come!” I flew to the door, and looked into the passage; it was dark. I ran out into the garden; it was void.
“Where are you?” I exclaimed.
The hills beyond Marsh-Glen sent the answer faintly back, “Where are you!” I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs; all was moorland loneliness and midnight hush.
“Down superstition!” I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the black yew at the gate. “This is not thy deception, nor thy witchcraft; it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did—no miracle—but her best.”
I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained me. It was my turn to assume ascendency. My powers were in play, and in force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to leave me; I must, and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is energy to command well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to my chamber, locked myself in, fell on my knees, and prayed in my way—a different way to St. John‘s—but effective in its own fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit, and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet. I rose from the thanksgiving—took a resolve—and lay down, unscared, enlightened—eager but for the daylight.
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