'Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?' Iasked, when I had partaken of what she offered me.
'What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf,' returned thegood lady, approaching her ear to my mouth.
I repeated the question more distinctly.
'Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of yourfuture pupil.'
'Indeed! Then she is not your daughter?'
'No,- I have no family.'
I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what wayMiss Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was notpolite to ask too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time.
'I am so glad,' she continued, as she sat down opposite to me,and took the cat on her knee; 'I am so glad you are come; it will bequite pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it ispleasant at any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, ratherneglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a respectableplace; yet you know in winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in thebest quarters. I say alone- Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and Johnand his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are onlyservants, and one can't converse with them on terms of equality: onemust keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one's authority.I'm sure last winter (it was a very severe one, if you recollect,and when it did not snow, it rained and blew), not a creature butthe butcher and postman came to the house, from November tillFebruary; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night afternight alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don'tthink the poor girl liked the task much: she felt it confining. Inspring and summer one got on better: sunshine and long days makesuch a difference; and then, just at the commencement of thisautumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child makes ahouse alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite gay.'
My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk;and I drew my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincerewish that she might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated.
'But I'll not keep you sitting up late to-night,' said she; 'itis on the stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling allday: you must feel tired. If you have got your feet well warmed,I'll show you your bedroom. I've had the room next to mine preparedfor you; it is only a small apartment, but I thought you would like itbetter than one of the large front chambers: to be sure they havefiner furniture, but they are so dreary and solitary, I never sleep inthem myself.'
I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really feltfatigued with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. Shetook her candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went tosee if the hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock,she led the way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; thestaircase window was high and latticed; both it and the long galleryinto which the bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to achurch rather than a house. A very chill and vault-like air pervadedthe stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space andsolitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, tofind it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style.
When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I hadfastened my door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effacedthe eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spaciousstaircase, and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of mylittle room, I remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue andmental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven. The impulse ofgratitude swelled my heart, and I knelt down at the bedside, andoffered up thanks where thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose,to implore aid on my further path, and the power of meriting thekindness which seemed so frankly offered me before it was earned. Mycouch had no thorns in it that night; my solitary room no fears. Atonce weary and content, I slept soon and soundly: when I awoke itwas broad day.
The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sunshone in between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showingpapered walls and a carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks andstained plaster of Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view. Externalshave a great effect on the young: I thought that a fairer era oflife was beginning for me- one that was to have its flowers andpleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused bythe change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed allastir. I cannot precisely define what they expected, but it wassomething pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at anindefinite future period.
I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain- for Ihad no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity-I was still by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to bedisregardful of appearance or careless of the impression I made: onthe contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and toplease as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimesregretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosycheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall,stately, and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that Iwas so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and so marked.And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would bedifficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yetI had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when I hadbrushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frock- which,Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety-and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should dorespectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my newpupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Havingopened my chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight andneat on the toilet table, I ventured forth.
Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slipperysteps of oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; Ilooked at some pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented agrim man in a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearlnecklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clockwhose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time andrubbing. Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me; but thenI was so little accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which washalf of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fineautumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves andstill green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyedthe front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportionsnot vast, though considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not anobleman's seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look.Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery,whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn andgrounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separatedby a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong,knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of themansion's designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as thoseround Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation fromthe living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seemingto embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to findexistent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet,whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one ofthese hills; the church of the district stood nearer Thornfield: itsold tower-top looked over a knoll between the house and gates.
I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yetlistening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying thewide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place itwas for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when thatlady appeared at the door.
'What! out already?' said she. 'I see you are an early riser.' Iwent up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of thehand.
'How do you like Thornfield?' she asked. I told her I liked it verymuch.
'Yes,' she said, 'it is a pretty place; but I fear it will begetting out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into hishead to come and reside here permanently; or, at least, visit itrather oftener: great houses and fine grounds require the presenceof the proprietor.'
'Mr. Rochester!' I exclaimed. 'Who is he?'
'The owner of Thornfield,' she responded quietly. 'Did you not knowhe was called Rochester?'
Of course I did not- I had never heard of him before; but the oldlady seemed to regard his existence as a universally understoodfact, with which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.
'I thought,' I continued, 'Thornfield belonged to you.'
'To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only thehousekeeper- the manager. To be sure I am distantly related to theRochesters by the mother's side, or at least my husband was; he wasa clergyman, incumbent of Hay- that little village yonder on the hill-and that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester'smother was a Fairfax, second cousin to my husband: but I never presumeon the connection- in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myselfquite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is alwayscivil, and I expect nothing more.'
'And the little girl- my pupil!'
'She is Mr. Rochester's ward; he commissioned me to find abelieve. Here she comes, with her "bonne," as she calls her nurse.'The enigma then was explained: this affable and kind little widowwas no great dame; but a dependant like myself. I did not like her theworse for that; on the contrary, I felt better pleased than ever.The equality between her and me was real; not the mere result ofcondescension on her part: so much the better- my position was all thefreer.
As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed byher attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who didnot at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps sevenor eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featuredface, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist.
'Good morning, Miss Adela,' said Mrs. Fairfax. 'Come and speak tothe lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman someday.' She approached.
'C'est la ma gouvernante!' said she, pointing to me, and addressingher nurse; who answered-
'Mais oui, certainement.'
'Are they foreigners?' I inquired, amazed at hearing the Frenchlanguage.
'The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent;and, I believe, never left it till within six months ago. When shefirst came here she could speak no English; now she can make shiftto talk it a little: I don't understand her, she mixes it so withFrench; but you will make out her meaning very well, I daresay.'
Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by aFrench lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing withMadame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the lastseven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily- applyingmyself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely aspossible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certaindegree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was notlikely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came andshook hands with me when she heard that I was her governess; and asI led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in herown tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seatedat the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with herlarge hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.
'Ah!' cried she, in French, 'you speak my language as well as Mr.Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so canSophie. She will be glad: nobody here understands her: MadameFairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me overthe sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked- how it did smoke!-and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr.Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, andSophie and I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell out ofmine; it was like a shelf. And Mademoiselle- what is your name?'
'Eyre- Jane Eyre.'
'Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning,before it was quite daylight, at a great city- a huge city, withvery dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty cleantown I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over aplank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach,which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this andfiner, called an hotel. We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophieused to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, calledthe Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pondwith beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs.'
'Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?' asked Mrs.Fairfax.
I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluenttongue of Madame Pierrot.
'I wish,' continued the good lady, 'you would ask her a question ortwo about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?'
'Adele,' I inquired, 'with whom did you live when you were inthat pretty clean town you spoke of?'
'I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin.Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A greatmany gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance beforethem, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall Ilet you hear me sing now?'
She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give aspecimen of her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she cameand placed herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurelybefore her, shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to theceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera. It was thestrain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of herlover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her inher brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the falseone that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of herdemeanour, how little his desertion has affected her.
The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but Isuppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of loveand jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad tastethat point was: at least I thought so.
