two broad steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse
of a fairy place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view
beyond. Yet it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it
a boudoir, both spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid
brilliant garlands of flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of
white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in rich contrast
crimson couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian
mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between
the windows large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and
fire.
'In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!' said I. 'No
dust, no canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would
think they were inhabited daily.'
'Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester's visits here are rare,
they are always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put
him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of
arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in
readiness.'
'Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?'
'Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman's tastes and habits,
and he expects to have things managed in conformity to them.'
'Do you like him? Is he generally liked?'
'Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all
the land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to
the Rochesters time out of mind.'
'Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like
him? Is he liked for himself?'
'I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is
considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has
never lived much amongst them.'
'But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?'
'Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather
peculiar, perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great
deal of the world, I should think. I daresay he is clever, but I never
had much conversation with him.'
'In what way is he peculiar?'
'I don't know- it is not easy to describe- nothing striking, but
you feel it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether
he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you
don't thoroughly understand him, in short- at least, I don't: but it
is of no consequence, he is a very good master.'
This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer
and mine. There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a
character, or observing and describing salient points, either in
persons or things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class;
my queries puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr.
Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor- nothing more:
she inquired and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my
wish to gain a more definite notion of his identity.
When we left the dining-room she proposed to show me over the
rest of the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs,
admiring as I went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The
large front chambers I thought especially grand: and some of the
third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were interesting from their
air of antiquity. The furniture once appropriated to the lower
apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions
changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement
showed bed-steads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut,
looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs'
heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs,
high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose
cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced
embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been
coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield
Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory. I liked the
hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by
no means coveted a night's repose on one of those wide and heavy beds:
shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought
old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of
strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings,-
all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of
moonlight.
'Do the servants sleep in these rooms?' I asked.
'No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no
one ever sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost
at Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt.'
'So I think: you have no ghost, then?'
'None that I ever heard of,' returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.
'Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?'
'I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been
rather a violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though,
that is the reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now.'
'Yes- "after life's fitful fever they sleep well,"' I muttered.
'Where are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?' for she was moving away.
'On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?' I
followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence
by a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now
on a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests.
Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the
grounds laid out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely
girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park,
dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a
path visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with
foliage; the church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all
reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon bounded by a
propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No feature in the
scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I turned from it
and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the
ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of
blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene of
grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre,
and over which I had been gazing with delight.
Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I,
by dint of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded
to descend the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage
to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third
storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far
end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut,
like a corridor in some Bluebeard's castle.
While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so
still a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh;
distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for
an instant; it began again, louder: for at first, though distinct,
it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake
an echo in every lonely chamber; though it originated but in one,
and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents issued.
'Mrs. Fairfax!' I called out: for I now heard her descending the
great stairs. 'Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?'
'Some of the servants, very likely,' she answered: 'perhaps Grace
Poole.'
'Did you hear it?' I again inquired.
'Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms.
Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together.'
The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in
an odd murmur.
'Grace!' exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.
I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as
tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it
was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the
curious cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear,
I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed
me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.
The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,- a woman of
between thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and
with a hard, plain face: any apparition less romantic or less
ghostly could scarcely be conceived.
'Too much noise, Grace,' said Mrs. Fairfax. 'Remember
directions!' Grace curtseyed silently and went in.
'She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her
housemaid's work,' continued the widow; 'not altogether
unobjectionable in some points, but she does well enough. By the
bye, how have you got on with your new pupil this morning?'
The conversation, thus turned on Adele, continued till we reached
the light and cheerful region below. Adele came running to meet us
in the hall, exclaiming-
'Mesdames, vous etes servies!' adding, 'J'ai bien faim, moi!'
We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax's room.
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CHAPTER XII
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THE promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to
Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer
acquaintance with the place and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out
to be what she appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of
competent education and average intelligence. My pupil was a lively
child, who had been spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes
wayward; but as she was committed entirely to my care, and no
injudicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans for
her improvement, she soon forgot her little freaks, and became
obedient and teachable. She had no great talents, no marked traits
of character, no peculiar development of feeling or taste which raised
her one inch above the ordinary level of childhood; but neither had
she any deficiency or vice which sunk her below it. She made
reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps
not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay prattle,
and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of
attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.
This, par parenthese, will be thought cool language by persons
who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children,
and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for
them an idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter
parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling
the truth. I felt a conscientious solicitude for Adele's welfare and
progress, and a quiet liking for her little self: just as I
cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and
a pleasure in her society proportionate to the tranquil regard she had
for me, and the moderation of her mind and character.
Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and
then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to
the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele
played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom,
I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and
having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and
hill, and along dim sky-line- that then I longed for a power of vision
which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world,
towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen- that then I
desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of
intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character,
than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax,
and what was good in Adele; but I believed in the existence of other
and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to
behold.
Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called
discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my
nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to
walk along the corridor of the third storey, backwards and forwards,
safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's
eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it- and,
certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by
the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded
it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that
was never ended- a tale my imagination created, and narrated
continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling,
that I desired and had not in my actual existence.
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with
tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they
cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine,
and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows
how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses
of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm
generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for
their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their
brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a
stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded
in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to
