decided as her glance, as harsh as her features.
'I don't care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I
ought to warn you, I have no faith.'
'It's like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I
heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold.'
'Did you? You've a quick ear.'
'I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain.'
'You need them all in your trade.'
'I do; especially when I've customers like you to deal with. Why
don't you tremble?'
'I'm not cold.'
'Why don't you turn pale?'
'I am not sick.'
'Why don't you consult my art?'
'I'm not silly.'
The old crone 'nichered' a laugh under her bonnet and bandage;
she then drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to
smoke. Having indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent
body, took the pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the
fire, said very deliberately-
'You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly.'
'Prove it,' I rejoined.
'I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no
contact strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick;
because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to
man, keeps far away from you. You are silly, because, suffer as you
may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to
meet it where it waits you.'
She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her
smoking with vigour.
'You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a
solitary dependant in a great house.'
'I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost
any one?'
'In my circumstances.'
'Yes; just so, in your circumstances: but find me another precisely
placed as you are.'
'It would be easy to find you thousands.'
'You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly
situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it. The
materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine
them. Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and
bliss results.'
'I don't understand enigmas. I never could guess a riddle in my
life.'
'If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm.'
'And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?'
'To be sure.'
I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot which
she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned
it, she told me to hold out my hand. I did. She approached her face to
the palm, and pored over it without touching it.
'It is too fine,' said she. 'I can make nothing of such a hand as
that; almost without lines: besides, what is in a palm? Destiny is not
written there.'
'I believe you,' said I.
'No,' she continued, 'it is in the face: on the forehead, about the
eyes, in the eyes themselves, in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and
lift up your head.'
'Ah! now you are coming to reality,' I said, as I obeyed her. 'I
shall begin to put some faith in you presently.'
I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that
a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare, however,
as she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine, it
illumined.
'I wonder with what feelings you came to me to-night,' she said,
when she had examined me a while. 'I wonder what thoughts are busy
in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the
fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic-lantern: just
as little sympathetic communion passing between you and them as if
they were really mere shadows of human forms, and not the actual
substance.'
'I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes, but seldom sad.'
'Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you
with whispers of the future?'
'Not I. The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my
earnings to set up a school some day in a little house rented by
myself.'
'A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that
window-seat (you see I know your habits)-'
'You have learned them from the servants.'
'Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak
truth, I have an acquaintance with one of them, Mrs. Poole-'
I started to my feet when I heard the name.
'You have- have you?' thought I; 'there is diablerie in the
business after all, then!'
'Don't be alarmed,' continued the strange being; 'she's a safe hand
is Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one may repose confidence in her.
But, as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of
nothing but your future school? Have you no present interest in any of
the company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you? Is there not
one face you study? one figure whose movements you follow with at
least curiosity?'
'I like to observe all the faces and all the figures.'
'But do you never single one from the rest-or it may be, two?'
'I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling
a tale: it amuses me to watch them.'
'What tale do you like best to hear?'
'Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same
theme- courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe-
marriage.'
'And do you like that monotonous theme?'
'Positively, I don't care about it: it is nothing to me.'
'Nothing to you? When a lady, young and full of life and health,
charming with beauty and endowed with the gifts of rank and fortune,
sits and smiles in the eyes of a gentleman you-'
'I what?'
'You know- and perhaps think well of.'
'I don't know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged a
syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I consider
some respectable, and stately, and middle-aged, and others young,
dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at liberty
to be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my feeling
disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me.'
'You don't know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a
syllable with one of them? Will you say that of the master of the
house!'
'He is not at home.'
'A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote
this morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that
circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance- blot him,
as it were, out of existence?'
'No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the
theme you had introduced.'
'I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of
late so many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester's eyes that they
overflow like two cups filled above the brim: have you never
remarked that?'
'Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests.'
'No question about his right: but have you never observed that,
of all the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been
favoured with the most lively and the most continuous?'
'The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.'
I said this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk,
voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One
unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got
involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit
had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings and
taking record of every pulse.
'Eagerness of a listener!' repeated she: 'yes; Mr. Rochester has
sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took
such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was
so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given
him; you have noticed this?'
'Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face.'
'Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if
not gratitude?'
I said nothing.
'You have seen love: have you not?- and, looking forward, you
have seen him married, and beheld his bride happy?'
'Humph! Not exactly. Your witch's skill is rather at fault
sometimes.'
'What the devil have you seen, then?'
'Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known
that Mr. Rochester is to be married?'
'Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram.'
'Shortly?'
'Appearances would warrant that conclusion: and, no doubt
(though, with an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem
to question it), they will be a superlatively happy pair. He must love
such a handsome, noble, witty, accomplished lady; and probably she
loves him, or, if not his person, at least his purse. I know she
considers the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; though
(God pardon me!) I told her something on that point about an hour
ago which made her look wondrous grave: the corners of her mouth
fell half an inch. I would advise her black-aviced suitor to look out:
if another comes, with a longer or clearer rent-roll,- he's dished-'
'But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester's fortune: I
came to hear my own; and you have told me nothing of it.'
'Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait
contradicted another. Chance has meted you a measure of happiness:
that I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has laid
it carefully on one side for you. I saw her do it. It depends on
yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether you
will do so, is the problem I study. Kneel again on the rug.'
'Don't keep me long; the fire scorches me.'
I knelt. She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back
in her chair. She began muttering,-
'The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks
soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon; it is susceptible;
impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it
ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the
lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness. It turns
from me; it will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a
mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made,-
to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and
reserve only confirm me in my opinion. The eye is favourable.
'As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is
disposed to impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it
would be silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it
was never intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of
solitude; it is a mouth which should speak much and smile often, and
have human affection for its interlocutor. That feature too is
propitious.
'I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow
professes to say,- "I can live alone, if self-respect and
circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy
bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive
if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a
price I cannot afford to give." The forehead declares, "Reason sits
firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away
and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like
true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of
vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every
argument, and the casting vote in every decision. Strong wind,
earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding
of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of
conscience."
'Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have
formed my plans- right plans I deem them- and in them I have
attended to the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I know
how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss
offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were
detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution- such is
not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight- to earn gratitude,
not to wring tears of blood- no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in
smiles, in endearments, in sweet- That will do. I think I rave in a
kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish now to protract this
moment ad infinitum; but I dare not. So far I have governed myself
thoroughly. I have acted as I inwardly swore I would act; but
further might try me beyond my strength. Rise, Miss Eyre: leave me;
"the play is played out."'
Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I
dream still? The old woman's voice had changed: her accent, her
gesture, and all were familiar to me as my own face in a glass- as the
speech of my own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred
the fire, and I looked again: but she drew her bonnet and her
bandage closer about her face, and again beckoned me to depart. The
flame illuminated her hand stretched out: roused now, and on the alert
for discoveries, I at once noticed that hand. It was no more the
