stood at his side.
'Have you a sponge in your room?' he asked in a whisper.
'Yes, sir.'
'Have you any salts- volatile salts?'
'Yes.'
'Go back and fetch both.'
I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my
drawer, and once more retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a
key in his hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put
it in the lock; he paused, and addressed me again.
'You don't turn sick at the sight of blood?'
'I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.'
I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no
faintness.
'Just give me your hand,' he said: 'it will not do to risk a
fainting fit.'
I put my fingers into his. 'Warm and steady,' was his remark: he
turned the key and opened the door.
I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax
showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the
tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent,
which had then been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out
of the room within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost
like a dog quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said
to me, 'Wait a minute,' and he went forward to the inner apartment.
A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and
terminating in Grace Poole's own goblin ha! ha! She then was there. He
made some sort of arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low
voice address him: he came out and closed the door behind him.
'Here, Jane!' he said; and I walked round to the other side of a
large bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable
portion of the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat
in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his
head leant back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle
over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face- the
stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side and one arm, was
almost soaked in blood.
'Hold the candle,' said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched
a basin of water from the washstand: 'Hold that,' said he. I obeyed.
He took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like
face; he asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils.
Mr. Mason shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester
opened the shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were
bandaged: he sponged away blood, trickling fast down.
'Is there immediate danger?' murmured Mr. Mason.
'Pooh! No- a mere scratch. Don't be so overcome, man: bear up! I'll
fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you'll be able to be removed by
morning, I hope. Jane,' he continued.
'Sir?'
'I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an
hour, or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when
it returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that
stand to his lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to
him on any pretext- and- Richard, it will be at the peril of your life
if you speak to her: open your lips- agitate yourself- and I'll not
answer for the consequences.'
Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move;
fear, either of death or of something else, appeared almost to
paralyse him. Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand,
and I proceeded to use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then
saying, 'Remember!- No conversation,' he left the room. I
experienced a strange feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the
sound of his retreating step ceased to be heard.
Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its
mystic cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my
eyes and hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door:
yes- that was appalling- the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the
thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me.
I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly
countenance- these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose- these eyes
now shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on
me, and ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand
again and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the
trickling gore. I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on
my employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry
round me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old bed, and
quiver strangely over the doors of a great cabinet opposite- whose
front, divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads
of the twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in a
frame; while above them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a dying
Christ.
According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered
here or glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that
bent his brow; now St. John's long hair that waved; and anon the
devilish face of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed
gathering life and threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor- of
Satan himself- in his subordinate's form.
Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for
the movements of the wild beast or the fiend in yonder side den. But
since Mr. Rochester's visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I
heard but three sounds at three long intervals,- a step creak, a
momentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human
groan.
Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this, that lived
incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled
nor subdued by the owner?- what mystery, that broke out now in fire
and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it,
that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice,
now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?
And this man I bent over- this commonplace, quiet stranger- how had
he become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at
him? What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely
season, when he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr.
Rochester assign him an apartment below- what brought him here? And
why, now, was he so tame under the violence or treachery done him? Why
did he so quietly submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced?
Why did Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment? His guest had been
outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted
against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in
oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester;
that the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway over the
inertness of the former: the few words which had passed between them
assured me of this. It was evident that in their former intercourse,
the passive disposition of the one had been habitually influenced by
the active energy of the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Rochester's
dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason's arrival? Why had the mere name
of this unresisting individual- whom his word now sufficed to
control like a child- fallen on him, a few hours since, as a
thunderbolt might fall on an oak?
Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered:
'Jane, I have got a blow- I have got a blow, Jane.' I could not forget
how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no
light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the
vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester.
'When will he come? When will he come?' I cried inwardly, as the
night lingered and lingered- as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned,
sickened: and neither day nor aid arrived. I had, again and again,
held the water to Mason's white lips; again and again offered him
the stimulating salts: my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or
mental suffering, or loss of blood, or all three combined, were fast
prostrating his strength. He moaned so, and looked so weak, wild,
and lost, I feared he was dying; and I might not even speak to him.
The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived
streaks of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then
approaching. Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his
distant kennel in the courtyard: hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted:
in five minutes more the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me
my watch was relieved. It could not have lasted more than two hours:
many a week has seemed shorter.
Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to
fetch.
'Now, Carter, be on the alert,' he said to this last: 'I give you
but half an hour for dressing the wound, fastening the bandages,
getting the patient downstairs and all.'
'But is he fit to move, sir?'
'No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his
spirits must be kept up. Come, set to work.'
Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland
blind, let in all the daylight he could; and I was surprised and
cheered to see how far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were
beginning to brighten the east. Then he approached Mason, whom the
surgeon was already handling.
'Now, my good fellow, how are you?' he asked.
'She's done for me, I fear,' was the faint reply.
'Not a whit!- courage! This day fortnight you'll hardly be a pin
the worse of it: you've lost a little blood; that's all. Carter,
assure him there's no danger.'
'I can do that conscientiously,' said Carter, who had now undone
the bandages; 'only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would
not have bled so much- but how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is
torn as well as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there
have been teeth here!'
'She bit me,' he murmured. 'She worried me like a tigress, when
Rochester got the knife from her.'
'You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her
at once,' said Mr. Rochester.
'But under such circumstances, what could one do?' returned
Mason. 'Oh, it was frightful!' he added, shuddering. 'And I did not
expect it: she looked so quiet at first.'
'I warned you,' was his friend's answer; 'I said- be on your
guard when you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till
to-morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the
interview to-night, and alone.'
'I thought I could have done some good.'
'You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear
you: but, however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer
enough for not taking my advice; so I'll say no more. Carter-
hurry!- hurry! The sun will soon rise, and I must have him off.'
'Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to
this other wound in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think.'
'She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart,' said Mason.
I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of
disgust, horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to
distortion, but he only said-
'Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don't
repeat it.'
'I wish I could forget it,' was the answer.
'You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to
Spanish Town, you may think of her as dead and buried- or rather,
you need not think of her at all.'
'Impossible to forget this night!'
'It is not impossible: have some energy, man. You thought you
were as dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive and
talking now. There!- Carter has done with you or nearly so; I'll
make you decent in a trice. Jane' (he turned to me for the first
time since his re-entrance), 'take this key: go down into my
bedroom, and walk straight forward into my dressing-room: open the top
drawer of the wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and
neck-handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble.'
I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the
articles named, and returned with them.
'Now,' said he, 'go to the other side of the bed while I order
his toilet; but don't leave the room: you may be wanted again.'
I retired as directed.
'Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?' inquired Mr.
Rochester presently.
'No, sir; all was very still.'
'We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both
for your sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have
striven long to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at
last. Here, Carter, help him on with his waistcoat. Where did you
leave your furred cloak? You can't travel a mile without that, I know,
in this damned cold climate. In your room?- Jane, run down to Mr.
Mason's room,- the one next mine,- and fetch a cloak you will see
there.'
Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined
and edged with fur.
'Now, I've another errand for you,' said my untiring master; you
must away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet,
Jane!- a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You
must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little
phial and a little glass you will find there,- quick!'
I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.
