were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other
despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment
is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too
bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.
It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on
the sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a
saint's-day service at the new church- for in matters of religion
she was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual
discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or
foul, she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on
week-days as there were prayers.
I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped,
who lay there almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a
remittent attention: the hired nurse, being little looked after, would
slip out of the room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful; but
she had her own family to mind, and could only come occasionally to
the hall. I found the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected: no nurse
was there; the patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid
face sunk in the pillows: the fire was dying in the grate. I renewed
the fuel, re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could
not now gaze on me, and then I moved away to the window.
The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew
tempestuously: 'One lies there,' I thought, 'who will soon be beyond
the war of earthly elements. Whither will that spirit- now
struggling to quit its material tenement- flit when at length
released?'
In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns,
recalled her dying words- her faith- her doctrine of the equality of
disembodied souls. I was still listening in thought to her
well-remembered tones- still picturing her pale and spiritual
aspect, her wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid
deathbed, and whispered her longing to be restored to her divine
Father's bosom- when a feeble voice murmured from the couch behind:
'Who is that?'
I knew Mrs. Reed had not spoken for days: was she reviving? I
went up to her.
'It is I, Aunt Reed.'
'Who- I?' was her answer. 'Who are you?' looking at me with
surprise and a sort of alarm, but still not wildly. 'You are quite a
stranger to me- where is Bessie?'
'She is at the lodge, aunt.'
'Aunt,' she repeated. 'Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the
Gibsons; and yet I know you- that face, and the eyes and forehead, are
quite familiar to me: you are like- why, you are like Jane Eyre!'
I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring
my identity.
'Yet,' said she, 'I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts
deceive me. I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where
none exists: besides, in eight years she must be so changed.' I now
gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me
to be: and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were
quite collected, I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to
fetch me from Thornfield.
'I am very ill, I know,' she said ere long. 'I was trying to turn
myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as
well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in
health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the
nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?'
I assured her we were alone.
'Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in
breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own
child; the other-' she stopped. 'After all, it is of no great
importance, perhaps,' she murmured to herself: 'and then I may get
better; and to humble myself so to her is painful.'
She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face
changed; she seemed to experience some inward sensation- the
precursor, perhaps, of the last pang.
'Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me: I had better tell
her.- Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you
will see there.'
I obeyed her directions. 'Read the letter,' she said.
It was short, and thus conceived:-
'MADAM,- Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my
niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is? It is my intention to
write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence
has blessed my endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am
unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and
bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave.- I am, Madam,
etc., etc.,
'JOHN EYRE, Madeira.'
It was dated three years back.
'Why did I never hear of this?' I asked.
'Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a
hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct
to me, Jane- the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in
which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the
world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the
very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated
you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations
when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt
fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me
with human eyes and cursed me in a man's voice.- Bring me some
water! Oh, make haste!'
'Dear Mrs. Reed,' said I, as I offered her the draught she
required, 'think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind.
Forgive me for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight, nine
years have passed since that day.'
She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the
water and drawn breath, she went on thus-
'I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge: for you
to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and
comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was
sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died
of typhus fever at Lowood. Now act as you please: write and contradict
my assertion- expose my falsehood as soon as you like. You were
born, I think, to be my torment: my last hour is racked by the
recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been
tempted to commit.'
'If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to
regard me with kindness and forgiveness-'
'You have a very bad disposition,' said she, 'and one to this day I
feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be
patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break
out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend.'
'My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but
not vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been
glad to love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to
be reconciled to you now: kiss me, aunt.'
I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She said
I oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded water.
As I laid her down- for I raised her and supported her on my arm while
she drank- I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine: the
feeble fingers shrank from my touch- the glazing eyes shunned my gaze.
'Love me, then, or hate me, as you will,' I said at last, 'you have
my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God's, and be at peace.'
Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the
effort to change her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever
hated me- dying, she must hate me still.
The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half
an hour longer, hoping to see some sign of amity: but she gave none.
She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally: at
twelve o'clock that night she died. I was not present to close her
eyes, nor were either of her daughters. They came to tell us the
next morning that all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza
and I went to look at her: Georgiana, who had burst out into loud
weeping, said she dared not go. There was stretched Sarah Reed's
once robust and active frame, rigid and still: her eye of flint was
covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore yet the
impress of her inexorable soul. A strange and solemn object was that
corpse to me. I gazed on it with gloom and pain: nothing soft, nothing
sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or subduing did it inspire; only a
grating anguish for her woes- not my loss- and a sombre tearless
dismay at the fearfulness of death in such a form.
Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes
she observed-
'With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her
life was shortened by trouble.' And then a spasm constricted her mouth
for an instant: as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so
did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear.
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CHAPTER XXII
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MR. ROCHESTER had given me but one week's leave of absence: yet a
month elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave
immediately after the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till
she could get off to London, whither she was now at last invited by
her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down to direct his sister's
interment and settle the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded
being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in
her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I
bore with her feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as
well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and packing her
dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would idle; and I
thought to myself, 'If you and I were destined to live always
together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing.
I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I
should assign you your share of labour, and compel you to accomplish
it, or else it should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your
keeping some of those drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in
your own breast. It is only because our connection happens to be
very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I
consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on my part.'
At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza's turn to request
me to stay another week. Her plans required all her time and
attention, she said; she was about to depart for some unknown
bourne; and all day long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted
within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, and
holding no communication with any one. She wished me to look after the
house, to see callers, and answer notes of condolence.
One morning she told me I was at liberty. 'And,' she added, 'I am
obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct!
There is some difference between living with such an one as you and
with Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no one.
To-morrow,' she continued, 'I set out for the Continent. I shall
take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle- a nunnery you
would call it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote
myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and
to a careful study of the workings of their system: if I find it to
be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the
doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the
tenets of Rome and probably take the veil.'
I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to
dissuade her from it. 'The vocation will fit you to a hair,' I
thought: 'much good may it do you!'
When we parted, she said: 'Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you
well: you have some sense.'
I then returned: 'You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what
you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a
French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I
don't much care.'
'You are in the right,' said she; and with these words we each went
our separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to
her or her sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana
made an advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and
that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of
the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and which
she endowed with her fortune.
How people feel when they are returning home from an absence,
long or short, I did not know: I had never experienced the
sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a
child after a long walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and
later, what it was to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a
plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either.
Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no
magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of
attraction the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be
tried.
My journey seemed tedious- very tedious: fifty miles one day, a
night spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first
twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her
