'Do let her go, Mr. Rochester, if you please: it would be better.'
'Not it: she will be a restraint.'
He was quite peremptory, both in look and voice. The chill of
Mrs. Fairfax's warnings, and the damp of her doubts were upon me:
something of unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes. I
half lost the sense of power over him. I was about mechanically to
obey him, without further remonstrance; but as he helped me into the
carriage, he looked at my face.
'What is the matter?' he asked; 'all the sunshine is gone. Do you
really wish the bairn to go? Will it annoy you if she is left behind?'
'I would far rather she went, sir.'
'Then off for your bonnet, and back like a flash of lightning!'
cried he to Adele.
She obeyed him with what speed she might.
'After all, a single morning's interruption will not matter
much,' said he, 'when I mean shortly to claim you- your thoughts,
conversation, and company- for life.'
Adele, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing
her gratitude for my intercession: she was instantly stowed away
into a corner on the other side of him. She then peeped round to where
I sat; so stern a neighbour was too restrictive; to him, in his
present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask
of him any information.
'Let her come to me,' I entreated: 'she will, perhaps, trouble you,
sir: there is plenty of room on this side.'
He handed her over as if she had been a lapdog. 'I'll send her to
school yet,' he said, but now he was smiling.
Adele heard him, and asked if she was to go to school 'sans
mademoiselle?'
'Yes,' he replied, 'absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to
take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of
the white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall
live with me there, and only me.'
'She will have nothing to eat: you will starve her,' observed
Adele.
'I shall gather manna for her morning and night: the plains and
hillsides in the moon are bleached with manna, Adele.'
'She will want to warm herself: what will she do for a fire?'
'Fire rises out of the lunar mountains: when she is cold, I'll
carry her up to a peak, and lay her down on the edge of a crater.'
'Oh, qu'elle y sera mal- peu comfortable! And her clothes, they
will wear out: how can she get new ones?'
Mr. Rochester professed to be puzzled. 'Hem!' said he. 'What
would you do, Adele? Cudgel your brains for an expedient. How would
a white or a pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could
cut a pretty enough scarf out of a rainbow.'
'She is far better as she is,' concluded Adele, after musing some
time: 'besides, she would get tired of living with only you in the
moon. If I were mademoiselle, I would never consent to go with you.'
'She has consented: she has pledged her word.'
'But you can't get her there; there is no road to the moon: it is
all air; and neither you nor she can fly.'
'Adele, look at that field.' We were now outside Thornfield
gates, and bowling lightly along the smooth road to Millcote, where
the dust was well laid by the thunderstorm, and where the low hedges
and lofty timber trees on each side glistened green and
rain-refreshed.
'In that field, Adele, I was walking late one evening about a
fortnight since- the evening of the day you helped me to make hay in
the orchard meadows; and as I was tired with raking swaths, I sat down
to rest me on a stile; and there I took out a little book and a
pencil, and began to write about a misfortune that befell me long ago,
and a wish I had for happy days to come: I was writing away very fast,
though daylight was fading from the leaf, when something came up the
path and stopped two yards off me. I looked at it. It was a little
thing with a veil of gossamer on its head. I beckoned it to come
near me; it stood soon at my knee. I never spoke to it, and it never
spoke to me, in words; but I read its eyes, and it read mine; and
our speechless colloquy was to this effect-
'It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said; and its errand
was to make me happy: I must go with it out of the common world to a
lonely place- such as the moon, for instance- and it nodded its head
towards her horn, rising over Hayhill: it told me of the alabaster
cave and silver vale where we might live. I said I should like to
go; but reminded it, as you did me, that I had no wings to fly.
'"Oh," returned the fairy, "that does not signify! Here is a
talisman will remove all difficulties"; and she held out a pretty gold
ring. "Put it," she said, "on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I
am yours, and you are mine; and we shall leave earth, and make our own
heaven yonder." She nodded again at the moon. The ring, Adele, is in
my breeches-pocket, under the disguise of a sovereign: but I mean soon
to change it to a ring again.'
'But what has mademoiselle to do with it? I don't care for the
fairy: you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon?'
'Mademoiselle is a fairy,' he said, whispering mysteriously.
Whereupon I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part,
evinced a fund of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr.
Rochester 'un vrai menteur,' and assuring him that she made no account
whatever of his 'contes de fee,' and that 'du reste, il n'y avait
pas de fees, et quand meme il y en avait': she was sure they would
never appear to him, nor ever give him rings, or offer to live with
him in the moon.
The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me.
Mr. Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse: there I
was ordered to choose half a dozen dresses. I hated the business, I
begged leave to defer it: no- it should be gone through with now. By
dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I reduced the
half-dozen to two: these, however, he vowed he would select himself.
With anxiety I watched his eye rove over the gay stores: he fixed on a
rich silk of the most brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink satin.
I told him in a new series of whispers, that he might as well buy me a
gold gown and a silver bonnet at once: I should certainly never
venture to wear his choice. With infinite difficulty, for he was
stubborn as a stone, I persuaded him to make an exchange in favour
of a sober black satin and pearl-grey silk. 'It might pass for the
present,' he said; 'but he would yet see me glittering like a
parterre.'
Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of
a jeweller's shop: the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned
with a sense of annoyance and degradation. As we re-entered the
carriage, and I sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered what, in
the hurry of events, dark and bright, I had wholly forgotten- the
letter of my uncle, John Eyre, to Mrs. Reed: his intention to adopt me
and make me his legatee. 'It would, indeed, be a relief,' I thought,
'if I had ever so small an independency; I never can bear being
dressed like a doll by Mr. Rochester, or sitting like a second Danae
with the golden shower falling daily round me. I will write to Madeira
the moment I get home, and tell my uncle John I am going to be
married, and to whom: if I had but a prospect of one day bringing
Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I could better endure to be
kept by him now.' And somewhat relieved by this idea (which I failed
not to execute that day), I ventured once more to meet my master's and
lover's eye, which most pertinaciously sought mine, though I averted
both face and gaze. He smiled; and I thought his smile was such as a
sultan might, in a blissful and fond moment, bestow on a slave his
gold and gems had enriched: I crushed his hand, which was ever hunting
mine, vigorously, and thrust it back to him red with the passionate
pressure.
'You need not look in that way,' I said; 'if you do, I'll wear
nothing but my old Lowood frocks to the end of the chapter. I'll be
married in this lilac gingham: you may make a dressing-gown for
yourself out of the pearl-grey silk, and an infinite series of
waistcoats out of the black satin.'
He chuckled; he rubbed his hands. 'Oh, it is rich to see and hear
her!' he exclaimed. 'Is she original? Is she piquant? I would not
exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk's whole
seraglio, gazelle-eyes, houri forms, and all!'
The Eastern allusion bit me again. 'I'll not stand you an inch in
the stead of a seraglio,' I said; 'so don't consider me an
equivalent for one. If you have a fancy for anything in that line,
away with you, sir, to the bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and
lay out in extensive slave-purchases some of that spare cash you
seem at a loss to spend satisfactorily here.'
'And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many
tons of flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?'
'I'll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach
liberty to them that are enslaved- your harem inmates amongst the
rest. I'll get admitted there, and I'll stir up mutiny; and you,
three-tailed bashaw as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself
fettered amongst our hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your
bonds till you have signed a charter, the most liberal that despot
ever yet conferred.'
'I would consent to be at your mercy, Jane.'
'I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if you supplicated for it
with an eye like that. While you looked so, I should be certain that
whatever charter you might grant under coercion, your first act,
when released, would be to violate its conditions.'
'Why, Jane, what would you have? I fear you will compel me to go
through a private marriage ceremony, besides that performed at the
altar. You will stipulate, I see, for peculiar terms- what will they
be?'
'I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations.
Do you remember what you said of Celine Varens?- of the diamonds,
the cashmeres you gave her? I will not be your English Celine
Varens. I shall continue to act as Adele's governess; by that I
shall earn my board and lodging, and thirty pounds a year besides.
I'll furnish my own wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give
me nothing but-'
'Well, but what?'
'Your regard; and if I give you mine in return, that debt will be
quit.'
'Well, for cool native impudence and pure innate pride, you haven't
your equal,' said he. We were now approaching Thornfield. 'Will it
please you to dine with me to-day?' he asked, as we re-entered the
gates.
'No, thank you, sir.'
'And what for, "no, thank you?" if one may inquire.'
'I never have dined with you, sir: and I see no reason why I should
now: till-'
'Till what? You delight in half-phrases.'
'Till I can't help it.'
'Do you suppose I eat like an ogre or a ghoul, that you dread being
the companion of my repast?'
'I have formed no supposition on the subject, sir; but I want to go
on as usual for another month.'
'You will give up your governessing slavery at once.'
'Indeed, begging your pardon, sir, I shall not. I shall just go
on with it as usual. I shall keep out of your way all day, as I have
been accustomed to do: you may send for me in the evening, when you
feel disposed to see me, and I'll come then; but at no other time.'
'I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff, to comfort me under all
this, "pour me donner une contenance," as Adele would say; and
unfortunately I have neither my cigar-case nor my snuff-box. But
listen- whisper. It is your time now, little tyrant, but it will be
mine presently; and when once I have fairly seized you, to have and to
hold, I'll just- figuratively speaking- attach you to a chain like
this' (touching his watch-guard). 'Yes, bonny wee thing, I'll wear you
in my bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne.'
He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage, and while
he afterwards lifted out Adele, I entered the house, and made good
my retreat upstairs.
He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had
prepared an occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend
the whole time in a tete-a-tete conversation. I remembered his fine
voice; I knew he liked to sing- good singers generally do. I was no
vocalist myself, and, in his fastidious judgment, no musician, either;
but I delighted in listening when the performance was good. No
sooner had twilight, that hour of romance, began to lower her blue and
starry banner over the lattice, than I rose, opened the piano, and
entreated him, for the love of heaven, to give me a song. He said I
was a capricious witch, and that he would rather sing another time;
but I averred that no time was like the present.
'Did I like his voice?' he asked.
'Very much.' I was not fond of pampering that susceptible vanity of
his; but for once, and from motives of expediency, I would e'en soothe
and stimulate it.
'Then, Jane, you must play the accompaniment.'
'Very well, sir, I will try.'
