I did try, but was presently swept off the stool and denominated 'a
little bungler.' Being pushed unceremoniously to one side- which was
precisely what I wished- he usurped my place, and proceeded to
accompany himself: for he could play as well as sing. I hied me to the
window-recess. And while I sat there and looked out on the still trees
and dim lawn, to a sweet air was sung in mellow tones the following
strain:-
'The truest love that ever heart
Felt at its kindled core,
Did through each vein, in quickened start,
The tide of being pour.
Her coming was my hope each day,
Her parting was my pain;
The chance that did her steps delay
Was ice in every vein.
I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,
As I loved, loved to be;
And to this object did I press
As blind as eagerly.
But wide as pathless was the space
That lay our lives between,
And dangerous as the foamy race
Of ocean-surges green.
And haunted as a robber-path
Through wilderness or wood;
For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,
Between our spirits stood.
I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned;
I omens did defy:
Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,
I passed impetuous by.
On sped my rainbow, fast as light;
I flew as in a dream;
For glorious rose upon my sight
That child of Shower and Gleam.
Still bright on clouds of suffering dim
Shines that soft, solemn joy;
Nor care I now, how dense and grim
Disasters gather nigh.
I care not in this moment sweet,
Though all I have rushed o'er
Should come on pinion, strong and fleet,
Proclaiming vengeance sore:
Though haughty Hate should strike me down,
Right, bar approach to me,
And grinding Might, with furious frown,
Swear endless enmity.
My love has placed her little hand
With noble faith in mine,
And vowed that wedlock's sacred band
Our nature shall entwine.
My love has sworn, with sealing kiss,
With me to live- to die;
I have at last my nameless bliss:
As I love- loved am I!'
He rose and came towards me, and I saw his face all kindled, and
his full falcon-eye flashing, and tenderness and passion in every
lineament. I quailed momentarily- then I rallied. Soft scene, daring
demonstration, I would not have; and I stood in peril of both: a
weapon of defence must be prepared- I whetted my tongue: as he reached
me, I asked with asperity, 'whom he was going to marry now?'
'That was a strange question to be put by his darling Jane.'
'Indeed! I considered it a very natural and necessary one: he had
talked of his future wife dying with him. What did he mean by such a
pagan idea? I had no intention of dying with him- he might depend on
that.'
'Oh, all he longed, all he prayed for, was that I might live with
him! Death was not for such as I.'
'Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as
he had: but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a
suttee.'
'Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a
reconciling kiss?'
'No: I would rather be excused.'
Here I heard myself apostrophised as a 'hard little thing'; and
it was added, 'any other woman would have been melted to marrow at
hearing such stanzas crooned in her praise.'
I assured him I was naturally hard- very flinty, and that he
would often find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show
him divers rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks
elapsed: he should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made,
while there was yet time to rescind it.
'Would I be quiet and talk rationally?'
'I would be quiet if he liked, and as to talking rationally, I
flattered myself I was doing that now.'
He fretted, pished, and pshawed. 'Very good,' I thought; 'you may
fume and fidget as you please: but this is the best plan to pursue
with you, I am certain. I like you more than I can say; but I'll not
sink into a bathos of sentiment: and with this needle of repartee I'll
keep you from the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover, maintain by its
pungent aid that distance between you and myself most conducive to our
real mutual advantage.'
From less to more, I worked him up to considerable irritation;
then, after he had retired, in dudgeon, quite to the other end of
the room, I got up, and saying, 'I wish you good-night, sir,' in my
natural and wonted respectful manner, I slipped out by the side-door
and got away.
The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of
probation; and with the best success. He was kept, to be sure,
rather cross and crusty; but on the whole I could see he was
excellently entertained, and that a lamb-like submission and
turtle-dove sensibility, while fostering his despotism more, would
have pleased his judgment, satisfied his common sense, and even suited
his taste less.
In other people's presence I was, as formerly, deferential and
quiet; any other line of conduct being uncalled for: it was only in
the evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him. He
continued to send for me punctually the moment the clock struck seven;
though when I appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as
'love' and 'darling' on his lips: the best words at my service were
'provoking puppet,' 'malicious elf,' 'sprite,' 'changeling,' etc.
For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a
pinch on the arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the
ear. It was all right: at present I decidedly preferred these fierce
favours to anything more tender. Mrs. Fairfax, I saw, approved me: her
anxiety on my account vanished; therefore I was certain I did well.
Meantime, Mr. Rochester affirmed I was wearing him to skin and bone,
and threatened awful vengeance for my present conduct at some period
fast coming. I laughed in my sleeve at his menaces. 'I can keep you in
reasonable check now,' I reflected; 'and I don't doubt to be able to
do it hereafter: if one expedient loses its virtue, another must be
devised.'
Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather
have pleased than teased him. My future husband was becoming to me
my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven.
He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse
intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those
days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.
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CHAPTER XXV
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THE month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being
numbered. There was no putting off the day that advanced- the bridal
day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. I, at
least, had nothing more to do: there were my trunks, packed, locked,
corded, ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber;
to-morrow, at this time, they would be far on their road to London:
and so should I (D.V.),- or rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a
person whom as yet I knew not. The cards of address alone remained
to nail on: they lay, four little squares, in the drawer. Mr.
Rochester had himself written the direction, 'Mrs. Rochester,-
Hotel, London,' on each: I could not persuade myself to affix them, or
to have them affixed. Mrs. Rochester! She did not exist: she would not
be born till to-morrow, some time after eight o'clock A.M.; and I
would wait to be assured she had come into the world alive before I
assigned to her all that property. It was enough that in yonder
closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had
already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for
not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the pearl-coloured
robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped portmanteau. I shut
the closet to conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained;
which, at this evening hour- nine o'clock- gave out certainly a most
ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment. 'I will leave
you by yourself, white dream,' I said. 'I am feverish: I hear the wind
blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it.'
It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not
only the anticipation of the great change- the new life which was to
commence to-morrow: both these circumstances had their share,
doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me
forth at this late hour into the darkening grounds: but a third
cause influenced my mind more than they.
I had at heart a strange and anxious thought. Something had
happened which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen
the event but myself: it had taken place the preceding night. Mr.
Rochester that night was absent from home; nor was he yet returned:
business had called him to a small estate of two or three farms he
possessed thirty miles off- business it was requisite he should settle
in person, previous to his meditated departure from England. I
waited now his return; eager to disburthen my mind, and to seek of him
the solution of the enigma that perplexed me. Stay till he comes,
reader: and, when I disclose my secret to him, you shall share the
confidence.
I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which
all day had blown strong and full from the south, without, however,
bringing a speck of rain. Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it
seemed to augment its rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew
steadfastly one way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back
their boughs once in an hour; so continuous was the strain bending
their branchy heads northward- the clouds drifted from pole to pole,
fast following, mass on mass: no glimpse of blue sky had been
visible that July day.
It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind,
delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent
thundering through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the
wreck of the chestnut-tree; it stood up black and riven: the trunk,
split down the centre, gaped ghastly. The cloven halves were not
broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them
unsundered below; though community of vitality was destroyed- the
sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead, and
next winter's tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth:
as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree- a ruin, but an
entire ruin.
'You did right to hold fast to each other,' I said: as if the
monster-splinters were living things, and could hear me. 'I think,
scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a
little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the
faithful, honest roots: you will never have green leaves more- never
more see birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time
of pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate:
each of you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay.' As I
looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the
sky which filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half
overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and
buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind
fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and
water, poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and
I ran off again.
Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathered up the
apples with which the grass round the tree roots was thickly strewn;
then I employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe; I carried
them into the house and put them away in the storeroom. Then I
repaired to the library to ascertain whether the fire was lit, for,
though summer, I knew on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would
like to see a cheerful hearth when he came in: yes, the fire had
been kindled some time, and burnt well. I placed his arm-chair by
the chimney-corner: I wheeled the table near it: I let down the
curtain, and had the candles brought in ready for lighting. More
restless than ever, when I had completed these arrangements I could
not sit still, nor even remain in the house: a little timepiece in the
room and the old clock in the hall simultaneously struck ten.
'How late it grows!' I said. 'I will run down to the gates: it is
moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on the road. He may be
coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense.'
The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the
gates; but the road as far as I could see, to the right hand and the
left, was all still and solitary: save for the shadows of clouds
crossing it at intervals as the moon looked out, it was a long pale
