stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will ever rise. He could not
then hasten to England himself, to extricate you from the snare into
which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason to lose no time in
taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He referred him to me
for assistance. I used all despatch, and am thankful I was not too
late: as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I not morally certain that
your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would advise you to
accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I think you had better
remain in England till you can hear further, either from or of Mr.
Eyre. Have we anything else to stay for?' he inquired of Mr. Mason.
'No, no- let us be gone,' was the anxious reply; and without
waiting to take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the
hall door. The clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of
admonition or reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done,
he too departed.
I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room,
to which I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in,
fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded- not to weep,
not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but- mechanically to take
off the wedding-dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn
yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt
weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on
them. And now I thought: till now I had only heard, seen, moved-
followed up and down where I was led or dragged- watched event rush on
event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but now, I thought.
The morning had been a quiet morning enough- all except the brief
scene with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been
noisy; there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no
dispute, no defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words
had been spoken, a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage made;
some stern, short questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers,
explanations given, evidence adduced; an open admission of the truth
had been uttered by my master; then the living proof had been seen;
the intruders were gone, and all was over.
I was in my own room as usual- just myself, without obvious change:
nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where was
the Jane Eyre of yesterday?- where was her life?- where were her
prospects?
Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman- almost a bride,
was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were
desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December
storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts
crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen
shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were
pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours
since waved leafy and fragrant as groves between the tropics, now
spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway. My
hopes were all dead- struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night,
fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt. I looked on my
cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark,
chill, livid corpses that could never revive. I looked at my love:
that feeling which was my master's- which he had created; it
shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle;
sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr.
Rochester's arms- it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh,
never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted- confidence
destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been; for he was
not what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice to him; I would
not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless truth was
gone from his idea, and from his presence I must go: that I
perceived well. When- how- whither, I could not yet discern; but he
himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real
affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only
fitful passion: that was balked; he would want me no more. I should
fear even to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him. Oh,
how blind had been my eyes! How weak my conduct!
My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim
round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow.
Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down
in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in
remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to
flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only
still throbbed life-like within me- a remembrance of God: it begot
an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my
rayless mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was
found to express them-
'Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help.'
It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it-
as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my
lips- it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The
whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched,
my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen
mass. That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, 'the waters came
into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing: I came into
deep waters; the floods overflowed me.'
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CHAPTER XXVII
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SOME time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round
and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the
wall, I asked, 'What am I to do?'
But the answer my mind gave- 'Leave Thornfield at once'- was so
prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such
words now. 'That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part
of my woe,' I alleged: 'that I have wakened out of most glorious
dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and
master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is
intolerable. I cannot do it.'
But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and
foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I
wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further
suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held
Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her
dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he
would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.
'Let me be torn away, then!' I cried. 'Let another help me!'
'No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall
yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand:
your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.'
I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless
a judge haunted,- at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My
head swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from
excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips
that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I
now reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had
been sent to ask how I was, or to invite me to come down: not even
little Adele had tapped at the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had
sought me. 'Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes,' I
murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed out. I stumbled over an
obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs were
feeble. I could not soon recover myself. I fell, but not on to the
ground; an outstretched arm caught me. I looked up- I was supported by
Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber threshold.
'You come out at last,' he said. 'Well, I have been waiting for you
long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob:
five minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced
the lock like a burglar. So you shun me?- you shut yourself up and
grieve alone! I would rather you had come and upbraided me with
vehemence. You are passionate: I expected a scene of some kind. I
was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be
shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your
drenched handkerchief. But I err: you have not wept at all! I see a
white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose, then,
your heart has been weeping blood?
'Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter- nothing
poignant? Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly
where I have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look.
'Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but
one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of
his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some
mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his
bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?'
Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such
deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy
in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole
look and mien- I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly;
only at my heart's core.
'You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?' ere long he inquired
wistfully- wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness,
the result rather of weakness than of will.
'Yes, sir.'
'Then tell me so roundly and sharply- don't spare me.'
'I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water.' He heaved a
sort of shuddering sigh, and taking me in his arms, carried me
downstairs. At first I did not know to what room he had borne me;
all was cloudy to my glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving
warmth of a fire; for, summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my
chamber. He put wine to my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate
something he offered me, and was soon myself. I was in the library-
sitting in his chair- he was quite near. 'If I could go out of life
now, without too sharp a pang, it would be well for me,' I thought;
'then I should not have to make the effort of cracking my
heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester's. I must leave
him, it appears. I do not want to leave him- I cannot leave him.'
'How are you now, Jane?'
'Much better, sir; I shall be well soon.'
'Taste the wine again, Jane.'
I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before
me, and looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an
inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind;
he walked fast through the room and came back; he stooped towards me
as if to kiss me; but I remembered caresses were now forbidden. I
turned my face away and put his aside.
'What!- How is this?' he exclaimed hastily. 'Oh, I know! you
won't kiss the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled
and my embraces appropriated?'
'At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir.'
'Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will
answer for you- Because I have a wife already, you would reply.- I
guess rightly?'
'Yes.'
'If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must
regard me as a plotting profligate- a base and low rake who has been
simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare
deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of
self-respect. What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing: in
the first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw
your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself
to accuse and revile me, and besides, the flood-gates of tears are
opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and you have no
desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking
how to act- talking you consider is of no use. I know you- I am on
my guard.'
'Sir, I do not wish to act against you,' I said; and my unsteady
voice warned me to curtail my sentence.
'Not in your sense of the word, but in mine you are scheming to
destroy me. You have as good as said that I am a married man- as a
married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have
refused to kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to
me: to live under this roof only as Adele's governess; if ever I say a
friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to
me, you will say,- "That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must
be ice and rock to him"; and ice and rock you will accordingly
become.'
I cleared and steadied my voice to reply: 'All is changed about me,
sir; I must change too- there is no doubt of that; and to avoid
fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections
and associations, there is only one way- Adele must have a new
governess, sir.'
'Oh, Adele will go to school- I have settled that already; nor do I
mean to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections of
Thornfield Hall- this accursed place- this tent of Achan- this
insolent vault, offering the ghastliness of living death to the
light of the open sky- this narrow stone hell, with its one real
fiend, worse than a legion of such as we imagine. Jane, you shall
