love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your
eyes.'
'I scorn your idea of love,' I could not help saying, as I rose
up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. 'I scorn
the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you
when you offer it.'
He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did
so. Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy
to tell: he could command his countenance thoroughly.
'I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you,' he said: 'I
think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn.'
I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm
mien.
'Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I
have been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a
topic on which our natures are at variance- a topic we should never
discuss: the very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If
the reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My
dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage- forget it.'
'No,' said he; 'it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one
which can secure my great end: but I shall urge you no further at
present. To-morrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many friends
there to whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a
fortnight- take that space of time to consider my offer: and do not
forget that if you reject it, it is not me you deny, but God.
Through my means, He opens to you a noble career; as my wife only
can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my wife, and you limit yourself
for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity. Tremble lest
in that case you should be numbered with those who have denied the
faith, and are worse than infidels!'
He had done. Turning from me, he once more
'Looked to river, looked to hill.'
But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not
worthy to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I
read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me: the
disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met
resistance where it expected submission- the disapprobation of a cool,
inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings and
views in which it has no power to sympathise: in short, as a man, he
would have wished to coerce me into obedience: it was only as a
sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed
so long a space for reflection and repentance.
That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to
forget even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I-
who, though I had no love, had much friendship for him- was hurt by
the marked omission: so much hurt that tears started to my eyes.
'I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane,' said Diana,
'during your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering
in the passage expecting you- he will make it up.'
I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always
rather be happy than dignified; and I ran after him- he stood at the
foot of the stairs.
'Good-night, St. John,' said I.
'Good-night, Jane,' he replied calmly.
'Then shake hands,' I added.
What a cold, loose touch he impressed on my fingers! He was
deeply displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would
not warm, nor tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had
with him- no cheering smile or generous word: but still the
Christian was patient and placid; and when I asked him if he forgave
me, he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing the
remembrance of vexation; that he had nothing to forgive, not having
been offended.
And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked
me down.
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CHAPTER XXXV
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HE did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he
would. He deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he
made me feel what severe punishment a good yet stern, a
conscientious yet implacable man can inflict on one who has offended
him. Without one overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word he
contrived to impress me momently with the conviction that I was put
beyond the pale of his favour.
Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness-
not that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully
in his power to do so. Both by nature and principle, he was superior
to the mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for
saying I scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words;
and as long as he and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his
look, when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air
between me and him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to
his ear, and their echo toned every answer he gave me.
He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as
usual each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man
within him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure
Christian, in evincing with what skill he could, while acting and
speaking apparently just as usual, extract from every deed and every
phrase the spirit of interest and approval which had formerly
communicated a certain austere charm to his language and manner. To
me, he was in reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye
was a cold, bright, blue gem; his tongue a speaking instrument-
nothing more.
All this was torture to me- refined, lingering torture. It kept
up a slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief,
which harassed and crushed me altogether. I felt how- if I were his
wife, this good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon
kill me, without drawing from my veins a single drop of blood, or
receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime.
Especially I felt this when I made any attempt to propitiate him. No
ruth met my ruth. He experienced no suffering from estrangement- no
yearning after reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast
falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent, they
produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a
matter of stone or metal. To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat
kinder than usual: as if afraid that mere coldness would not
sufficiently convince me how completely I was banished and banned,
he added the force of contrast; and this I am sure he did not by
malice, but on principle.
The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in
the garden about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that
this man, alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we
were near relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain
his friendship. I went out and approached him as he stood leaning over
the little gate; I spoke to the point at once.
'St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us
be friends.'
'I hope we are friends,' was the unmoved reply; while he still
watched the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I
approached.
'No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that.'
'Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and
all good.'
'I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of
wishing any one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire
somewhat more of affection than that sort of general philanthropy
you extend to mere strangers.'
'Of course,' he said. 'Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from
regarding you as a stranger.'
This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and
baffling enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I
should immediately have left him; but something worked within me
more strongly than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my
cousin's talent and principle. His friendship was of value to me: to
lose it tried me severely. I would not so soon relinquish the
attempt to reconquer it.
'Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will
you leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?'
He now turned quite from the moon and faced me.
'When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to
India?'
'You said I could not unless I married you.'
'And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution?'
Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put
into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche
is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their
displeasure?
'No, St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution.'
The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did
not yet crash down.
'Once more, why this refusal?' he asked.
'Formerly,' I answered, 'because you did not love me; now, I reply,
because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me.
You are killing me now.'
His lips and cheeks turned white- quite white.
'I should kill you- I am killing you? Your words are such as
ought not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray
an unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would
seem inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow
even until seventy-and-seven times.'
I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase
from his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that
tenacious surface another and far deeper impression: I had burnt it
in.
'Now you will indeed hate me,' I said. 'It is useless to attempt to
conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you.'
A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they
touched on the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary
spasm. I knew the steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.
'You utterly misinterpret my words,' I said, at once seizing his
hand: 'I have no intention to grieve or pain you- indeed, I have not.'
Most bitterly he smiled- most decidedly he withdrew his hand from
mine. 'And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at
all, I presume?' said he, after a considerable pause.
'Yes, I will, as your assistant,' I answered.
A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him
between Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only
singular gleams scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed
over his face. He spoke at last.
'I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age
proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you
in such terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your
ever again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret-
for your sake.'
I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me
courage at once. 'Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on
nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not
really shocked: for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either
so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I
will be your curate, if you like, but never your wife.'
Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his
passion perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly-
'A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me,
then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I
will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a
coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society's
aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your
promise and deserting the band you engaged to join.'
Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal
promise or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much
too hard and much too despotic for the occasion. I replied-
'There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the
case. I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India,
especially with strangers. With you I would have ventured much,
because I admire, confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am
convinced that, go when and with whom I would, I should not live
long in that climate.'
'Ah! you are afraid of yourself,' he said, curling his lip.
'I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as
you wish me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to
committing suicide. Moreover, before I definitely resolve on
quitting England, I will know for certain whether I cannot be of
greater use by remaining in it than by leaving it.'
'What do you mean?'
'It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a
point on which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere
till by some means that doubt is removed.'
'I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The
interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you
ought to have crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You
think of Mr. Rochester?'
It was true. I confessed it by silence.
'Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?'
'I must find out what is become of him.'
