'Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly
rise on my lone hearth? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water
from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question,
expecting John's wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear.'
'Because I had come in, in Mary's stead, with the tray.'
'And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with
you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on
for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in
day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out,
of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at
times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes: for her
restoration I longed, far more than for that of my lost sight. How can
it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart
as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear I shall find her no more.'
A commonplace, practical reply, out of the train of his own
disturbed ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring for him
in this frame of mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and
remarked that they were scorched, and that I would apply something
which would make them grow as broad and black as ever.
'Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit,
when, at some fatal moment, you will again desert me- passing like a
shadow, whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards
undiscoverable?'
'Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir?'
'What for, Jane?'
'Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather
alarming, when I examine you close at hand: you talk of my being a
fairy, but I am sure, you are more like a brownie.'
'Am I hideous, Jane?'
'Very, sir: you always were, you know.'
'Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever
you have sojourned.'
'Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a hundred
times better people; possessed of ideas and views you never
entertained in your life: quite more refined and exalted.'
'Who the deuce have you been with?'
'If you twist in that way you will make me pull the hair out of
your head; and then I think you will cease to entertain doubts of my
substantiality.'
'Who have you been with, Jane?'
'You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir; you must wait till
to-morrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know, be a sort of
security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it.
By the bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth with only a glass
of water then: I must bring an egg at the least, to say nothing of
fried ham.'
'You mocking changeling- fairy-born and human-bred! You make me
feel as I have not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have had
you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without
the aid of the harp.'
'There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I'll leave you: I
have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am
tired. Good night.'
'Just one word, Jane: were there only ladies in the house where you
have been?'
I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs.
'A good idea!' I thought with glee. 'I see I have the means of
fretting him out of his melancholy for some time to come.'
Very early the next morning I heard him up and astir, wandering
from one room to another. As soon as Mary came down I heard the
question: 'Is Miss Eyre here?' Then: 'Which room did you put her into?
Was it dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants anything; and when
she will come down.'
I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast.
Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he
discovered my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to witness the
subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat
in his chair- still, but not at rest: expectant evidently; the lines
of now habitual sadness marking his strong features. His countenance
reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be re-lit- and alas! it
was not himself that could now kindle the lustre of animated
expression: he was dependent on another for that office! I had meant
to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the strong man
touched my heart to the quick: still I accosted him with what vivacity
I could.
'It is a bright, sunny morning, sir,' I said. 'The rain is over and
gone, and there is a tender shining after it: you shall have a walk
soon.'
I had wakened the glow: his features beamed.
'Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not
gone: not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high
over the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than the
rising sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my
Jane's tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a silent
one): all the sunshine I can feel is in her presence.'
The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence;
just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced to
entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be
lachrymose: I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself with
preparing breakfast.
Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of the
wet and wild wood into some cheerful fields: I described to him how
brilliantly green they were; how the flowers and hedges looked
refreshed; how sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought a seat for him
in a hidden and lovely spot, a dry stump of a tree; nor did I refuse
to let him, when seated, place me on his knee. Why should I, when both
he and I were happier near than apart? Pilot lay beside us: all was
quiet. He broke out suddenly while clasping me in his arms-
'Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered
you had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you;
and, after examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken no
money, nor anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl
necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little casket; your
trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for the
bridal tour. What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and
penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now.'
Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last
year. I softened considerably what related to the three days of
wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would have been
to inflict unnecessary pain: the little I did say lacerated his
faithful heart deeper than I wished.
I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of
making my way: I should have told him my intention. I should have
confided in him: he would never have forced me to be his mistress.
Violent as he had seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far
too well and too tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he would
have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in
return, rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the
wide world. I had endured, he was certain, more than I had confessed
to him.
'Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short,' I
answered: and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received
at Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, etc.
The accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in
due order. Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in frequently in
the progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was immediately
taken up.
'This St. John, then, is your cousin?'
'Yes.'
'You have spoken of him often: do you like him?'
'He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him.'
'A good man. Does that mean a respectable well-conducted man of
fifty? Or what does it mean?'
'St. John was only twenty-nine, sir.'
'"Jeune encore," as the French say. Is he a person of low
stature, phlegmatic, and plain? A person whose goodness consists
rather in his guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue?'
'He is untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he lives
to perform.'
'But his brain? That is probably rather soft? He means well: but
you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?'
'He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. His
brain is first-rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous.'
'Is he an able man, then?'
'Truly able.'
'A thoroughly educated man?'
'St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar.'
'His manners, I think, you said are not to your taste?- priggish
and parsonic?'
'I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste,
they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike.'
'His appearance,- I forget what description you gave of his
appearance;- a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white
neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?'
'St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with blue
eyes, and a Grecian profile.'
(Aside.) 'Damn him!'- (To me.) 'Did you like him, Jane?'
'Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but you asked me that before.'
I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy
had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it
gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not,
therefore, immediately charm the snake.
'Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss
Eyre?' was the next somewhat unexpected observation.
'Why not, Mr. Rochester?'
'The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too
overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a
graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination,- tall, fair,
blue-eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan,- a
real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered: and blind and lame into
the bargain.'
'I never thought of it, before; but you certainly are rather like
Vulcan, sir.'
Well, you can leave me, ma'am: but before you go' (and he
retained me by a firmer grasp than ever), 'you will be pleased just to
answer me a question or two.' He paused.
'What questions, Mr. Rochester?'
Then followed this cross-examination.
'St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were
his cousin?'
'Yes.'
'You would often see him? He would visit the school sometimes?'
'Daily.'
'He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they would be clever,
for you are a talented creature!'
'He approved of them- yes.'
'He would discover many things in you he could not have expected to
find? Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary.'
'I don't know about that.'
'You had a little cottage near the school, you say: did he ever
come there to see you?'
'Now and then.'
'Of an evening?'
'Once or twice.'
A pause.
'How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the
cousinship was discovered?'
'Five months.'
'Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?'
'Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near the
window, and we by the table.'
'Did he study much?'
'A good deal.'
'What?'
'Hindostanee.'
'And what did you do meantime?'
'I learnt German, at first.'
'Did he teach you?'
'He did not understand German.'
'Did he teach you nothing?'
'A little Hindostanee.'
'Rivers taught you Hindostanee?'
'Yes, sir.'
'And his sisters also?'
'No.'
'Only you?'
'Only me.'
'Did you ask to learn?'
'No.'
'He wished to teach you?'
'Yes.'
A second pause.
'Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostanee be to you?'
'He intended me to go with him to India.'
'Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry
him?'
'He asked me to marry him.'
'That is a fiction- an impudent invention to vex me.'
'I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more
than once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could
be.'
'Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say
the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee,
when I have given you notice to quit?'
'Because I am comfortable there.'
'No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not
with me: it is with this cousin- this St. John. Oh, till this
moment, I thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she
loved me even when she left me: that was an atom of sweet in much
bitter. Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our
separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her, she was
loving another! But it is useless grieving. Jane, leave me: go and
