marry Rivers.'
'Shake me off, then, sir,- push me away, for I'll not leave you
of my own accord.'
'Jane, I ever like your tone of voice: it still renews hope, it
sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I
forget that you have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool-'
'Where must I go, sir?'
'Your own way- with the husband you have chosen.'
'Who is that?'
'You know- this St. John Rivers.'
'He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me: I
do not love him. He loves (as he can love, and that is not as you
love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me
only because he thought I should make a suitable missionary's wife,
which she would not have done. He is good and great, but severe;
and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not
happy at his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no indulgence
for me- no fondness. He sees nothing attractive in me; not even youth-
only a few useful mental points- Then I must leave you, sir, to go
to him?'
I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my
blind but beloved master. He smiled.
'What, Jane! Is this true? Is such really the state of matters
between you and Rivers?'
'Absolutely, sir! Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease
you a little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better
than grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much
I do love you, you would be proud and content. All my heart is
yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate
to exile the rest of me from your presence for ever.'
Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect.
'My seared vision! My crippled strength!' he murmured regretfully.
I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking,
and wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his
face a minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid, and
trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled.
'I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in
Thornfield orchard,' he remarked ere long. 'And what right would
that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with
freshness?'
'You are no ruin, sir- no lightning-struck tree: you are green
and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask
them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and
as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because
your strength offers them so safe a prop.'
Again he smiled: I gave him comfort.
'You speak of friends, Jane?' he asked.
'Yes, of friends,' I answered rather hesitatingly: for I knew I
meant more than friends, but could not tell what other word to employ.
He helped me.
'Ah! Jane. But I want a wife.'
'Do you, sir?'
'Yes: is it news to you?'
'Of course: you said nothing about it before.'
'Is it unwelcome news?'
'That depends on circumstances, sir- on your choice.'
'Which you shall make for me, Jane. I will abide by your decision.'
'Choose then, sir- her who loves you best.'
'I will at least choose- her I love best. Jane, will you marry me?'
'Yes, sir.'
'A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?'
'Yes, sir.'
'A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to
wait on?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Truly, Jane?'
'Most truly, sir.'
'Oh! my darling! God bless you and reward you!'
'Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life- if ever I
thought a good thought- if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless
prayer- if ever I wished a righteous wish,- I am rewarded now. To be
your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth.'
'Because you delight in sacrifice.'
'Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for
content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value- to
press my lips to what I love- to repose on what I trust: is that to
make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice.'
'And to bear with my infirmities, Jane: to overlook my
deficiencies.'
'Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can
really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud
independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver
and protector.'
'Hitherto I have hated to be helped- to be led: henceforth, I
feel I shall hate it no more. I did not like to put my hand into a
hireling's, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane's little
fingers. I preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of
servants; but Jane's soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane suits
me: do I suit her?'
'To the finest fibre of my nature, sir.'
'The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for: we
must be married instantly.'
He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising.
'We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but the
licence to get- then we marry.'
'Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from
its meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let me
look at your watch.'
'Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward: I
have no use for it.'
'It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, sir. Don't you feel
hungry?'
'The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane. Never
mind fine clothes and jewels, now: all that is not worth a fillip.'
'The sun has dried up all the rain-drops, sir. The breeze is still:
it is quite hot.'
'Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl necklace at this
moment fastened round my bronze scrag under my cravat? I have worn
it since the day I lost my only treasure, as a memento of her.'
'We will go home through the wood: that will be the shadiest way.'
He pursued his own thoughts without heeding me.
'Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart
swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He
sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but
far more wisely. I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent flower-
breathed guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent snatched it from me. I,
in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation:
instead of bending to the decree, I defied it. Divine justice
pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass
through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are
mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for ever. You know I was
proud of my strength: but what is it now, when I must give it over
to foreign guidance, as a child does its weakness? Of late, Jane-
only- only of late- I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God
in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for
reconcilement to my Maker. I began sometimes to pray: very brief
prayers they were, but very sincere.
'Some days since: nay, I can number them- four; it was last
Monday night, a singular mood came over me: one in which grief
replaced frenzy- sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression
that since I could nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that
night- perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o'clock- ere I
retired to my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that, if it seemed
good to Him, I might soon be taken from this life, and admitted to
that world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane.
'I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which was open:
it soothed me to feel the balmy night-air; though I could see no
stars, and only by a vague, luminous haze, knew the presence of a
moon. I longed for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with soul
and flesh! I asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if I had
not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and might not
soon taste bliss and peace once more. That I merited all I endured,
I acknowledged- that I could scarcely endure more, I pleaded; and
the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broke involuntarily from my
lips in the words- "Jane! Jane! Jane!"'
'Did you speak these words aloud?'
'I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought
me mad: I pronounced them with such frantic energy.'
'And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?'
'Yes; but the time is of no consequence: what followed is the
strange point. You will think me superstitious- some superstition I
have in my blood, and always had: nevertheless, this is true- true
at least it is that I heard what I now relate.
'As I exclaimed "Jane! Jane! Jane!" a voice- I cannot tell whence
the voice came, but I know whose voice it was- replied, "I am
coming: wait for me;" and a moment after, went whispering on the
wind the words- "Where are you?"
'I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words
opened to my mind: yet it is difficult to express what I want to
express. Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where
sound falls dull, and dies unreverberating. "Where are you?" seemed
spoken amongst mountains; for I heard a hill-sent echo repeat the
words. Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my
brow: I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane
were meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt
were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul
wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were your accents-
as certain as I live- they were yours!'
Reader, it was on Monday night- near midnight- that I too had
received the mysterious summons: those were the very words by which
I replied to it. I listened to Mr. Rochester's narrative, but made
no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and
inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told anything, my
tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression on
the mind of my hearer: and that mind, yet from its sufferings too
prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural. I
kept these things then, and pondered them in my heart.
'You cannot now wonder,' continued my master, 'that when you rose
upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing
you any other than a mere voice and vision, something that would
melt to silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain
echo had melted before. Now, I thank God! I know it to be otherwise.
Yes, I thank God!'
He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from
his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in
mute devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible.
'I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has
remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength
to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!'
Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand,
held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder: being
so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and
guide. We entered the wood, and wended homeward.
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CHAPTER XXXVIII CONCLUSION
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READER, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson
and clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I went
into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner
and John cleaning the knives, and I said-
'Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning.' The
housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic
order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a
remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having
one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently
stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she
did stare at me: the ladle with which she was basting a pair of
chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang
suspended in air; and for the same space of time John's knives also
had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending again over
the roast, said only-
'Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!'
A short time after she pursued- 'I seed you go out with the master,
but I didn't know you were gone to church to be wed;' and she basted
away. John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear.
'I telled Mary how it would be,' he said: 'I knew what Mr.
Edward' (John was an old servant, and had known his master when he was
the cadet of the house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian
name)- 'I knew what Mr. Edward would do; and I was certain he would
not wait long neither: and he's done right, for aught I know. I wish
you joy, Miss!' and he politely pulled his forelock.
'Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this.'
I put into his hand a five-pound note. Without waiting to hear more, I
left the kitchen. In passing the door of that sanctum some time after,
