Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
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"Mrs. Reed? Ah! mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt
if you can see her to-night."

"If," said I, "you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come,
I should be much obliged to you."

Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and
wide. "I know she had a particular wish to see me," I added, "and I
would not defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely
necessary."

"Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening," remarked Eliza. I
soon rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and
said I would just step out to Bessie--who was, I dared say, in the
kitchen--and ask her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to
receive me or not to-night. I went, and having found Bessie and
despatched her on my errand, I proceeded to take further measures.
It had heretofore been my habit always to shrink from arrogance:
received as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago, have resolved
to quit Gateshead the very next morning; now, it was disclosed to me
all at once that that would be a foolish plan. I had taken a
journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt, and I must stay with her
till she was better--or dead: as to her daughters' pride or folly,
I must put it on one side, make myself independent of it. So I
addressed the housekeeper; asked her to show me a room, told her I
should probably be a visitor here for a week or two, had my trunk
conveyed to my chamber, and followed it thither myself: I met
Bessie on the landing.

"Missis is awake," said she; "I have told her you are here: come
and let us see if she will know you."

I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I had
so often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former days.
I hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded light
stood on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the
great four-post bed with amber hangings as of old; there the toilet-
table, the armchair, and the footstool, at which I had a hundred
times been sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me
uncommitted. I looked into a certain corner near, half-expecting to
see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk
there, waiting to leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or
shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened the curtains and
leant over the high-piled pillows.

Well did I remember Mrs. Reed's face, and I eagerly sought the
familiar image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings
of vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had
left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now
with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings,
and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries--to be
reconciled and clasp hands in amity.

The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever--there was
that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised,
imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace
and hate! and how the recollection of childhood's terrors and
sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped
down and kissed her: she looked at me.

"Is this Jane Eyre?" she said.

"Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?"

I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought
it no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had fastened
on her hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine
kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But
unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural
antipathies so readily eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away,
and, turning her face rather from me, she remarked that the night
was warm. Again she regarded me so icily, I felt at once that her
opinion of me--her feeling towards me--was unchanged and
unchangeable. I knew by her stony eye--opaque to tenderness,
indissoluble to tears--that she was resolved to consider me bad to
the last; because to believe me good would give her no generous
pleasure: only a sense of mortification.

I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination to
subdue her--to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and her
will. My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them
back to their source. I brought a chair to the bed-head: I sat
down and leaned over the pillow.

"You sent for me," I said, "and I am here; and it is my intention to
stay till I see how you get on."

"Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?"

"Yes."

"Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some
things over with you I have on my mind: to-night it is too late,
and I have a difficulty in recalling them. But there was something
I wished to say--let me see--"

The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken
place in her once vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew the
bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the quilt,
fixed it down: she was at once irritated.

"Sit up!" said she; "don't annoy me with holding the clothes fast.
Are you Jane Eyre?"

"I am Jane Eyre."

"I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe.
Such a burden to be left on my hands--and so much annoyance as she
caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition,
and her sudden starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural
watchings of one's movements! I declare she talked to me once like
something mad, or like a fiend--no child ever spoke or looked as she
did; I was glad to get her away from the house. What did they do
with her at Lowood? The fever broke out there, and many of the
pupils died. She, however, did not die: but I said she did--I wish
she had died!"

"A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?"

"I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband's only
sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family's
disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of
her death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby;
though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its
maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it--a
sickly, whining, pining thing! It would wail in its cradle all
night long--not screaming heartily like any other child, but
whimpering and moaning. Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and
notice it as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than he ever
noticed his own at that age. He would try to make my children
friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could not bear it, and
he was angry with them when they showed their dislike. In his last
illness, he had it brought continually to his bedside; and but an
hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep the creature. I
would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a
workhouse: but he was weak, naturally weak. John does not at all
resemble his father, and I am glad of it: John is like me and like
my brothers--he is quite a Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease
tormenting me with letters for money? I have no more money to give
him: we are getting poor. I must send away half the servants and
shut up part of the house; or let it off. I can never submit to do
that--yet how are we to get on? Two-thirds of my income goes in
paying the interest of mortgages. John gambles dreadfully, and
always loses--poor boy! He is beset by sharpers: John is sunk and
degraded--his look is frightful--I feel ashamed for him when I see
him."

She was getting much excited. "I think I had better leave her now,"
said I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed.

"Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards
night--in the morning she is calmer."

I rose. "Stop!" exclaimed Mrs. Reed, "there is another thing I
wished to say. He threatens me--he continually threatens me with
his own death, or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid
out with a great wound in his throat, or with a swollen and
blackened face. I am come to a strange pass: I have heavy
troubles. What is to be done? How is the money to be had?"

Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative draught:
she succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more
composed, and sank into a dozing state. I then left her.

More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with
her. She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor
forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I
got on as well as I could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very
cold, indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing,
reading, or writing, and scarcely utter a word either to me or her
sister. Georgiana would chatter nonsense to her canary bird by the
hour, and take no notice of me. But I was determined not to seem at
a loss for occupation or amusement: I had brought my drawing
materials with me, and they served me for both.

Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to
take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in
sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened
momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of
imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon,
and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and
a naiad's head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an
elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-
bloom

One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was
to be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it
a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a
broad and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage:
that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill
it with features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be
traced under that brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined
nose, with a straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-
looking mouth, by no means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided
cleft down the middle of it: of course, some black whiskers were
wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above
the forehead. Now for the eyes: I had left them to the last,
because they required the most careful working. I drew them large;
I shaped them well: the eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the
irids lustrous and large. "Good! but not quite the thing," I
thought, as I surveyed the effect: "they want more force and
spirit;" and I wrought the shades blacker, that the lights might
flash more brilliantly--a happy touch or two secured success.
There, I had a friend's face under my gaze; and what did it signify
that those young ladies turned their backs on me? I looked at it; I
smiled at the speaking likeness: I was absorbed and content.

"Is that a portrait of some one you know?" asked Eliza, who had
approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy
head, and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied:
it was, in fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester.
But what was that to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana also
advanced to look. The other drawings pleased her much, but she
called that "an ugly man." They both seemed surprised at my skill.
I offered to sketch their portraits; and each, in turn, sat for a
pencil outline. Then Georgiana produced her album. I promised to
contribute a water-colour drawing: this put her at once into good
humour. She proposed a walk in the grounds. Before we had been out
two hours, we were deep in a confidential conversation: she had
favoured me with a description of the brilliant winter she had spent
in London two seasons ago--of the admiration she had there excited--
the attention she had received; and I even got hints of the titled
conquest she had made. In the course of the afternoon and evening
these hints were enlarged on: various soft conversations were
reported, and sentimental scenes represented; and, in short, a
volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day improvised by her
for my benefit. The communications were renewed from day to day:
they always ran on the same theme--herself, her loves, and woes. It
was strange she never once adverted either to her mother's illness,
or her brother's death, or the present gloomy state of the family
prospects. Her mind seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of
past gaiety, and aspirations after dissipations to come. She passed
about five minutes each day in her mother's sick-room, and no more.

Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk. I
never saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was
difficult to say what she did: or rather, to discover any result of
her diligence. She had an alarm to call her up early. I know not
how she occupied herself before breakfast, but after that meal she
divided her time into regular portions, and each hour had its
allotted task. Three times a day she studied a little book, which I
found, on inspection, was a Common Prayer Book. I asked her once
what was the great attraction of that volume, and she said, "the
Rubric."  Three hours she gave to stitching, with gold thread, the
border of a square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a carpet.
In answer to my inquiries after the use of this article, she
informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new church lately
erected near Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her diary; two to
working by herself in the kitchen-garden; and one to the regulation
of her accounts. She seemed to want no company; no conversation. I
believe she was happy in her way: this routine sufficed for her;
and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident
which forced her to vary its clockwork regularity.

She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative than
usual, that John's conduct, and the threatened ruin of the family,
had been a source of profound affliction to her: but she had now,
she said, settled her mind, and formed her resolution. Her own
fortune she had taken care to secure; and when her mother died--and
it was wholly improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should
either recover or linger long--she would execute a long-cherished
project: seek a retirement where punctual habits would be
permanently secured from disturbance, and place safe barriers
between herself and a frivolous world. I asked if Georgiana would
accompany her.

"Of course not. Georgiana and she had nothing in common: they
never had had. She would not be burdened with her society for any
consideration. Georgiana should take her own course; and she,
Eliza, would take hers."

Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of her
time in lying on the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the house,
and wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send her
an invitation up to town. "It would be so much better," she said,
"if she could only get out of the way for a month or two, till all
was over."  I did not ask what she meant by "all being over," but I
suppose she referred to the expected decease of her mother and the
gloomy sequel of funeral rites. Eliza generally took no more notice
of her sister's indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring,
lounging object had been before her. One day, however, as she put
away her account-book and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took
her up thus -

"Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly
never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born, for
you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with
yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your
feebleness on some other person's strength: if no one can be found
willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy,
useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected,
miserable. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of
continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon:
you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered--you
must have music, dancing, and society--or you languish, you die
away. Have you no sense to devise a system which will make you
independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one
day; share it into sections; to each section apportion its task:
leave no stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten minutes, five
minutes--include all; do each piece of business in its turn with
method, with rigid regularity. The day will close almost before you
are aware it has begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping
you to get rid of one vacant moment: you have had to seek no one's
company, conversation, sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in
short, as an independent being ought to do. Take this advice: the
first and last I shall offer you; then you will not want me or any
one else, happen what may. Neglect it--go on as heretofore,
craving, whining, and idling--and suffer the results of your idiocy,
however bad and insuperable they may be. I tell you this plainly;
and listen: for though I shall no more repeat what I am now about
to say, I shall steadily act on it. After my mother's death, I wash
my hands of you: from the day her coffin is carried to the vault in
Gateshead Church, you and I will be as separate as if we had never
known each other. You need not think that because we chanced to be
born of the same parents, I shall suffer you to fasten me down by
even the feeblest claim: I can tell you this--if the whole human
race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, and we two stood alone on
the earth, I would leave you in the old world, and betake myself to
the new."

She closed her lips.

"You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that
tirade," answered Georgiana. "Everybody knows you are the most
selfish, heartless creature in existence: and I know your spiteful
hatred towards me: I have had a specimen of it before in the trick
you played me about Lord Edwin Vere: you could not bear me to be
raised above you, to have a title, to be received into circles where
you dare not show your face, and so you acted the spy and informer,
and ruined my prospects for ever."  Georgiana took out her
handkerchief and blew her nose for an hour afterwards; Eliza sat
cold, impassable, and assiduously industrious.

True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here
were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other
despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment
is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too
bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.

It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on
the sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a
saint's-day service at the new church--for in matters of religion
she was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual
discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or
foul, she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on week-
days as there were prayers.

I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped,
who lay there almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a
remittent attention: the hired nurse, being little looked after,
would slip out of the room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful;
but she had her own family to mind, and could only come occasionally
to the hall. I found the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected:
no nurse was there; the patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic;
her livid face sunk in the pillows: the fire was dying in the
grate. I renewed the fuel, re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile
on her who could not now gaze on me, and then I moved away to the
window.

The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew
tempestuously: "One lies there," I thought, "who will soon be
beyond the war of earthly elements. Whither will that spirit--now
struggling to quit its material tenement--flit when at length
released?"

In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns, recalled
her dying words--her faith--her doctrine of the equality of
disembodied souls. I was still listening in thought to her well-
remembered tones--still picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her
wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid deathbed, and
whispered her longing to be restored to her divine Father's bosom--
when a feeble voice murmured from the couch behind: "Who is that?"

I knew Mrs. Reed had not spoken for days: was she reviving? I went
up to her.

"It is I, Aunt Reed."

"Who--I?" was her answer. "Who are you?" looking at me with
surprise and a sort of alarm, but still not wildly. "You are quite
a stranger to me--where is Bessie?"

"She is at the lodge, aunt."

"Aunt," she repeated. "Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the
Gibsons; and yet I know you--that face, and the eyes and forehead,
are quiet familiar to me: you are like--why, you are like Jane
Eyre!"

I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring
my identity.

"Yet," said she, "I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts deceive
me. I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where none
exists: besides, in eight years she must be so changed."  I now
gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me
to be: and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were
quite collected, I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to
fetch me from Thornfield.

"I am very ill, I know," she said ere long. "I was trying to turn
myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as
well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in
health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the
nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?"

I assured her we were alone.

"Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in
breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my
own child; the other--" she stopped. "After all, it is of no great
importance, perhaps," she murmured to herself: "and then I may get
better; and to humble myself so to her is painful."

She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face
changed; she seemed to experience some inward sensation--the
precursor, perhaps, of the last pang.

"Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me: I had better
tell her.--Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter
you will see there."

I obeyed her directions. "Read the letter," she said.

It was short, and thus conceived:-

"Madam,--Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my
niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is? It is my intention to
write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence
has blessed my endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am
unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and
bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave.--I am, Madam,
&c., &c.,

"JOHN EYRE, Madeira."

It was dated three years back.

"Why did I never hear of this?" I asked.

"Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a
hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct
to me, Jane--the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in
which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the
world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that
the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had
treated you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own
sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your
mind: I felt fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had
looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man's voice.--
Bring me some water! Oh, make haste!"

"Dear Mrs. Reed," said I, as I offered her the draught she required,
"think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind.
Forgive me for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight,
nine years have passed since that day."

She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water
and drawn breath, she went on thus -

"I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge: for you
to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and
comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was
sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died
of typhus fever at Lowood. Now act as you please: write and
contradict my assertion--expose my falsehood as soon as you like.
You were born, I think, to be my torment: my last hour is racked by
the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have
been tempted to commit."

"If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to
regard me with kindness and forgiveness"

"You have a very bad disposition," said she, "and one to this day I
feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be
patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break
out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend."

"My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but
not vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been
glad to love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to
be reconciled to you now: kiss me, aunt."

I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She
said I oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded
water. As I laid her down--for I raised her and supported her on my
arm while she drank--I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with
mine: the feeble fingers shrank from my touch--the glazing eyes
shunned my gaze.

"Love me, then, or hate me, as you will," I said at last, "you have
my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God's, and be at peace."

Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the
effort to change her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever
hated me--dying, she must hate me still.

The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half-an-
hour longer, hoping to see some sign of amity: but she gave none.
She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally:
at twelve o'clock that night she died. I was not present to close
her eyes, nor were either of her daughters. They came to tell us
the next morning that all was over. She was by that time laid out.
Eliza and I went to look at her: Georgiana, who had burst out into
loud weeping, said she dared not go. There was stretched Sarah
Reed's once robust and active frame, rigid and still: her eye of
flint was covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore
yet the impress of her inexorable soul. A strange and solemn object
was that corpse to me. I gazed on it with gloom and pain: nothing
soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or subduing did it
inspire; only a grating anguish for HER woes--not MY loss--and a
sombre tearless dismay at the fearfulness of death in such a form.

Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes
she observed -

"With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her
life was shortened by trouble."  And then a spasm constricted her
mouth for an instant: as it passed away she turned and left the
room, and so did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear.

CHAPTER XXII

Mr. Rochester had given me but one week's leave of absence: yet a
month elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave
immediately after the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay
till she could get off to London, whither she was now at last
invited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down to direct his
sister's interment and settle the family affairs. Georgiana said
she dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither
sympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her
preparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded wailings and selfish
lamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her
and packing her dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would
idle; and I thought to myself, "If you and I were destined to live
always together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different
footing. I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing
party; I should assign you your share of labour, and compel you to
accomplish it, or else it should be left undone: I should insist,
also, on your keeping some of those drawling, half-insincere
complaints hushed in your own breast. It is only because our
connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly
mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and
compliant on my part."

At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza's turn to request
me to stay another week. Her plans required all her time and
attention, she said; she was about to depart for some unknown
bourne; and all day long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted
within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, and
holding no communication with any one. She wished me to look after
the house, to see callers, and answer notes of condolence.

One morning she told me I was at liberty. "And," she added, "I am
obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct!
There is some difference between living with such an one as you and
with Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no
one. To-morrow," she continued, "I set out for the Continent. I
shall take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle--a nunnery
you would call it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall
devote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic
dogmas, and to a careful study of the workings of their system: if
I find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to
ensure the doing of all things decently and in order, I shall
embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the veil."

I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to
dissuade her from it. "The vocation will fit you to a hair," I
thought: "much good may it do you!"

When we parted, she said: "Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you
well: you have some sense."

I then returned: "You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what
you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a
French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits
you, I don't much care."

"You are in the right," said she; and with these words we each went
our separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to
her or her sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana
made an advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion,
and that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superior
of the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and
which she endowed with her fortune.

How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long
or short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. I
had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a
long walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what
it was to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous
meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of
these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me
to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the
nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried.

My journey seemed tedious--very tedious: fifty miles one day, a
night spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first
twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her
disfigured and discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered
voice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the
black train of tenants and servants--few was the number of
relatives--the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service.
Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I beheld one the cynosure of
a ball-room, the other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on
and analysed their separate peculiarities of person and character.
The evening arrival at the great town of--scattered these thoughts;
night gave them quite another turn: laid down on my traveller's
bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation.

I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there?
Not long; of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the
interim of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr.
Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was then
expected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he
was gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of
purchasing a new carriage: she said the idea of his marrying Miss
Ingram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said,
and from what she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that
the event would shortly take place. "You would be strangely
incredulous if you did doubt it," was my mental comment. "I don't
doubt it."

The question followed, "Where was I to go?"  I dreamt of Miss Ingram
all the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates
of Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr.
Rochester looked on with his arms folded--smiling sardonically, as
it seemed, at both her and me.

I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return; for I
did not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I
proposed to walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly,
after leaving my box in the ostler's care, did I slip away from the
George Inn, about six o'clock of a June evening, and take the old
road to Thornfield: a road which lay chiefly through fields, and
was now little frequented.

It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and
soft: the haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky,
though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future:
its blue--where blue was visible--was mild and settled, and its
cloud strata high and thin. The west, too, was warm: no watery
gleam chilled it--it seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar
burning behind its screen of marbled vapour, and out of apertures
shone a golden redness.

I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped
once to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that
it was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place,
or to a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my
arrival. "Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure,"
said I; "and little Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you:
but you know very well you are thinking of another than they, and
that he is not thinking of you."

But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience?
These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of
again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and
they added--"Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may: but a few
more days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him for ever!"
And then I strangled a new-born agony--a deformed thing which I
could not persuade myself to own and rear--and ran on.

They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the
labourers are just quitting their work, and returning home with
their rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have
but a field or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and
reach the gates. How full the hedges are of roses! But I have no
time to gather any; I want to be at the house. I passed a tall
briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path; I see
the narrow stile with stone steps; and I see--Mr. Rochester sitting
there, a book and a pencil in his hand; he is writing.

Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a
moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not
think I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice
or the power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I
can stir: I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I know
another way to the house. It does not signify if I knew twenty
ways; for he has seen me.

"Hillo!" he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. "There
you are! Come on, if you please."

I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; being
scarcely cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear
calm; and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face--
which I feel rebel insolently against my will, and struggle to
express what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a veil--it is
down: I may make shift yet to behave with decent composure.

"And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot?
Yes--just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and come
clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to steal
into the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you
were a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with yourself
this last month?"

"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead."

"A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the
other world--from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so
when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch
you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!--but I'd as
soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh.
Truant! truant!" he added, when he had paused an instant. "Absent
from me a whole month, and forgetting me quite, I'll be sworn!"

I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even
though broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my
master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there
was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of
the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the
crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to
feast genially. His last words were balm: they seemed to imply
that it imported something to him whether I forgot him or not. And
he had spoken of Thornfield as my home--would that it were my home!

He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I
inquired soon if he had not been to London.

"Yes; I suppose you found that out by second-sight."

"Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter."

"And did she inform you what I went to do?"

"Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand."

"You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don't think it
will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won't look like
Queen Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish,
Jane, I were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally.
Tell me now, fairy as you are--can't you give me a charm, or a
philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?"

"It would be past the power of magic, sir;" and, in thought, I
added, "A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are
handsome enough; or rather your sternness has a power beyond
beauty."

Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen
to me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice
of my abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain
smile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions.
He seemed to think it too good for common purposes: it was the real
sunshine of feeling--he shed it over me now.

"Pass, Janet," said he, making room for me to cross the stile: "go
up home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend's
threshold."

All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to
colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant
to leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast--a force turned me
round. I said--or something in me said for me, and in spite of me -

"Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely
glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home--my
only home."

I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had
he tried. Little Adele was half wild with delight when she saw me.
Mrs. Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah
smiled, and even Sophie bid me "bon soir" with glee. This was very
pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by your
fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to
their comfort.

I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I
stopped my cars against the voice that kept warning me of near
separation and coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had
taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and
Adele, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a
sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of
golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted
far or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered,
unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in the
spectacle of a group so amicable--when he said he supposed the old
lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter back
again, and added that he saw Adele was "prete e croquer sa petite
maman Anglaise"--I half ventured to hope that he would, even after
his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his
protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.

A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall.
Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparation
going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax
if she had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the
negative. Once she said she had actually put the question to Mr.
Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but he
had answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she
could not tell what to make of him.

One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no
journeyings backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be
sure it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; but
what was that distance to an ardent lover? To so practised and
indefatigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but a
morning's ride. I began to cherish hopes I had no right to
conceive: that the match was broken off; that rumour had been
mistaken; that one or both parties had changed their minds. I used
to look at my master's face to see if it were sad or fierce; but I
could not remember the time when it had been so uniformly clear of
clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and my pupil spent
with him, I lacked spirits and sank into inevitable dejection, he
became even gay. Never had he called me more frequently to his
presence; never been kinder to me when there--and, alas! never had I
loved him so well.

CHAPTER XXIII

A splendid Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so
radiant as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour even
singly, our wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had
come from the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and
lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got
in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads
white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime; hedge and wood,
full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of
the cleared meadows between.

On Midsummer-eve, Adele, weary with gathering wild strawberries in
Hay Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her
drop asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden.

It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:- "Day its fervid
fires had wasted," and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched
summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple state--pure of the
pomp of clouds--spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of
red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and
extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven.
The east had its own charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest
gem, a casino and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but
she was yet beneath the horizon.

I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent--
that of a cigar--stole from some window; I saw the library casement
open a handbreadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went
apart into the orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and
more Eden-like; it was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a
very high wall shut it out from the court, on one side; on the
other, a beech avenue screened it from the lawn. At the bottom was
a sunk fence; its sole separation from lonely fields: a winding
walk, bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horse-
chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence.
Here one could wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such
silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt
such shade for ever; but in threading the flower and fruit parterres
at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the
now rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my step is stayed--
not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a warning fragrance.

Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been
yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is
neither of shrub nor flower; it is--I know it well--it is Mr.
Rochester's cigar. I look round and I listen. I see trees laden
with ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a
mile off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but
that perfume increases: I must flee. I make for the wicket leading
to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside
into the ivy recess; he will not stay long: he will soon return
whence he came, and if I sit still he will never see me.

But no--eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique
garden as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-
tree branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they
are laden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping
towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to
admire the dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes humming by
me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester's foot: he sees it, and
bends to examine it.

"Now, he has his back towards me," thought I, "and he is occupied
too; perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed."

I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly gravel
might not betray me: he was standing among the beds at a yard or
two distant from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged
him. "I shall get by very well," I meditated. As I crossed his
shadow, thrown long over the garden by the moon, not yet risen high,
he said quietly, without turning -

"Jane, come and look at this fellow."

I had made no noise: he had not eyes behind--could his shadow feel?
I started at first, and then I approached him.

"Look at his wings," said he, "he reminds me rather of a West Indian
insect; one does not often see so large and gay a night-rover in
England; there! he is flown."

The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also; but Mr.
Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said -

"Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house;
and surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at
meeting with moonrise."

It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt
enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in
framing an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when
a facile word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out
of painful embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this hour alone
with Mr. Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not find a
reason to allege for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and
thoughts busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he
himself looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of
feeling any confusion: the evil--if evil existent or prospective
there was--seemed to lie with me only; his mind was unconscious and
quiet.

"Jane," he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly
strayed down in the direction of the sunk fence and the horse-
chestnut, "Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?"

"Yes, sir."

"You must have become in some degree attached to the house,--you,
who have an eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the organ
of Adhesiveness?"

"I am attached to it, indeed."

"And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have
acquired a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adele,
too; and even for simple dame Fairfax?"

"Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affection for both."

"And would be sorry to part with them?"

"Yes."

"Pity!" he said, and sighed and paused. "It is always the way of
events in this life," he continued presently: "no sooner have you
got settled in a pleasant resting-place, than a voice calls out to
you to rise and move on, for the hour of repose is expired."

"Must I move on, sir?" I asked. "Must I leave Thornfield?"

"I believe you must, Jane. I am sorry, Janet, but I believe indeed
you must."

This was a blow: but I did not let it prostrate me.

"Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes."

"It is come now--I must give it to-night."

"Then you ARE going to be married, sir?"

"Ex-act-ly--pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit
the nail straight on the head."

"Soon, sir?"

"Very soon, my--that is, Miss Eyre: and you'll remember, Jane, the
first time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my
intention to put my old bachelor's neck into the sacred noose, to
enter into the holy estate of matrimony--to take Miss Ingram to my
bosom, in short (she's an extensive armful: but that's not to the
point--one can't have too much of such a very excellent thing as my
beautiful Blanche): well, as I was saying--listen to me, Jane!
You're not turning your head to look after more moths, are you?
That was only a lady-clock, child, 'flying away home.'  I wish to
remind you that it was you who first said to me, with that
discretion I respect in you--with that foresight, prudence, and
humility which befit your responsible and dependent position--that
in case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little Adele had better
trot forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur conveyed in this
suggestion on the character of my beloved; indeed, when you are far
away, Janet, I'll try to forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom;
which is such that I have made it my law of action. Adele must go
to school; and you, Miss Eyre, must get a new situation."

"Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I suppose--"
I was going to say, "I suppose I may stay here, till I find another
shelter to betake myself to:" but I stopped, feeling it would not do
to risk a long sentence, for my voice was not quite under command.

"In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom," continued Mr.
Rochester; "and in the interim, I shall myself look out for
employment and an asylum for you."

"Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give--"

"Oh, no need to apologise! I consider that when a dependent does
her duty as well as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim
upon her employer for any little assistance he can conveniently
render her; indeed I have already, through my future mother-in-law,
heard of a place that I think will suit: it is to undertake the
education of the five daughters of Mrs. Dionysius O'Gall of
Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland. You'll like Ireland, I think:
they're such warm-hearted people there, they say."

"It is a long way off, sir."

"No matter--a girl of your sense will not object to the voyage or
the distance."

"Not the voyage, but the distance: and then the sea is a barrier--"

"From what, Jane?"

"From England and from Thornfield: and--"

"Well?"

"From YOU, sir."

I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of
free will, my tears gushed out. I did not cry so as to be heard,
however; I avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O'Gall and
Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to my heart; and colder the thought of
all the brine and foam, destined, as it seemed, to rush between me
and the master at whose side I now walked, and coldest the
remembrance of the wider ocean--wealth, caste, custom intervened
between me and what I naturally and inevitably loved.

"It is a long way," I again said.

"It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught,
Ireland, I shall never see you again, Jane: that's morally certain.
I never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of a fancy for
the country. We have been good friends, Jane; have we not?"

"Yes, sir."

"And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend
the little time that remains to them close to each other. Come!
we'll talk over the voyage and the parting quietly half-an-hour or
so, while the stars enter into their shining life up in heaven
yonder: here is the chestnut tree: here is the bench at its old
roots. Come, we will sit there in peace to-night, though we should
never more be destined to sit there together."  He seated me and
himself.

"It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my
little friend on such weary travels: but if I can't do better, how
is it to be helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think,
Jane?"

I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.

"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to
you--especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a
string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably
knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of
your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred
miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of
communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should
take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,--you'd forget me."

"That I NEVER should, sir: you know--"  Impossible to proceed.

"Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!"

In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I
endured no longer; I was obliged to yield, and I was shaken from
head to foot with acute distress. When I did speak, it was only to
express an impetuous wish that I had never been born, or never come
to Thornfield.

"Because you are sorry to leave it?"

The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was
claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a
right to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last:
yes,--and to speak.

"I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:- I love it,
because I have lived in it a full and delightful life,--momentarily
at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified.
I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every
glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high. I
have talked, face to face, with what I reverence, with what I
delight in,--with an original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have
known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish
to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the
necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of
death."

"Where do you see the necessity?" he asked suddenly.

"Where? You, sir, have placed it before me."

"In what shape?"

"In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman,--your
bride."

"My bride! What bride? I have no bride!"

"But you will have."

"Yes;--I will!--I will!"  He set his teeth.

"Then I must go:- you have said it yourself."

"No: you must stay! I swear it--and the oath shall be kept."

"I tell you I must go!" I retorted, roused to something like
passion. "Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you
think I am an automaton?--a machine without feelings? and can bear
to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of
living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor,
obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think
wrong!--I have as much soul as you,--and full as much heart! And if
God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have
made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave
you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom,
conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;--it is my spirit that
addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave,
and we stood at God's feet, equal,--as we are!"

"As we are!" repeated Mr. Rochester--"so," he added, enclosing me in
his arms. Gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips:
"so, Jane!"

"Yes, so, sir," I rejoined: "and yet not so; for you are a married
man--or as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to you--to
one with whom you have no sympathy--whom I do not believe you truly
love; for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn
such a union: therefore I am better than you--let me go!"

"Where, Jane? To Ireland?"

"Yes--to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now."

"Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is
rending its own plumage in its desperation."

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with
an independent will, which I now exert to leave you."

Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him.

"And your will shall decide your destiny," he said: "I offer you my
hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions."

"You play a farce, which I merely laugh at."

"I ask you to pass through life at my side--to be my second self,
and best earthly companion."

"For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by
it."

"Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be
still too."

A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled
through the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away--away--to an
indefinite distance--it died. The nightingale's song was then the
only voice of the hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr.
Rochester sat quiet, looking at me gently and seriously. Some time
passed before he spoke; he at last said -

"Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one
another."

"I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and
cannot return."

"But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to
marry."

I was silent: I thought he mocked me.

"Come, Jane--come hither."

"Your bride stands between us."

He rose, and with a stride reached me.

"My bride is here," he said, again drawing me to him, "because my
equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?"

Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his grasp:
for I was still incredulous.

"Do you doubt me, Jane?"

"Entirely."

"You have no faith in me?"

"Not a whit."

"Am I a liar in your eyes?" he asked passionately. "Little sceptic,
you SHALL be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None:
and that you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have
taken pains to prove: I caused a rumour to reach her that my
fortune was not a third of what was supposed, and after that I
presented myself to see the result; it was coldness both from her
and her mother. I would not--I could not--marry Miss Ingram. You--
you strange, you almost unearthly thing!--I love as my own flesh.
You--poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are--I entreat to
accept me as a husband."

"What, me!" I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness--and
especially in his incivility--to credit his sincerity: "me who have
not a friend in the world but you-  if you are my friend: not a
shilling but what you have given me?"

"You, Jane, I must have you for my own--entirely my own. Will you
be mine? Say yes, quickly."

"Mr. Rochester, let me look at your face: turn to the moonlight."

"Why?"

"Because I want to read your countenance--turn!"

"There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled,
scratched page. Read on: only make haste, for I suffer."

His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there
were strong workings in the features, and strange gleams in the eyes

"Oh, Jane, you torture me!" he exclaimed. "With that searching and
yet faithful and generous look, you torture me!"

"How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only
feelings to you must be gratitude and devotion--they cannot
torture."

"Gratitude!" he ejaculated; and added wildly--"Jane accept me
quickly. Say, Edward--give me my name--Edward--I will marry you."

"Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish
me to be your wife?"

"I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it."

"Then, sir, I will marry you."

"Edward--my little wife!"

"Dear Edward!"

"Come to me--come to me entirely now," said he; and added, in his
deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine,
"Make my happiness--I will make yours."

"God pardon me!" he subjoined ere long; "and man meddle not with me:
I have her, and will hold her."

"There is no one to meddle, sir. I have no kindred to interfere."

"No--that is the best of it," he said. And if I had loved him less
I should have thought his accent and look of exultation savage; but,
sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of parting--called to the
paradise of union--I thought only of the bliss given me to drink in
so abundant a flow. Again and again he said, "Are you happy, Jane?"
And again and again I answered, "Yes."  After which he murmured, "It
will atone--it will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and
cold, and comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace
her? Is there not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves?
It will expiate at God's tribunal. I know my Maker sanctions what I
do. For the world's judgment--I wash my hands thereof. For man's
opinion--I defy it."

But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we
were all in shadow: I could scarcely see my master's face, near as
I was. And what ailed the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned;
while wind roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us.

"We must go in," said Mr. Rochester: "the weather changes. I could
have sat with thee till morning, Jane."

"And so," thought I, "could I with you."  I should have said so,
perhaps, but a livid, vivid spark leapt out of a cloud at which I
was looking, and there was a crack, a crash, and a close rattling
peal; and I thought only of hiding my dazzled eyes against Mr.
Rochester's shoulder.

The rain rushed down. He hurried me up the walk, through the
grounds, and into the house; but we were quite wet before we could
pass the threshold. He was taking off my shawl in the hall, and
shaking the water out of my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax emerged
from her room. I did not observe her at first, nor did Mr.
Rochester. The lamp was lit. The clock was on the stroke of
twelve.

"Hasten to take off your wet things," said he; "and before you go,
good-night--good-night, my darling!"

He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked up, on leaving his arms,
there stood the widow, pale, grave, and amazed. I only smiled at
her, and ran upstairs. "Explanation will do for another time,"
thought I. Still, when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the
idea she should even temporarily misconstrue what she had seen. But
joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew,
near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the
lightning gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of
two hours' duration, I experienced no fear and little awe. Mr.
Rochester came thrice to my door in the course of it, to ask if I
was safe and tranquil: and that was comfort, that was strength for
anything.

Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adele came running in to
tell me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard
had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split
away.

CHAPTER XXIV

As I rose and dressed, I thought over what had happened, and
wondered if it were a dream. I could not be certain of the reality
till I had seen Mr. Rochester again, and heard him renew his words
of love and promise.

While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt
it was no longer plain: there was hope in its aspect and life in
its colour; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of
fruition, and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often
been unwilling to look at my master, because I feared he could not
be pleased at my look; but I was sure I might lift my face to his
now, and not cool his affection by its expression. I took a plain
but clean and light summer dress from my drawer and put it on: it
seemed no attire had ever so well become me, because none had I ever
worn in so blissful a mood.

I was not surprised, when I ran down into the hall, to see that a
brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the night;
and to feel, through the open glass door, the breathing of a fresh
and fragrant breeze. Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy.
A beggar-woman and her little boy--pale, ragged objects both--were
coming up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all the money I
happened to have in my purse--some three or four shillings: good or
bad, they must partake of my jubilee. The rooks cawed, and blither
birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own
rejoicing heart.

Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out of the window with a sad
countenance, and saying gravely--"Miss Eyre, will you come to
breakfast?"  During the meal she was quiet and cool: but I could
not undeceive her then. I must wait for my master to give
explanations; and so must she. I ate what I could, and then I
hastened upstairs. I met Adele leaving the schoolroom.

"Where are you going? It is time for lessons."

"Mr. Rochester has sent me away to the nursery."

"Where is he?"

"In there," pointing to the apartment she had left; and I went in,
and there he stood.

"Come and bid me good-morning," said he. I gladly advanced; and it
was not merely a cold word now, or even a shake of the hand that I
received, but an embrace and a kiss. It seemed natural: it seemed
genial to be so well loved, so caressed by him.

"Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty," said he: "truly
pretty this morning. Is this my pale, little elf? Is this my
mustard-seed? This little sunny-faced girl with the dimpled cheek
and rosy lips; the satin-smooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel
eyes?"  (I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake:
for him they were new-dyed, I suppose.)

"It is Jane Eyre, sir."

"Soon to be Jane Rochester," he added: "in four weeks, Janet; not a
day more. Do you hear that?"

I did, and I could not quite comprehend it: it made me giddy. The
feeling, the announcement sent through me, was something stronger
than was consistent with joy--something that smote and stunned. It
was, I think almost fear.

"You blushed, and now you are white, Jane: what is that for?"

"Because you gave me a new name--Jane Rochester; and it seems so
strange."

"Yes, Mrs. Rochester," said he; "young Mrs. Rochester--Fairfax
Rochester's girl-bride."

"It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely. Human beings never
enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a
different destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot
befalling me is a fairy tale--a day-dream."

"Which I can and will realise. I shall begin to-day. This morning
I wrote to my banker in London to send me certain jewels he has in
his keeping,--heirlooms for the ladies of Thornfield. In a day or
two I hope to pour them into your lap: for every privilege, every
attention shall be yours that I would accord a peer's daughter, if
about to marry her."

"Oh, sir!--never rain jewels! I don't like to hear them spoken of.
Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would rather
not have them."

"I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the
circlet on your forehead,--which it will become: for nature, at
least, has stamped her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I
will clasp the bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-
like fingers with rings."

"No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things,
and in another strain. Don't address me as if I were a beauty; I am
your plain, Quakerish governess."

"You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of
my heart,--delicate and aerial."

"Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir,--or you
are sneering. For God's sake don't be ironical!"

"I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too," he went on,
while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted, because I
felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. "I will
attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her
hair; and I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil."

"And then you won't know me, sir; and I shall not be your Jane Eyre
any longer, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket--a jay in borrowed
plumes. I would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in
stage-trappings, as myself clad in a court-lady's robe; and I don't
call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too
dearly to flatter you. Don't flatter me."

He pursued his theme, however, without noticing my deprecation.
"This very day I shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and you
must choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we shall be
married in four weeks. The wedding is to take place quietly, in the
church down below yonder; and then I shall waft you away at once to
town. After a brief stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions
nearer the sun: to French vineyards and Italian plains; and she
shall see whatever is famous in old story and in modern record: she
shall taste, too, of the life of cities; and she shall learn to
value herself by just comparison with others."

"Shall I travel?--and with you, sir?"

"You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice,
and Vienna: all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden
by you: wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot shall step
also. Ten years since, I flew through Europe half mad; with
disgust, hate, and rage as my companions: now I shall revisit it
healed and cleansed, with a very angel as my comforter."

I laughed at him as he said this. "I am not an angel," I asserted;
"and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr.
Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of
me--for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you:
which I do not at all anticipate."

"What do you anticipate of me?"

"For a little while you will perhaps be as you are now,--a very
little while; and then you will turn cool; and then you will be
capricious; and then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to
please you: but when you get well used to me, you will perhaps like
me again,--LIKE me, I say, not LOVE me. I suppose your love will
effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written
by men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband's
ardour extends. Yet, after all, as a friend and companion, I hope
never to become quite distasteful to my dear master."

"Distasteful! and like you again! I think I shall like you again,
and yet again: and I will make you confess I do not only LIKE, but
LOVE you--with truth, fervour, constancy."

"Yet are you not capricious, sir?"

"To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil
when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts--when they open
to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility,
coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent
tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but
does not break--at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent-
-I am ever tender and true."

"Had you ever experience of such a character, sir? Did you ever
love such an one?"

"I love it now."

"But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your
difficult standard?"

"I never met your likeness. Jane, you please me, and you master me-
-you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and
while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends
a thrill up my arm to my heart. I am influenced--conquered; and the
influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo
has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile,
Jane? What does that inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance
mean?"

"I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was involuntary),
I was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their charmers--"

"You were, you little elfish--"

"Hush, sir! You don't talk very wisely just now; any more than
those gentlemen acted very wisely. However, had they been married,
they would no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for
their softness as suitors; and so will you, I fear. I wonder how
you will answer me a year hence, should I ask a favour it does not
suit your convenience or pleasure to grant."

"Ask me something now, Jane,--the least thing: I desire to be
entreated--"

"Indeed I will, sir; I have my petition all ready."

"Speak! But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall
swear concession before I know to what, and that will make a fool of
me."

"Not at all, sir; I ask only this: don't send for the jewels, and
don't crown me with roses: you might as well put a border of gold
lace round that plain pocket handkerchief you have there."

"I might as well 'gild refined gold.'  I know it: you request is
granted then--for the time. I will remand the order I despatched to
my banker. But you have not yet asked for anything; you have prayed
a gift to be withdrawn: try again."

"Well then, sir, have the goodness to gratify my curiosity, which is
much piqued on one point."

He looked disturbed. "What? what?" he said hastily. "Curiosity is
a dangerous petition: it is well I have not taken a vow to accord
every request--"

"But there can be no danger in complying with this, sir."

"Utter it, Jane: but I wish that instead of a mere inquiry into,
perhaps, a secret, it was a wish for half my estate."

"Now, King Ahasuerus! What do I want with half your estate? Do you
think I am a Jew-usurer, seeking good investment in land? I would
much rather have all your confidence. You will not exclude me from
your confidence if you admit me to your heart?"

"You are welcome to all my confidence that is worth having, Jane;
but for God's sake, don't desire a useless burden! Don't long for
poison--don't turn out a downright Eve on my hands!"

"Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you liked to
be conquered, and how pleasant over-persuasion is to you. Don't you
think I had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and
coax and entreat--even cry and be sulky if necessary--for the sake
of a mere essay of my power?"

"I dare you to any such experiment. Encroach, presume, and the game
is up."

"Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern you look now! Your
eyebrows have become as thick as my finger, and your forehead
resembles what, in some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled,
'a blue-piled thunderloft.'  That will be your married look, sir, I
suppose?"

"If that will be YOUR married look, I, as a Christian, will soon
give up the notion of consorting with a mere sprite or salamander.
But what had you to ask, thing,--out with it?"

"There, you are less than civil now; and I like rudeness a great
deal better than flattery. I had rather be a THING than an angel.
This is what I have to ask,--Why did you take such pains to make me
believe you wished to marry Miss Ingram?"

"Is that all? Thank God it is no worse!"  And now he unknit his
black brows; looked down, smiling at me, and stroked my hair, as if
well pleased at seeing a danger averted. "I think I may confess,"
he continued, "even although I should make you a little indignant,
Jane--and I have seen what a fire-spirit you can be when you are
indignant. You glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you
mutinied against fate, and claimed your rank as my equal. Janet,
by-the-bye, it was you who made me the offer."

"Of course I did. But to the point if you please, sir--Miss
Ingram?"

"Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to
render you as madly in love with me as I was with you; and I knew
jealousy would be the best ally I could call in for the furtherance
of that end."

"Excellent! Now you are small--not one whit bigger than the end of
my little finger. It was a burning shame and a scandalous disgrace
to act in that way. Did you think nothing of Miss Ingram's
feelings, sir?"

"Her feelings are concentrated in one--pride; and that needs
humbling. Were you jealous, Jane?"

"Never mind, Mr. Rochester: it is in no way interesting to you to
know that. Answer me truly once more. Do you think Miss Ingram
will not suffer from your dishonest coquetry? Won't she feel
forsaken and deserted?"

"Impossible!--when I told you how she, on the contrary, deserted me:
the idea of my insolvency cooled, or rather extinguished, her flame
in a moment."

"You have a curious, designing mind, Mr. Rochester. I am afraid
your principles on some points are eccentric."

"My principles were never trained, Jane: they may have grown a
little awry for want of attention."

"Once again, seriously; may I enjoy the great good that has been
vouchsafed to me, without fearing that any one else is suffering the
bitter pain I myself felt a while ago?"

"That you may, my good little girl: there is not another being in
the world has the same pure love for me as yourself--for I lay that
pleasant unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in your affection."

I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my shoulder. I loved him
very much--more than I could trust myself to say--more than words
had power to express.

"Ask something more," he said presently; "it is my delight to be
entreated, and to yield."

I was again ready with my request. "Communicate your intentions to
Mrs. Fairfax, sir: she saw me with you last night in the hall, and
she was shocked. Give her some explanation before I see her again.
It pains me to be misjudged by so good a woman."

"Go to your room, and put on your bonnet," he replied. "I mean you
to accompany me to Millcote this morning; and while you prepare for
the drive, I will enlighten the old lady's understanding. Did she
think, Janet, you had given the world for love, and considered it
well lost?"

"I believe she thought I had forgotten my station, and yours, sir."

"Station! station!--your station is in my heart, and on the necks of
those who would insult you, now or hereafter.--Go."

I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs.
Fairfax's parlour, I hurried down to it. The old lady, had been
reading her morning portion of Scripture--the Lesson for the day;
her Bible lay open before her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her
occupation, suspended by Mr. Rochester's announcement, seemed now
forgotten: her eyes, fixed on the blank wall opposite, expressed
the surprise of a quiet mind stirred by unwonted tidings. Seeing
me, she roused herself: she made a sort of effort to smile, and
framed a few words of congratulation; but the smile expired, and the
sentence was abandoned unfinished. She put up her spectacles, shut
the Bible, and pushed her chair back from the table.

"I feel so astonished," she began, "I hardly know what to say to
you, Miss Eyre. I have surely not been dreaming, have I? Sometimes
I half fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that
have never happened. It has seemed to me more than once when I have
been in a doze, that my dear husband, who died fifteen years since,
has come in and sat down beside me; and that I have even heard him
call me by my name, Alice, as he used to do. Now, can you tell me
whether it is actually true that Mr. Rochester has asked you to
marry him? Don't laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here
five minutes ago, and said that in a month you would be his wife."

"He has said the same thing to me," I replied.

"He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?"

"Yes."

She looked at me bewildered. "I could never have thought it. He is
a proud man: all the Rochesters were proud: and his father, at
least, liked money. He, too, has always been called careful. He
means to marry you?"

"He tells me so."

She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had
there found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma.

"It passes me!" she continued; "but no doubt, it is true since you
say so. How it will answer, I cannot tell: I