Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage.I had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise:she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly selfish.She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely spoilt. She was hasty,but good-humoured; vain (she could not help it,when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness), but not affected;liberal-handed; innocent of the pride of wealth; ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively,and unthinking: she was very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex like me;but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive.A very different sort of mind was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters of St. John. Still,I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adèle; except that,for a child whom we have watched over and taught,a closer affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult acquaintance.
She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr. Rivers, only, certainly,she allowed, “not one-tenth so handsome, though I was a nice neat little soul enough,but he was an angel.” I was, however, good, clever, composed, and firm, like him.I was a _lusus naturæ_, she affirmed, as a village schoolmistress:she was sure my previous history, if known, would make a delightful romance.
One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity,and thoughtless yet not offensive inquisitiveness,she was rummaging the cupboard and the table-drawer of my little kitchen,she discovered first two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary,and then my drawing-materials and some sketches,including a pencil-head of a pretty little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars,and sundry views from nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surrounding moors.She was first transfixed with surprise, and then electrified with delight.
“Had I done these pictures?Did I know French and German?What a love—what a miracle I was!I drew better than her master in the first school in S——. Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show to papa?”
“With pleasure,” I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model.She had then on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare;her only ornament was her chestnut tresses,which waved over her shoulders with all the wild grace of natural curls.I took a sheet of fine card-board, and drew a careful outline.I promised myself the pleasure of colouring it; and, as it was getting late then,I told her she must come and sit another day.
She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr.Oliver himself accompanied her next evening—a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged,and grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright flower near a hoary turret.He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud personage; but he was very kind to me.The sketch of Rosamond’s portrait pleased him highly: he said I must make a finished picture of it.He insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend the evening at Vale Hall.
I went. I found it a large, handsome residence,showing abundant evidences of wealth in the proprietor.Rosamond was full of glee and pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable;and when he entered into conversation with me after tea,he expressed in strong terms his approbation of what I had done in Morton school,and said he only feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place,and would soon quit it for one more suitable.
“Indeed,” cried Rosamond, “she is clever enough to be a governess in a high family, papa.”
I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in the land. Mr.Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers—of the Rivers family—with great respect.He said it was a very old name in that neighbourhood; that the ancestors of the house were wealthy;that all Morton had once belonged to them;that even now he considered the representative of that house might, if he liked,make an alliance with the best. He accounted it a pity that so fine and talented a young man should have formed the design of going out as a missionary;it was quite throwing a valuable life away. It appeared, then,that her father would throw no obstacle in the way of Rosamond’s union with St. John. Mr.Oliver evidently regarded the young clergyman’s good birth, old name,and sacred profession as sufficient compensation for the want of fortune.
It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after helping me to clean my house,was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a penny for her aid.All about me was spotless and bright—scoured floor, polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs.I had also made myself neat, and had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would.
The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got my palette and pencils,and fell to the more soothing, because easier occupation,of completing Rosamond Oliver’s miniature. The head was finished already:there was but the background to tint and the drapery to shade off; a touch of carmine, too,to add to the ripe lips—a soft curl here and there to the tresses—a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash under the azured eyelid.I was absorbed in the execution of these nice details, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting St. John Rivers.
“I am come to see how you are spending your holiday,” he said. “Not, I hope, in thought?No, that is well: while you draw you will not feel lonely. You see, I mistrust you still,though you have borne up wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening solace,” and he laid on the table a new publication—a poem:one of those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days—the golden age of modern literature. Alas!the readers of our era are less favoured. But courage!I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost;nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence,their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful angels, safe in heaven!they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed?Genius banished?No!Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live,but reign and redeem: and without their divine influence spread everywhere,you would be in hell—the hell of your own meanness.
While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of “Marmion” (for “Marmion” it was), St.John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall figure sprang erect again with a start:he said nothing. I looked up at him: he shunned my eye. I knew his thoughts well,and could read his heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler than he:I had then temporarily the advantage of him, and I conceived an inclination to do him some good, if I could.
“With all his firmness and self-control,” thought I, “he tasks himself too far:locks every feeling and pang within—expresses, confesses, imparts nothing.I am sure it would benefit him to talk a little about this sweet Rosamond,whom he thinks he ought not to marry: I will make him talk.”
I said first, “Take a chair, Mr. Rivers.” But he answered, as he always did, that he could not stay.“Very well,” I responded, mentally, “stand if you like; but you shall not go just yet,I am determined: solitude is at least as bad for you as it is for me.I’ll try if I cannot discover the secret spring of your confidence,and find an aperture in that marble breast through which I can shed one drop of the balm of sympathy. ”
“Is this portrait like?” I asked bluntly.
“Like!Like whom?I did not observe it closely.”
“You did, Mr. Rivers.”
He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness: he looked at me astonished. “Oh,that is nothing yet,” I muttered within.“I don’t mean to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part;I’m prepared to go to considerable lengths.” I continued, “You observed it closely and distinctly;but I have no objection to your looking at it again,” and I rose and placed it in his hand.
“A well-executed picture,” he said; “very soft, clear colouring; very graceful and correct drawing.”
“Yes, yes; I know all that. But what of the resemblance?Who is it like?”
Mastering some hesitation, he answered, “Miss Oliver, I presume.”
“Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess,I will promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this very picture,provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable to you.I don’t wish to throw away my time and trouble on an offering you would deem worthless.”
He continued to gaze at the picture: the longer he looked, the firmer he held it,the more he seemed to covet it. “It is like!” he murmured; “the eye is well managed: the colour, light, expression, are perfect. It smiles!”
“Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting?Tell me that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India,would it be a consolation to have that memento in your possession?or would the sight of it bring recollections calculated to enervate and distress?”
He now furtively raised his eyes: he glanced at me, irresolute, disturbed: he again surveyed the picture.
“That I should like to have it is certain:whether it would be judicious or wise is another question.”
Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him,and that her father was not likely to oppose the match, I—less exalted in my views than St.John—had been strongly disposed in my own heart to advocate their union. It seemed to me that,should he become the possessor of Mr. Oliver’s large fortune,he might do as much good with it as if he went and laid his genius out to wither,and his strength to waste, under a tropical sun. With this persuasion I now answered—
“As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were to take to yourself the original at once. ”
By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the table before him,and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over it.I discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my audacity.I saw even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed unapproachable—to hear it thus freely handled—was beginning to be felt by him as a new pleasure—an unhoped-for relief. Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and to “burst” with boldness and good-will into “the silent sea” of their souls is often to confer on them the first of obligations.
“She likes you, I am sure,” said I, as I stood behind his chair, “and her father respects you.Moreover, she is a sweet girl—rather thoughtless;but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself and her. You ought to marry her.”
“_Does_ she like me?” he asked.
“Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you continually:there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so often.”
“It is very pleasant to hear this,” he said—“very: go on for another quarter of an hour.” And he actually took out his watch and laid it upon the table to measure the time.
“But where is the use of going on,” I asked,“when you are probably preparing some iron blow of contradiction,or forging a fresh chain to fetter your heart?”
“Don’t imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am doing:human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and with such labour prepared—so assiduously sown with the seeds of good intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a nectarous flood—the young germs swamped—delicious poison cankering them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver’s feet: she is talking to me with her sweet voice—gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has copied so well—smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine—I am hers—this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush!say nothing—my heart is full of delight—my senses are entranced—let the time I marked pass in peace. ”
I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I stood silent.Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the watch, laid the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth.
“Now,” said he, “that little space was given to delirium and delusion.I rested my temples on the breast of temptation,and put my neck voluntarily under her yoke of flowers; I tasted her cup. The pillow was burning:there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a bitter taste:her promises are hollow—her offers false: I see and know all this.”
I gazed at him in wonder.
“It is strange,” pursued he, “that while I love Rosamond Oliver so wildly—with all the intensity,indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful,fascinating—I experience at the same time a calm,unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a good wife;that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage;and that to twelve months’ rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know.”
“Strange indeed!” I could not help ejaculating.
“While something in me,” he went on, “is acutely sensible to her charms,something else is as deeply impressed with her defects:they are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to—co-operate in nothing I undertook.Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female apostle?Rosamond a missionary’s wife?No!”
“But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme.”
“Relinquish!What!my vocation?My great work?My foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven?My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race—of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance—of substituting peace for war—freedom for bondage—religion for superstition—the hope of heaven for the fear of hell?Must I relinquish that?It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to live for.”
After a considerable pause, I said—“And Miss Oliver?Are her disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?”
“Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than a month,my image will be effaced from her heart. She will forget me; and will marry, probably,some one who will make her far happier than I should do.”
“You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are wasting away.”
“No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects, yet unsettled—my departure,continually procrastinated. Only this morning, I received intelligence that the successor,whose arrival I have been so long expecting,cannot be ready to replace me for three months to come yet;and perhaps the three months may extend to six.”
“You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the schoolroom.”
Again the surprised expression crossed his face.He had not imagined that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me,I felt at home in this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong,discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female,till I had passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of confidence,and won a place by their heart’s very hearthstone.
“You _are_ original,” said he, “and not timid. There is something brave in your spirit,as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to assure you that you partially misinterpret my emotions.You think them more profound and potent than they are.You give me a larger allowance of sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I colour,and when I shake before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness.I know it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I declare, the convulsion of the soul._That_ is just as fixed as a rock, firm set in the depths of a restless sea.Know me to be what I am—a cold hard man.”
I smiled incredulously.
“You have taken my confidence by storm,” he continued, “and now it is much at your service.I am simply, in my original state—stripped of that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human deformity—a cold,hard, ambitious man. Natural affection only, of all the sentiments, has permanent power over me.Reason, and not feeling, is my guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher,to do more than others, insatiable. I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent;because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence.I watch your career with interest, because I consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly,energetic woman: not because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through, or what you still suffer.”
“You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher,” I said.
“No. There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers: I believe;and I believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet. I am not a pagan,but a Christian philosopher—a follower of the sect of Jesus. As His disciple I adopt His pure,His merciful, His benignant doctrines. I advocate them: I am sworn to spread them.Won in youth to religion, she has cultivated my original qualities thus:—From the minute germ,natural affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy.From the wild stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared a due sense of the Divine justice.Of the ambition to win power and renown for my wretched self,she has formed the ambition to spread my Master’s kingdom;to achieve victories for the standard of the cross. So much has religion done for me;turning the original materials to the best account; pruning and training nature.But she could not eradicate nature: nor will it be eradicated ‘till this mortal shall put on immortality. ’”
Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my palette. Once more he looked at the portrait.
“She _is_ lovely,” he murmured. “She is well named the Rose of the World, indeed!”
“And may I not paint one like it for you?”
“_Cui bono_?No.”
He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was accustomed to rest my hand in painting,to prevent the cardboard from being sullied. What he suddenly saw on this blank paper,it was impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye. He took it up with a snatch;he looked at the edge; then shot a glance at me, inexpressibly peculiar,and quite incomprehensible: a glance that seemed to take and make note of every point in my shape,face, and dress; for it traversed all, quick, keen as lightning. His lips parted, as if to speak:but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it was.
“What is the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing in the world,” was the reply; and, replacing the paper,I saw him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It disappeared in his glove; and,with one hasty nod and “good-afternoon,” he vanished.
“Well!” I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, “that caps the globe, however!”
I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil.I pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable,and being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and soon forgot it.
CHAPTER XXXIII
When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm continued all night.The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding falls;by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable. I had closed my shutter,laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire,and after sitting nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest,I lit a candle, took down “Marmion,” and beginning—
“Day set on Norham’s castled steep, And Tweed’s fair river broad and deep,And Cheviot’s mountains lone; The massive towers, the donjon keep,The flanking walls that round them sweep, In yellow lustre shone”—
I soon forgot storm in music.
I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was St. John Rivers, who,lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen hurricane—the howling darkness—and stood before me:the cloak that covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in consternation,so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up vale that night.
“Any ill news?” I demanded. “Has anything happened?”
“No. How very easily alarmed you are!” he answered, removing his cloak and hanging it up against the door,towards which he again coolly pushed the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the snow from his boots.
“I shall sully the purity of your floor,” said he, “but you must excuse me for once.” Then he approached the fire. “I have had hard work to get here, I assure you,” he observed,as he warmed his hands over the flame. “One drift took me up to the waist; happily the snow is quite soft yet.”
“But why are you come?” I could not forbear saying.
“Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you ask it,I answer simply to have a little talk with you; I got tired of my mute books and empty rooms.Besides, since yesterday I have experienced the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half-told,and who is impatient to hear the sequel.”
He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday,and really I began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane, however,his was a very cool and collected insanity:I had never seen that handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did just now,as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and let the firelight shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale,where it grieved me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved. I waited,expecting he would say something I could at least comprehend; but his hand was now at his chin,his finger on his lip: he was thinking. It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his face.A perhaps uncalled-for gush of pity came over my heart: I was moved to say—
“I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you: it is too bad that you should be quite alone;and you are recklessly rash about your own health.”
“Not at all,” said he: “I care for myself when necessary. I am well now. What do you see amiss in me?”
This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed that my solicitude was,at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I was silenced.
He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip,and still his eye dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate; thinking it urgent to say something,I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the door, which was behind him.
“No, no!” he responded shortly and somewhat testily.
“Well,” I reflected, “if you won’t talk, you may be still; I’ll let you alone now, and return to my book.”
So I snuffed the candle and resumed the perusal of “Marmion.” He soon stirred;my eye was instantly drawn to his movements; he only took out a morocco pocket-book,thence produced a letter, which he read in silence, folded it, put it back,relapsed into meditation. It was vain to try to read with such an inscrutable fixture before me;nor could I, in impatience, consent to be dumb; he might rebuff me if he liked, but talk I would.
“Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?”
“Not since the letter I showed you a week ago.”
“There has not been any change made about your own arrangements?You will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected?”
“I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me.” Baffled so far, I changed my ground.I bethought myself to talk about the school and my scholars.
“Mary Garrett’s mother is better, and Mary came back to the school this morning,and I shall have four new girls next week from the Foundry Close—they would have come to-day but for the snow. ”
“Indeed!”
“Mr. Oliver pays for two.”
“Does he?”
“He means to give the whole school a treat at Christmas.”
“I know.”
“Was it your suggestion?”
“No.”
“Whose, then?”
“His daughter’s, I think.”
“It is like her: she is so good-natured.”
“Yes.”
Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes. It aroused him;he uncrossed his legs, sat erect, turned to me.
“Leave your book a moment, and come a little nearer the fire,” he said.
Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end, I complied.
“Half-an-hour ago,” he pursued, “I spoke of my impatience to hear the sequel of a tale:on reflection, I find the matter will be better managed by my assuming the narrator’s part,and converting you into a listener. Before commencing,it is but fair to warn you that the story will sound somewhat hackneyed in your ears;but stale details often regain a degree of freshness when they pass through new lips. For the rest, whether trite or novel, it is short.
“Twenty years ago, a poor curate—never mind his name at this moment—fell in love with a rich man’s daughter;she fell in love with him, and married him, against the advice of all her friends,who consequently disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before two years passed,the rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by side under one slab.(I have seen their grave; it formed part of the pavement of a huge churchyard surrounding the grim,soot-black old cathedral of an overgrown manufacturing town in ——shire.) They left a daughter, which, at its very birth,Charity received in her lap—cold as that of the snow-drift I almost stuck fast in to-night.Charity carried the friendless thing to the house of its rich maternal relations;it was reared by an aunt-in-law, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead. You start—did you hear a noise?I daresay it is only a rat scrambling along the rafters of the adjoining schoolroom:it was a barn before I had it repaired and altered,and barns are generally haunted by rats.—To proceed. Mrs. Reed kept the orphan ten years:whether it was happy or not with her, I cannot say, never having been told;but at the end of that time she transferred it to a place you know—being no other than Lowood School,where you so long resided yourself. It seems her career there was very honourable: from a pupil,she became a teacher, like yourself—really it strikes me there are parallel points in her history and yours—she left it to be a governess:there, again, your fates were analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr. Rochester.”
“Mr. Rivers!” I interrupted.
“I can guess your feelings,” he said, “but restrain them for a while: I have nearly finished;hear me to the end. Of Mr. Rochester’s character I know nothing,but the one fact that he professed to offer honourable marriage to this young girl,and that at the very altar she discovered he had a wife yet alive, though a lunatic.What his subsequent conduct and proposals were is a matter of pure conjecture;but when an event transpired which rendered inquiry after the governess necessary,it was discovered she was gone—no one could tell when, where, or how.She had left Thornfield Hall in the night; every research after her course had been vain:the country had been scoured far and wide;no vestige of information could be gathered respecting her.Yet that she should be found is become a matter of serious urgency:advertisements have been put in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr.Briggs, a solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted. Is it not an odd tale?”
“Just tell me this,” said I, “and since you know so much, you surely _can_ tell it me—what of Mr. Rochester?How and where is he?What is he doing?Is he well?”
“I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester:the letter never mentions him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have adverted to.You should rather ask the name of the governess—the nature of the event which requires her appearance. ”
“Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then?Did no one see Mr. Rochester?”
“I suppose not.”
“But they wrote to him?”
“Of course.”
“And what did he say?Who has his letters?”
“Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from Mr. Rochester,but from a lady: it is signed ‘Alice Fairfax.’”
I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true:he had in all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation to some former haunt on the Continent.And what opiate for his severe sufferings—what object for his strong passions—had he sought there?I dared not answer the question. Oh, my poor master—once almost my husband—whom I had often called “my dear Edward!”
“He must have been a bad man,” observed Mr. Rivers.
“You don’t know him—don’t pronounce an opinion upon him,” I said, with warmth.
“Very well,” he answered quietly: “and indeed my head is otherwise occupied than with him:I have my tale to finish. Since you won’t ask the governess’s name, I must tell it of my own accord. Stay!I have it here—it is always more satisfactory to see important points written down, fairly committed to black and white.”
And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought through;from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of paper, hastily torn off:I recognised in its texture and its stains of ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion,the ravished margin of the portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read,traced in Indian ink, in my own handwriting,the words “JANE EYRE”—the work doubtless of some moment of abstraction.