But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without one objection, one murmur,he departed. It was then nine o’clock: he did not return till midnight.Starved and tired enough he was: but he looked happier than when he set out.He had performed an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and deny, and was on better terms with himself.
I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It was Christmas week:we took to no settled employment, but spent it in a sort of merry domestic dissipation.The air of the moors, the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity,acted on Diana and Mary’s spirits like some life-giving elixir:they were gay from morning till noon, and from noon till night. They could always talk;and their discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms for me, that I preferred listening to,and sharing in it, to doing anything else. St. John did not rebuke our vivacity;but he escaped from it: he was seldom in the house; his parish was large, the population scattered,and he found daily business in visiting the sick and poor in its different districts.
One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for some minutes, asked him, “If his plans were yet unchanged.”
“Unchanged and unchangeable,” was the reply.And he proceeded to inform us that his departure from England was now definitively fixed for the ensuing year.
“And Rosamond Oliver?” suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape her lips involuntarily:for no sooner had she uttered them, than she made a gesture as if wishing to recall them. St.John had a book in his hand—it was his unsocial custom to read at meals—he closed it, and looked up.
“Rosamond Oliver,” said he, “is about to be married to Mr. Granby,one of the best connected and most estimable residents in S——, grandson and heir to Sir Frederic Granby: I had the intelligence from her father yesterday.”
His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked at him: he was serene as glass.
“The match must have been got up hastily,” said Diana: “they cannot have known each other long.”
“But two months: they met in October at the county ball at S——. But where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case,where the connection is in every point desirable, delays are unnecessary:they will be married as soon as S—— Place, which Sir Frederic gives up to them, can be refitted for their reception.”
The first time I found St. John alone after this communication,I felt tempted to inquire if the event distressed him: but he seemed so little to need sympathy,that, so far from venturing to offer him more,I experienced some shame at the recollection of what I had already hazarded. Besides,I was out of practice in talking to him: his reserve was again frozen over,and my frankness was congealed beneath it.He had not kept his promise of treating me like his sisters;he continually made little chilling differences between us,which did not at all tend to the development of cordiality: in short,now that I was acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived under the same roof with him,I felt the distance between us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the village schoolmistress.When I remembered how far I had once been admitted to his confidence,I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity.
Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said—
“You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won.”
Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a moment’s hesitation I answered—
“But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors whose triumphs have cost them too dear?Would not such another ruin you?”
“I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify;I shall never be called upon to contend for such another. The event of the conflict is decisive:my way is now clear; I thank God for it!” So saying, he returned to his papers and his silence.
As our mutual happiness (_i.e._, Diana’s, Mary’s, and mine) settled into a quieter character,and we resumed our usual habits and regular studies, St. John stayed more at home:he sat with us in the same room, sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew,Diana pursued a course of encyclopædic reading she had (to my awe and amazement) undertaken,and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own: that of some Eastern tongue,the acquisition of which he thought necessary to his plans.
Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and absorbed enough;but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish-looking grammar, and wandering over,and sometimes fixing upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious intensity of observation:if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon,it returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what it meant: I wondered, too,at the punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment,namely, my weekly visit to Morton school; and still more was I puzzled when,if the day was unfavourable, if there was snow, or rain, or high wind,and his sisters urged me not to go, he would invariably make light of their solicitude,and encourage me to accomplish the task without regard to the elements.
“Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her,” he would say: “she can bear a mountain blast,or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well as any of us.Her constitution is both sound and elastic;—better calculated to endure variations of climate than many more robust.”
And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little weather-beaten,I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him:on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse was a special annoyance.
One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really had a cold.His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading Schiller; he,deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. As I exchanged a translation for an exercise,I happened to look his way: there I found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye.How long it had been searching me through and through, and over and over, I cannot tell:so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious—as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny.
“Jane, what are you doing?”
“Learning German.”
“I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee.”
“You are not in earnest?”
“In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why.”
He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was himself at present studying;that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget the commencement;that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil with whom he might again and again go over the elements,and so fix them thoroughly in his mind;that his choice had hovered for some time between me and his sisters;but that he had fixed on me because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I do him this favour?I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long,as it wanted now barely three months to his departure.
St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every impression made on him,either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent. I consented.When Diana and Mary returned, the former found her scholar transferred from her to her brother:she laughed, and both she and Mary agreed that St.John should never have persuaded them to such a step. He answered quietly—
“I know it.”
I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master:he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his expectations, he, in his own way,fully testified his approbation. By degrees,he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind:his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference.I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by,because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him.I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable,that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain:I fell under a freezing spell. When he said “go,” I went; “come,” I came; “do this,” I did it.But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.
One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding him good-night,he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand.Diana, who chanced to be in a frolicsome humour (_she_ was not painfully controlled by his will;for hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed—
“St. John!you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don’t treat her as such: you should kiss her too.”
She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt uncomfortably confused;and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St. John bent his head;his Greek face was brought to a level with mine,his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly—he kissed me.There are no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses,or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin’s salute belonged to one of these classes;but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When given,he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure I did not blush;perhaps I might have turned a little pale,for I felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters.He never omitted the ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which I underwent it,seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm.
As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so,I felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties,wrest my tastes from their original bent,force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation.He wanted to train me to an elevation I could never reach;it racked me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted.The thing was as impossible as to mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern,to give to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his own.
Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present.Of late it had been easy enough for me to look sad:a cankering evil sat at my heart and drained my happiness at its source—the evil of suspense.
Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst these changes of place and fortune.Not for a moment. His idea was still with me, because it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse,nor a sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a tablet,fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed.The craving to know what had become of him followed me everywhere; when I was at Morton,I re-entered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now at Moor House,I sought my bedroom each night to brood over it.
In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about the will,I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester’s present residence and state of health; but,as St. John had conjectured, he was quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs.Fairfax, entreating information on the subject.I had calculated with certainty on this step answering my end:I felt sure it would elicit an early answer.I was astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but when two months wore away,and day after day the post arrived and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety.
I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed.Renewed hope followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for some weeks, then, like it,it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy,my hope died out, and then I felt dark indeed.
A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer approached; Diana tried to cheer me:she said I looked ill, and wished to accompany me to the sea-side. This St. John opposed;he said I did not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too purposeless,I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying deficiencies,he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee,and grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment: and I, like a fool,never thought of resisting him—I could not resist him.
One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual;the ebb was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment.Hannah had told me in the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down to take it,almost certain that the long-looked for tidings were vouchsafed me at last,I found only an unimportant note from Mr. Briggs on business.The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now,as I sat poring over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again.
St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice failed me:words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of the parlour:Diana was practising her music in the drawing-room, Mary was gardening—it was a very fine May day,clear, sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion,nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said—
“We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed.” And while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on his desk,and looking like a physician watching with the eye of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a patient’s malady.Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something about not being very well that morning,I resumed my task, and succeeded in completing it. St. John put away my books and his, locked his desk, and said—
“Now, Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me.”
“I will call Diana and Mary.”
“No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put on your things;go out by the kitchen-door: take the road towards the head of Marsh Glen: I will join you in a moment.”
I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive,hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt.I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting,sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither present circumstances warranted,nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John’s directions;and in ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by side with him.
The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with scents of heath and rush;the sky was of stainless blue; the stream descending the ravine, swelled with past spring rains,poured along plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams from the sun,and sapphire tints from the firmament. As we advanced and left the track, we trod a soft turf,mossy fine and emerald green, minutely enamelled with a tiny white flower,and spangled with a star-like yellow blossom: the hills, meantime, shut us quite in; for the glen,towards its head, wound to their very core.
“Let us rest here,” said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers of a battalion of rocks,guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck rushed down a waterfall; and where,still a little farther, the mountain shook off turf and flower,had only heath for raiment and crag for gem—where it exaggerated the wild to the savage,and exchanged the fresh for the frowning—where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, and a last refuge for silence.
I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and down the hollow;his glance wandered away with the stream,and returned to traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he removed his hat,let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow.He seemed in communion with the genius of the haunt: with his eye he bade farewell to something.
“And I shall see it again,” he said aloud, “in dreams when I sleep by the Ganges:and again in a more remote hour—when another slumber overcomes me—on the shore of a darker stream!”
Strange words of a strange love!An austere patriot’s passion for his fatherland!He sat down; for half-an-hour we never spoke; neither he to me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced—
“Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman which sails on the 20th of June. ”
“God will protect you; for you have undertaken His work,” I answered.
“Yes,” said he, “there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an infallible Master.I am not going out under human guidance,subject to the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms: my king, my lawgiver,my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems strange to me that all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner, —to join in the same enterprise.”
“All have not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to wish to march with the strong.”
“I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only such as are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it.”
“Those are few in number, and difficult to discover.”
“You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up—to urge and exhort them to the effort—to show them what their gifts are,and why they were given—to speak Heaven’s message in their ear,—to offer them, direct from God, a place in the ranks of His chosen.”
“If they are really qualified for the task,will not their own hearts be the first to inform them of it?”
I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me:I trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and rivet the spell.
“And what does _your_ heart say?” demanded St. John.
“My heart is mute,—my heart is mute,” I answered, struck and thrilled.
“Then I must speak for it,” continued the deep, relentless voice. “Jane, come with me to India:come as my helpmeet and fellow-labourer.”
The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved!It was as if I had heard a summons from Heaven—as if a visionary messenger, like him of Macedonia, had enounced, “Come over and help us!” But I was no apostle,—I could not behold the herald,—I could not receive his call.
“Oh, St. John!” I cried, “have some mercy!”
I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty,knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued—
“God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not personal,but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love.A missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall be mine: I claim you—not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s service.”
“I am not fit for it: I have no vocation,” I said.
He had calculated on these first objections: he was not irritated by them. Indeed,as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his arms on his chest,and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for a long and trying opposition,and had taken in a stock of patience to last him to its close—resolved, however,that that close should be conquest for him.
“Humility, Jane,” said he, “is the groundwork of Christian virtues:you say right that you are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it?Or who, that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons?I, for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I acknowledge myself the chiefest of sinners;but I do not suffer this sense of my personal vileness to daunt me. I know my Leader:that He is just as well as mighty; and while He has chosen a feeble instrument to perform a great task,He will, from the boundless stores of His providence,supply the inadequacy of the means to the end. Think like me, Jane—trust like me.It is the Rock of Ages I ask you to lean on:do not doubt but it will bear the weight of your human weakness.”
“I do not understand a missionary life: I have never studied missionary labours.”
“There I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want: I can set you your task from hour to hour;stand by you always; help you from moment to moment. This I could do in the beginning:soon (for I know your powers) you would be as strong and apt as myself, and would not require my help.”
“But my powers—where are they for this undertaking?I do not feel them. Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk.I am sensible of no light kindling—no life quickening—no voice counselling or cheering. Oh,I wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a rayless dungeon,with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths—the fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!”
“I have an answer for you—hear it. I have watched you ever since we first met:I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you in that time by sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited?In the village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly,labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations;I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled.In the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich,I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas:—lucre had no undue power over you.In the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares,keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the claim of abstract justice,I recognised a soul that revelled in the flame and excitement of sacrifice.In the tractability with which, at my wish, you forsook a study in which you were interested,and adopted another because it interested me;in the untiring assiduity with which you have since persevered in it—in the unflagging energy and unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties—I acknowledge the complement of the qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease to mistrust yourself—I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable.”
My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow sure step.Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in making the way,which had seemed blocked up, comparatively clear. My work, which had appeared so vague,so hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded,and assumed a definite form under his shaping hand. He waited for an answer.I demanded a quarter of an hour to think, before I again hazarded a reply.
“Very willingly,” he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance up the pass,threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still.
He threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still
“I _can_ do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge that,” I meditated,—“that is,if life be spared me. But I feel mine is not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian sun. What then?He does not care for that: when my time came to die, he would resign me,in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me. The case is very plain before me.In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty land—Mr. Rochester is not there;and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me?My business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day,as if I were waiting some impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him.Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one lost:is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God assign?Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results,the one best calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes?I believe I must say, Yes—and yet I shudder. Alas!If I join St. John, I abandon half myself: if I go to India, I go to premature death.And how will the interval between leaving England for India, and India for the grave, be filled?Oh, I know well!That, too, is very clear to my vision. By straining to satisfy St. John till my sinews ache,I _shall_ satisfy him—to the finest central point and farthest outward circle of his expectations.If I _do_ go with him—if I _do_ make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it absolutely:I will throw all on the altar—heart, vitals, the entire victim. He will never love me;but he shall approve me; I will show him energies he has not yet seen,resources he has never suspected. Yes, I can work as hard as he can, and with as little grudging.
“Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item—one dreadful item.It is—that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a husband’s heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock,down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon;and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never grieve me;but can I let him complete his calculations—coolly put into practice his plans—go through the wedding ceremony?Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent?Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle?No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it. As his sister,I might accompany him—not as his wife: I will tell him so.”
I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column; his face turned to me:his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to his feet and approached me.
“I am ready to go to India, if I may go free.”
“Your answer requires a commentary,” he said; “it is not clear.”
“You have hitherto been my adopted brother—I, your adopted sister: let us continue as such: you and I had better not marry.”
He shook his head. “Adopted fraternity will not do in this case.If you were my real sister it would be different: I should take you, and seek no wife.But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed by marriage, or it cannot exist:practical obstacles oppose themselves to any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane?Consider a moment—your strong sense will guide you.”
I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was,directed me only to the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife should:and therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so. “St. John,” I returned,“I regard you as a brother—you, me as a sister: so let us continue.”
“We cannot—we cannot,” he answered, with short, sharp determination: “it would not do.You have said you will go with me to India: remember—you have said that.”
“Conditionally.”
“Well—well. To the main point—the departure with me from England,the co-operation with me in my future labours—you do not object.You have already as good as put your hand to the plough: you are too consistent to withdraw it.You have but one end to keep in view—how the work you have undertaken can best be done.Simplify your complicated interests, feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims;merge all considerations in one purpose:that of fulfilling with effect—with power—the mission of your great Master. To do so,you must have a coadjutor: not a brother—that is a loose tie—but a husband. I, too,do not want a sister: a sister might any day be taken from me. I want a wife:the sole helpmeet I can influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death.”
I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow—his hold on my limbs.
“Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you.”
“One fitted to my purpose, you mean—fitted to my vocation.Again I tell you it is not the insignificant private individual—the mere man,with the man’s selfish senses—I wish to mate: it is the missionary.”
“And I will give the missionary my energies—it is all he wants—but not myself:that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For them he has no use: I retain them.”
“You cannot—you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half an oblation?Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice?It is the cause of God I advocate: it is under His standard I enlist you.I cannot accept on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire.”
“Oh!I will give my heart to God,” I said. “_You_ do not want it.”
I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence,and in the feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now,because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had held me in doubt.How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could not heretofore tell:but revelations were being made in this conference:the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities:I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath,and with that handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I.The veil fell from his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these qualities,I felt his imperfection and took courage. I was with an equal—one with whom I might argue—one whom, if I saw good, I might resist.
He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence,and I presently risked an upward glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on me,expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. “Is she sarcastic, and sarcastic to _me!_” it seemed to say. “What does this signify?”