“Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter,” he said ere long;“one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I trust, Jane,you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart to God: it is all I want.Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on your Maker,the advancement of that Maker’s spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavour;you will be ready to do at once whatever furthers that end.You will see what impetus would be given to your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in marriage:the only union that gives a character of permanent conformity to the destinies and designs of human beings;and, passing over all minor caprices—all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling—all scruple about the degree,kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal inclination—you will hasten to enter into that union at once. ”
“Shall I?” I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in their harmony,but strangely formidable in their still severity; at his brow, commanding but not open;at his eyes, bright and deep and searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure;and fancied myself in idea _his wife_. Oh!it would never do!As his curate, his comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with him in that capacity;toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that office;admire and emulate his courage and devotion and vigour; accommodate quietly to his masterhood;smile undisturbed at his ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man:profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should suffer often, no doubt,attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be under rather a stringent yoke,but my heart and mind would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to:my natural unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness.There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which he never came,and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered which his austerity could never blight,nor his measured warrior-march trample down: but as his wife—at his side always,and always restrained, and always checked—forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low,to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry,though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital—_this_ would be unendurable.
“St. John!” I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation.
“Well?” he answered icily.
“I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but not as your wife;I cannot marry you and become part of you.”
“A part of me you must become,” he answered steadily; “otherwise the whole bargain is void.How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me?How can we be for ever together—sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage tribes—and unwed?”
“Very well,” I said shortly; “under the circumstances,quite as well as if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like yourself.”
“It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such:to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And for the rest,though you have a man’s vigorous brain, you have a woman’s heart and—it would not do.”
“It would do,” I affirmed with some disdain, “perfectly well. I have a woman’s heart,but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a comrade’s constancy;a fellow-soldier’s frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you like;a neophyte’s respect and submission to his hierophant: nothing more—don’t fear.”
“It is what I want,” he said, speaking to himself; “it is just what I want.And there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane,you would not repent marrying me—be certain of that; we _must_ be married. I repeat it:there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your eyes. ”
“I scorn your idea of love,” I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him,leaning my back against the rock. “I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it.”
He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so.Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell:he could command his countenance thoroughly.
“I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you,” he said:“I think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn.”
I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien.
“Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have been roused to speak so unguardedly.You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance—a topic we should never discuss:the very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality were required, what should we do?How should we feel?My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage—forget it.”
“No,” said he; “it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which can secure my great end:but I shall urge you no further at present. To-morrow, I leave home for Cambridge:I have many friends there to whom I should wish to say farewell.I shall be absent a fortnight—take that space of time to consider my offer:and do not forget that if you reject it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means,He opens to you a noble career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my wife,and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity.Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered with those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels!”
He had done. Turning from me, he once more
“Looked to river, looked to hill.”
But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy to hear them uttered.As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me:the disappointment of an austere and despotic nature,which has met resistance where it expected submission—the disapprobation of a cool,inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to sympathise:in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into obedience:it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity,and allowed so long a space for reflection and repentance.
That night, after he had kissed his sisters,he thought proper to forget even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I—who,though I had no love, had much friendship for him—was hurt by the marked omission:so much hurt that tears started to my eyes.
“I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane,” said Diana, “during your walk on the moor.But go after him; he is now lingering in the passage expecting you—he will make it up.”
I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be happy than dignified;and I ran after him—he stood at the foot of the stairs.
“Good-night, St. John,” said I.
“Good-night, Jane,” he replied calmly.
“Then shake hands,” I added.
What a cold, loose touch, he impressed on my fingers!He was deeply displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm,nor tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had with him—no cheering smile or generous word:but still the Christian was patient and placid; and when I asked him if he forgave me,he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation;that he had nothing to forgive, not having been offended.
And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me down.
CHAPTER XXXV
He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he would.He deferred his departure a whole week,and during that time he made me feel what severe punishment a good yet stern,a conscientious yet implacable man can inflict on one who has offended him.Without one overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word,he contrived to impress me momently with the conviction that I was put beyond the pale of his favour.
Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness—not that he would have injured a hair of my head,if it had been fully in his power to do so. Both by nature and principle,he was superior to the mean gratification of vengeance:he had forgiven me for saying I scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words;and as long as he and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his look, when he turned to me,that they were always written on the air between me and him; whenever I spoke,they sounded in my voice to his ear, and their echo toned every answer he gave me.
He did not abstain from conversing with me:he even called me as usual each morning to join him at his desk;and I fear the corrupt man within him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by,the pure Christian, in evincing with what skill he could,while acting and speaking apparently just as usual,extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of interest and approval which had formerly communicated a certain austere charm to his language and manner. To me, he was in reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, bright, blue gem; his tongue a speaking instrument—nothing more.
All this was torture to me—refined, lingering torture.It kept up a slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief,which harassed and crushed me altogether. I felt how—if I were his wife, this good man,pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me,without drawing from my veins a single drop of blood,or receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime.Especially I felt this when I made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth._He_ experienced no suffering from estrangement—no yearning after reconciliation; and though,more than once, my fast falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent,they produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or metal.To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual:as if afraid that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me how completely I was banished and banned,he added the force of contrast; and this I am sure he did not by malice, but on principle.
The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden about sunset,and remembering, as I looked at him, that this man, alienated as he now was,had once saved my life, and that we were near relations,I was moved to make a last attempt to regain his friendship.I went out and approached him as he stood leaning over the little gate; I spoke to the point at once.
“St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us be friends.”
“I hope we are friends,” was the unmoved reply; while he still watched the rising of the moon,which he had been contemplating as I approached.
“No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that.”
“Are we not?That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and all good.”
“I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of wishing any one ill; but,as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more of affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere strangers. ”
“Of course,” he said. “Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from regarding you as a stranger.”
This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling enough.Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should immediately have left him;but something worked within me more strongly than those feelings could.I deeply venerated my cousin’s talent and principle. His friendship was of value to me:to lose it tried me severely. I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it.
“Must we part in this way, St. John?And when you go to India, will you leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?”
He now turned quite from the moon and faced me.
“When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you!What!do you not go to India?”
“You said I could not unless I married you.”
“And you will not marry me!You adhere to that resolution?”
Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions?How much of the fall of the avalanche is in their anger?of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?
“No. St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution.”
The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash down.
“Once more, why this refusal?” he asked.
“Formerly,” I answered, “because you did not love me; now, I reply, because you almost hate me.If I were to marry you, you would kill me. You are killing me now.”
His lips and cheeks turned white—quite white.
“_I should kill you_—_I am killing you_?Your words are such as ought not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue.They betray an unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem inexcusable,but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even until seventy-and-seven times.”
I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from his mind the trace of my former offence,I had stamped on that tenacious surface another and far deeper impression: I had burnt it in.
“Now you will indeed hate me,” I said. “It is useless to attempt to conciliate you:I see I have made an eternal enemy of you.”
A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on the truth.That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew the steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.
“You utterly misinterpret my words,” I said, at once seizing his hand:“I have no intention to grieve or pain you—indeed, I have not.”
Most bitterly he smiled—most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine.“And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I presume?” said he, after a considerable pause.
“Yes, I will, as your assistant,” I answered.
A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between Nature and Grace in this interval,I cannot tell: only singular gleams scintillated in his eyes,and strange shadows passed over his face. He spoke at last.
“I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine.I proved it to you in such terms as, I should have thought,would have prevented your ever again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret—for your sake.”
I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at once. “Keep to common sense,St. John: you are verging on nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by what I have said.You are not really shocked: for, with your superior mind,you cannot be either so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again,I will be your curate, if you like, but never your wife.”
Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly—
“A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me, then, it seems, you cannot go:but if you are sincere in your offer, I will, while in town, speak to a married missionary,whose wife needs a coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society’s aid;and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your promise and deserting the band you engaged to join. ”
Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or entered into any engagement;and this language was all much too hard and much too despotic for the occasion. I replied—
“There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the case.I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with strangers.With you I would have ventured much, because I admire, confide in, and, as a sister, I love you;but I am convinced that, go when and with whom I would, I should not live long in that climate.”
“Ah!you are afraid of yourself,” he said, curling his lip.
“I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish me would, I begin to think,be almost equivalent to committing suicide. Moreover,before I definitively resolve on quitting England,I will know for certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than by leaving it.”
“What do you mean?”
“It would be fruitless to attempt to explain;but there is a point on which I have long endured painful doubt,and I can go nowhere till by some means that doubt is removed.”
“I know where your heart turns and to what it clings.The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have crushed it:now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr. Rochester?”
It was true. I confessed it by silence.
“Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?”
“I must find out what is become of him.”
“It remains for me, then,” he said, “to remember you in my prayers, and to entreat God for you,in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway.I had thought I recognised in you one of the chosen. But God sees not as man sees: _His_ will be done—”
He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. He was soon out of sight.
On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, looking very thoughtful.Diana was a great deal taller than I: she put her hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face.
“Jane,” she said, “you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure there is something the matter.Tell me what business St. John and you have on hands.I have watched you this half hour from the window; you must forgive my being such a spy,but for a long time I have fancied I hardly know what. St. John is a strange being—”
She paused—I did not speak: soon she resumed—
“That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting you, I am sure:he has long distinguished you by a notice and interest he never showed to any one else—to what end?I wish he loved you—does he, Jane?”
I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; “No, Die, not one whit.”
“Then why does he follow you so with his eyes, and get you so frequently alone with him,and keep you so continually at his side?Mary and I had both concluded he wished you to marry him.”
“He does—he has asked me to be his wife.”
Diana clapped her hands. “That is just what we hoped and thought!And you will marry him, Jane, won’t you?And then he will stay in England.”
“Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils. ”
“What!He wishes you to go to India?”
“Yes.”
“Madness!” she exclaimed. “You would not live three months there, I am certain. You never shall go: you have not consented, have you, Jane?”
“I have refused to marry him—”
“And have consequently displeased him?” she suggested.
“Deeply: he will never forgive me, I fear: yet I offered to accompany him as his sister.”
“It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you undertook—one of incessant fatigue,where fatigue kills even the strong, and you are weak. St.John—you know him—would urge you to impossibilities:with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot hours; and unfortunately,I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force yourself to perform.I am astonished you found courage to refuse his hand. You do not love him then, Jane?”
“Not as a husband.”
“Yet he is a handsome fellow.”
“And I am so plain, you see, Die. We should never suit.”
“Plain!You?Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good, to be grilled alive in Calcutta.” And again she earnestly conjured me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.
“I must indeed,” I said; “for when just now I repeated the offer of serving him for a deacon,he expressed himself shocked at my want of decency.He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing to accompany him unmarried:as if I had not from the first hoped to find in him a brother, and habitually regarded him as such. ”
“What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?”
“You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again explained that it is not himself,but his office he wishes to mate. He has told me I am formed for labour—not for love:which is true, no doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not formed for love,it follows that I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange, Die,to be chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?”
“Insupportable—unnatural—out of the question!”
“And then,” I continued, “though I have only sisterly affection for him now, yet,if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of conceiving an inevitable, strange,torturing kind of love for him, because he is so talented;and there is often a certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case,my lot would become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him;and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity,unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know he would.”
“And yet St. John is a good man,” said Diana.
“He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people,in pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore,for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest, in his progress, he should trample them down. Here he comes!I will leave you, Diana.” And I hastened upstairs as I saw him entering the garden.
But I was forced to meet him again at supper.During that meal he appeared just as composed as usual. I had thought he would hardly speak to me,and I was certain he had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial scheme:the sequel showed I was mistaken on both points. He addressed me precisely in his ordinary manner,or what had, of late, been his ordinary manner—one scrupulously polite.No doubt he had invoked the help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had roused in him,and now believed he had forgiven me once more.
For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first chapter of Revelation.It was at all times pleasant to listen while from his lips fell the words of the Bible:never did his fine voice sound at once so sweet and full—never did his manner become so impressive in its noble simplicity,as when he delivered the oracles of God:and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone—that manner a more thrilling meaning—as he sat in the midst of his household circle (the May moon shining in through the uncurtained window, and rendering almost unnecessary the light of the candle on the table): as he sat there, bending over the great old Bible, and described from its page the vision of the new heaven and the new earth—told how God would come to dwell with men, how He would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and promised that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more pain, because the former things were passed away.
The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them: especially as I felt, by the slight,indescribable alteration in sound, that in uttering them, his eye had turned on me.
“He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But,” was slowly, distinctly read, “the fearful, the unbelieving, &c.,shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. ”
Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared for me.
A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness,marked his enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter.The reader believed his name was already written in the Lamb’s book of life,and he yearned after the hour which should admit him to the city to which the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour;which has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered—all his stern zeal woke:he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and resolved on a conquest.He supplicated strength for the weak-hearted; guidance for wanderers from the fold: a return,even at the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were luring from the narrow path.He asked, he urged, he claimed the boon of a brand snatched from the burning.Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then,when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed.He felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely: others who heard him plead for it, could not but feel it too.
The prayer over, we took leave of him: he was to go at a very early hour in the morning.Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the room—in compliance, I think,with a whispered hint from him: I tendered my hand, and wished him a pleasant journey.
“Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a fortnight: that space, then,is yet left you for reflection. If I listened to human pride,I should say no more to you of marriage with me; but I listen to my duty,and keep steadily in view my first aim—to do all things to the glory of God.My Master was long-suffering: so will I be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a vessel of wrath:repent—resolve, while there is yet time. Remember,we are bid to work while it is day—warned that ‘the night cometh when no man shall work.’ Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good things in this life.God give you strength to choose that better part which shall not be taken from you!”
He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had spoken earnestly, mildly:his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding his mistress,but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering sheep—or better,of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is responsible. All men of talent,whether they be men of feeling or not; whether they be zealots, or aspirants,or despots—provided only they be sincere—have their sublime moments, when they subdue and rule.I felt veneration for St. John—veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point I had so long shunned.I was tempted to cease struggling with him—to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence,and there lose my own. I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been once before,in a different way, by another. I was a fool both times.To have yielded then would have been an error of principle;to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment. So I think at this hour,when I look back to the crisis through the quiet medium of time:I was unconscious of folly at the instant.
I stood motionless under my hierophant’s touch.My refusals were forgotten—my fears overcome—my wrestlings paralysed. The Impossible—_i.e._,my marriage with St. John—was fast becoming the Possible.All was changing utterly with a sudden sweep.Religion called—Angels beckoned—God commanded—life rolled together like a scroll—death’s gates opening,showed eternity beyond: it seemed, that for safety and bliss there,all here might be sacrificed in a second. The dim room was full of visions.
“Could you decide now?” asked the missionary. The inquiry was put in gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness!how far more potent is it than force!I could resist St. John’s wrath: I grew pliant as a reed under his kindness.Yet I knew all the time, if I yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day,of my former rebellion. His nature was not changed by one hour of solemn prayer: it was only elevated.
“I could decide if I were but certain,” I answered:“were I but convinced that it is God’s will I should marry you,I could vow to marry you here and now—come afterwards what would!”
“My prayers are heard!” ejaculated St. John. He pressed his hand firmer on my head, as if he claimed me:he surrounded me with his arm, _almost_ as if he loved me (I say _almost_—I knew the difference—for I had felt what it was to be loved;but, like him, I had now put love out of the question, and thought only of duty).I contended with my inward dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely, deeply,fervently longed to do what was right; and only that. “Show me, show me the path!” I entreated of Heaven. I was excited more than I had ever been;and whether what followed was the effect of excitement the reader shall judge.
All the house was still; for I believe all, except St. John and myself, were now retired to rest.The one candle was dying out: the room was full of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick:I heard its throb. Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it through,and passed at once to my head and extremities. The feeling was not like an electric shock,but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling:it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had been but torpor,from which they were now summoned and forced to wake. They rose expectant:eye and ear waited while the flesh quivered on my bones.
“What have you heard?What do you see?” asked St. John. I saw nothing, but I heard a voice somewhere cry—
“Jane!Jane!Jane!”—nothing more.
“O God!what is it?” I gasped.
I might have said, “Where is it?” for it did not seem in the room—nor in the house—nor in the garden;it did not come out of the air—nor from under the earth—nor from overhead. I had heard it—where, or whence, for ever impossible to know!And it was the voice of a human being—a known, loved,well-remembered voice—that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently.
“I am coming!” I cried. “Wait for me!Oh, I will come!” I flew to the door and looked into the passage: it was dark. I ran out into the garden: it was void.
“Where are you?” I exclaimed.