“It is not impossible: have some energy, man.You thought you were as dead as a herring two hours since,and you are all alive and talking now. There!—Carter has done with you or nearly so;I’ll make you decent in a trice.Jane” (he turned to me for the first time since his re-entrance),“take this key: go down into my bedroom,and walk straight forward into my dressing-room:open the top drawer of the wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and neck-handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble.”
I went; sought the repository he had mentioned,found the articles named, and returned with them.
“Now,” said he, “go to the other side of the bed while I order his toilet;but don’t leave the room: you may be wanted again.”
I retired as directed.
“Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?” inquired Mr. Rochester presently.
“No, sir; all was very still.”
“We shall get you off cannily, Dick:and it will be better, both for your sake,and for that of the poor creature in yonder.I have striven long to avoid exposure,and I should not like it to come at last. Here, Carter,help him on with his waist-coat.Where did you leave your furred cloak?You can’t travel a mile without that, I know,in this damned cold climate. In your room?—Jane, run down to Mr. Mason’s room,—the one next mine,—and fetch a cloak you will see there.”
Again I ran, and again returned,bearing an immense mantle lined and edged with fur.
“Now, I’ve another errand for you,” said my untiring master;“you must away to my room again.What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!—a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture.You must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a little glass you will find there,—quick!”
I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.
“That’s well!Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a dose myself,on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome,of an Italian charlatan—a fellow you would have kicked,Carter. It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately,but it is good upon occasion: as now, for instance.Jane, a little water.”
He held out the tiny glass,and I half filled it from the water-bottle on the washstand.
“That will do;—now wet the lip of the phial.”
I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid,and presented it to Mason.
“Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so.”
“But will it hurt me?—is it inflammatory?”
“Drink!drink!drink!”
Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist.He was dressed now: he still looked pale,but he was no longer gory and sullied. Mr.Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the liquid;he then took his arm—
“Now I am sure you can get on your feet,” he said—“try.”
The patient rose.
“Carter, take him under the other shoulder.Be of good cheer, Richard; step out—that’s it!”
“I do feel better,” remarked Mr. Mason.
“I am sure you do. Now, Jane,trip on before us away to the backstairs;unbolt the side-passage door,and tell the driver of the post-chaise you will see in the yard—or just outside, for I told him not to drive his rattling wheels over the pavement—to be ready; we are coming: and, Jane, if any one is about, come to the foot of the stairs and hem.”
It was by this time half-past five,and the sun was on the point of rising;but I found the kitchen still dark and silent.The side-passage door was fastened;I opened it with as little noise as possible:all the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open,and there was a post-chaise,with horses ready harnessed,and driver seated on the box, stationed outside.I approached him, and said the gentlemen were coming;he nodded: then I looked carefully round and listened.The stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere;the curtains were yet drawn over the servants’ chamber windows;little birds were just twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees,whose boughs drooped like white garlands over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the carriage horses stamped from time to time in their closed stables: all else was still.
The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr.Rochester and the surgeon,seemed to walk with tolerable ease:they assisted him into the chaise; Carter followed.
“Take care of him,” said Mr. Rochester to the latter,“and keep him at your house till he is quite well:I shall ride over in a day or two to see how he gets on.Richard, how is it with you?”
“The fresh air revives me, Fairfax.”
“Leave the window open on his side, Carter;there is no wind—good-bye, Dick.”
“Fairfax—”
“Well what is it?”
“Let her be taken care of;let her be treated as tenderly as may be:let her—” he stopped and burst into tears.
“I do my best; and have done it, and will do it,” was the answer: he shut up the chaise door,and the vehicle drove away.
“Yet would to God there was an end of all this!” added Mr. Rochester,as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates.
This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a door in the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done with me, prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard him call “Jane!” He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for me.
“Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments,” he said; “that house is a mere dungeon:don’t you feel it so?”
“It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.”
“The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,” he answered; “and you see it through a charmed medium:you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs;that the marble is sordid slate,and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark.Now _here_” (he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) “all is real, sweet, and pure.”
He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees,pear trees, and cherry trees on one side,and a border on the other full of all sorts of old-fashioned flowers,stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies,mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar,and various fragrant herbs.They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams,followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them:the sun was just entering the dappled east,and his light illumined the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them.
“Jane, will you have a flower?”
He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush,and offered it to me.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Do you like this sunrise, Jane?That sky with its high and light clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm—this placid and balmly atmosphere?”
“I do, very much.”
“You have passed a strange night, Jane.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And it has made you look pale—were you afraid when I left you alone with Mason?”
“I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room.”
“But I had fastened the door—I had the key in my pocket:I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb—my pet lamb—so near a wolf’s den, unguarded: you were safe.”
“Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?”
“Oh yes!don’t trouble your head about her—put the thing out of your thoughts. ”
“Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays. ”
“Never fear—I will take care of myself.”
“Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?”
“I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England:nor even then. To live, for me, Jane,is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and spue fire any day. ”
“But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence,sir, is evidently potent with him:he will never set you at defiance or wilfully injure you. ”
“Oh, no!Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it,will he hurt me—but, unintentionally,he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me,if not of life, yet for ever of happiness.”
“Tell him to be cautious, sir:let him know what you fear,and show him how to avert the danger.”