“One night I had been awakened by her yells—(since the medical men had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up)—it was a fiery West Indian night; one of the description that frequently precede the hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in bed, I got up and opened the window. The air was like sulphur-steams—I could find no refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes came buzzing in and hummed sullenly round the room; the sea, which I could hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake—black clouds were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball—she threw her last bloody glance over a world quivering with the ferment of tempest. I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with such language!—no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary than she:though two rooms off,I heard every word—the thin partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction to her wolfish cries.
“‘This life,’ said I at last, ‘is hell:this is the air—those are the sounds of the bottomless pit!I have a right to deliver myself from it if I can.The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic’s burning eternity I have no fear: there is not a future state worse than this present one—let me break away, and go home to God!’
“I said this whilst I knelt down at and unlocked a trunk which contained a brace of loaded pistols: I meant to shoot myself. I only entertained the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair, which had originated the wish and design of self-destruction, was past in a second.
“A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through the open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and the air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. While I walked under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst its drenched pomegranates and pine-apples, and while the refulgent dawn of the tropics kindled round me—I reasoned thus, Jane—and now listen; for it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and showed me the right path to follow.
“The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed leaves,and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty;my heart, dried up and scorched for a long time,swelled to the tone,and filled with living blood—my being longed for renewal—my soul thirsted for a pure draught. I saw hope revive—and felt regeneration possible. From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea—bluer than the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened thus:—
“‘Go,’ said Hope, ‘and live again in Europe:there it is not known what a sullied name you bear,nor what a filthy burden is bound to you.You may take the maniac with you to England;confine her with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield:then travel yourself to what clime you will,and form what new tie you like. That woman,who has so abused your long-suffering,so sullied your name, so outraged your honour,so blighted your youth, is not your wife,nor are you her husband.See that she is cared for as her condition demands,and you have done all that God and humanity require of you.Let her identity, her connection with yourself,be buried in oblivion:you are bound to impart them to no living being.Place her in safety and comfort:shelter her degradation with secrecy, and leave her.’
“I acted precisely on this suggestion.My father and brother had not made my marriage known to their acquaintance;because, in the very first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union—having already begun to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the family character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening to me—I added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the infamous conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as to make him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring to publish the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as myself.
“To England, then, I conveyed her;a fearful voyage I had with such a monster in the vessel.Glad was I when I at last got her to Thornfield,and saw her safely lodged in that third-storey room,of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast’s den—a goblin’s cell. I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my secret: besides, she had lucid intervals of days—sometimes weeks—which she filled up with abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole from the Grimbsy Retreat. She and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed Mason’s wounds that night he was stabbed and worried), are the only two I have ever admitted to my confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the whole, proved a good keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her own, of which it appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to her harassing profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never failed to take advantage of her guardian’s temporary lapses; once to secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the night-time. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid that ghastly visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she then spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps brought back vague reminiscences of her own bridal days: but on what might have happened, I cannot endure to reflect. When I think of the thing which flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet visage over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles—”
“And what, sir,” I asked, while he paused,“did you do when you had settled her here?Where did you go?”
“What did I do, Jane?I transformed myself into a will-o’-the-wisp. Where did I go?I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the March-spirit.I sought the Continent,and went devious through all its lands.My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent woman,whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at Thornfield—”
“But you could not marry, sir.”
“I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought.It was not my original intention to deceive,as I have deceived you.I meant to tell my tale plainly,and make my proposals openly:and it appeared to me so absolutely rational that I should be considered free to love and be loved, I never doubted some woman might be found willing and able to understand my case and accept me, in spite of the curse with which I was burdened.”
“Well, sir?”
“When you are inquisitive, Jane,you always make me smile.You open your eyes like an eager bird,and make every now and then a restless movement,as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you,and you wanted to read the tablet of one’s heart.But before I go on,tell me what you mean by your ‘Well, sir?’ It is a small phrase very frequent with you;and which many a time has drawn me on and on through interminable talk:I don’t very well know why.”
“I mean,—What next?How did you proceed?What came of such an event?”
“Precisely!and what do you wish to know now?”
“Whether you found any one you liked:whether you asked her to marry you; and what she said.”