Jane Eyre.............................................................................................................................................................1

Charlotte Bronte .......................................................................................................................................1

A preface to the first edition of "Jane Eyre" being unnecessary, I gave none: this second edition demands a

To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale with few pretensions.

To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to an obscure aspirant.

To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical sense and frank liberality have afforded

The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I must thank them in vague terms; but my

Publishers are definite: so are certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only largehearted and

highminded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to them, i.e., to my Publishers and the select

Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class; a

small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who

doubt the tendency of such books as "Jane Eyre:" in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears

detect in each protest against bigotrythat parent of crimean insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I

would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths.

Conventionality is not morality. Selfrighteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.

To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often

confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human

doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the worldredeeming creed

of Christ. There isI repeat ita difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and

The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it

convenient to make external show pass for sterling worthto let whitewashed walls vouch for clean

shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and exposeto rase the gilding, and show base metal under

itto penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.

Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but evil; probably he liked the

sycophant son of Chenaannah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his

There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking,

comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and

Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophetlike and as vitala mien as dauntless and as

daring. Is the satirist of "Vanity Fair" admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those

amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levinbrand of his

denunciation, were to take his warnings in timethey or their seed might yet escape a fatal RimothGilead.

Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect

profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first

social regenerator of the dayas the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the

warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that

suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent. They say he is like Fielding: they talk of his wit,

humour, comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion,

but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his

serious genius that the mere lambent sheetlightning playing under the edge of the summercloud does to the

electric deathspark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to himif he will

accept the tribute of a total strangerI have dedicated this second edition of "JANE EYRE."

I avail myself of the opportunity which a third edition of "Jane Eyre" affords me, of again addressing a word

to the Public, to explain that my claim to the title of novelist rests on this one work alone. If, therefore, the

authorship of other works of fiction has been attributed to me, an honour is awarded where it is not merited;

This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already have been made, and to prevent future

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery

an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold

winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming

home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the

nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawingroom: she lay

reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying)

looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, "She regretted to be under the

necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own

observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a

more attractive and sprightly manner something lighter, franker, more natural, as it wereshe really must

exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children."

"Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her

elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent."

A breakfastroom adjoined the drawingroom, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed

myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the windowseat:

gathering up my feet, I sat crosslegged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close,

Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting,

but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I

studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet

lawn and stormbeat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.

I returned to my bookBewick's History of British Birds: the letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally

speaking; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank.

They were those which treat of the haunts of seafowl; of "the solitary rocks and promontories" by them only

inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to

"Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls, Boils round the naked, melancholy isles Of farthest Thule; and

Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla,

Iceland, Greenland, with "the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space,that

reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in

Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold." Of

these deathwhite realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the halfcomprehended notions that

float dim through children's brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages

connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a

sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon

I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its

two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newlyrisen crescent, attesting the hour of

The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed over quickly: it was an object of terror.

So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.

Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever

profoundly interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she

chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her ironingtable to the nursery hearth, she

allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed

our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at

a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.

With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, and

"Boh! Madam Mope!" cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty.

"Where the dickens is she!" he continued. "Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama

"It is well I drew the curtain," thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hidingplace: nor

would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just put

And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack.

"Say, 'What do you want, Master Reed?'" was the answer. "I want you to come here;" and seating himself in

an armchair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.

John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for

his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large

extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared

eye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month

or two, "on account of his delicate health." Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he

had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh,

and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's sallowness was owing to overapplication and,

John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me;

not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared

him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near. There were moments when I was

bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his

inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs.

Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both

Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at

me as far as he could without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow,

I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that

notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I tottered, and on

"That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since," said he, "and for your sneaking way of getting

behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!"

Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to endure the blow

"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father

left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eat the same meals

we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense. Now, I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they

ARE mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of

I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act

to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it

hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror

"Wicked and cruel boy!" I said. "You are like a murdereryou are like a slavedriveryou are like the

I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn

"What! what!" he cried. "Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana? Won't I tell mama?

He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had closed with a desperate thing. I

really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and

was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations for the time predominated over fear, and I

received him in frantic sort. I don't very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me "Rat! Rat!"

and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone

upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the

"Take her away to the redroom, and lock her in there." Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I

I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which greatly strengthened the bad opinion

Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather

OUT of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered me

liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.

"For shame! for shame!" cried the lady'smaid. "What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young

"No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think over your

They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had thrust me upon a stool: my

impulse was to rise from it like a spring; their two pair of hands arrested me instantly.

"If you don't sit still, you must be tied down," said Bessie. "Miss Abbot, lend me your garters; she would

Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature. This preparation for bonds, and the

"Mind you don't," said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that I was really subsiding, she loosened her

hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my face, as

"But it was always in her," was the reply. "I've told Missis often my opinion about the child, and Missis

agreed with me. She's an underhand little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover."

Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said"You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are

under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the

I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very first recollections of existence

included hints of the same kind. This reproach of my dependence had become a vague singsong in my ear:

"And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed, because Missis

kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none:

"What we tell you is for your good," added Bessie, in no harsh voice, "you should try to be useful and

pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have a home here; but if you become passionate and rude, Missis will

"Besides," said Miss Abbot, "God will punish her: He might strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and

then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn't have her heart for anything. Say your

prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to

The redroom was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance

influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it

contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive

pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two

large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar

drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a

soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilettable, the chairs were of darkly polished

old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piledup mattresses and

pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample

cushioned easychair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I

This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchen;

solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. The housemaid alone came here on Saturdays, to

wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it

to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her

jewelcasket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the

Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his last; here he lay in state; hence his

coffin was borne by the undertaker's men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration had guarded it

My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, was a low ottoman near the marble

chimneypiece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued,

broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled windows; a great lookingglass

between them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had locked

the door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure.

Returning, I had to cross before the lookingglass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it

revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure

there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where

all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp,

Bessie's evening stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the

Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for complete victory: my blood was still

warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush of

All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference, all his mother's aversion, all the servants'

partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering,

always browbeaten, always accused, for ever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to

try to win any one's favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had a

spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her beauty, her

pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for

every fault. John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the

little peachicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off

the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled her for her dark

skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and

he was still "her own darling." I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed

naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to night.

My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had reproved John for wantonly

striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with

"Unjust!unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitory

power: and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from

insupportable oppressionas running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more,

What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult, and all my

heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not

answer the ceaseless inward questionWHY I thus suffered; now, at the distance ofI will not say how

I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her

children, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. They were not

bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous

thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their

interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of

contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome,

romping childthough equally dependent and friendlessMrs. Reed would have endured my presence

more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellowfeeling; the

Daylight began to forsake the redroom; it was past four o'clock, and the beclouded afternoon was tending to

drear twilight. I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the

grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of

humiliation, selfdoubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire. All said I was

wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought had I been but just conceiving of starving myself to death?

That certainly was a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church an

inviting bourne? In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by this thought to recall his

idea, I dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could not remember him; but I knew that he was my own

unclemy mother's brotherthat he had taken me when a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last

moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own

children. Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept this promise; and so she had, I dare say, as well as her

nature would permit her; but how could she really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnected with

her, after her husband's death, by any tie? It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a

hardwrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an

A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted notnever doubted that if Mr. Reed had been alive he

would have treated me kindly; and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls

occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaning mirrorI began to recall what I had

heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish

the perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister's

child, might quit its abodewhether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the departedand rise

before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might

waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed face, bending over me with

strange pity. This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt would be terrible if realised: with all my might I

endeavoured to stifle it I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my head and tried

to look boldly round the dark room; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray

from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I

gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this streak of

light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some one across the lawn: but then, prepared as

my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a

herald of some coming vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my

ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated:

endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort. Steps came running along

"Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come." I had now got hold of Bessie's hand, and she did not

"She has screamed out on purpose," declared Abbot, in some disgust. "And what a scream! If she had been in

great pain one would have excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know her naughty tricks."

"What is all this?" demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed came along the corridor, her cap

flying wide, her gown rustling stormily. "Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre should be

"Let her go," was the only answer. "Loose Bessie's hand, child: you cannot succeed in getting out by these

means, be assured. I abhor artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show you that tricks will not

answer: you will now stay here an hour longer, and it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness

"O aunt! have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure itlet me be punished some other way! I shall be killed

"Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:" and so, no doubt, she felt it. I was a precocious actress in her

eyes; she sincerely looked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity.

Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly

thrust me back and locked me in, without farther parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was

The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing

before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow

sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation, uncertainty, and an allpredominating sense of

terror confused my faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting me up and

supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I

In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved: I knew quite well that I was in my own bed, and

that the red glare was the nursery fire. It was night: a candle burnt on the table; Bessie stood at the bedfoot

with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near my pillow, leaning over me.

I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that there was a

stranger in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead., and not related to Mrs. Reed. Turning from

Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been),

I scrutinised the face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by

Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for herself and the children she employed a physician.

I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand: he took it, smiling and saying, "We shall do

very well byandby." Then he laid me down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be very careful that I

was not disturbed during the night. Having given some further directions, and intimates that he should call

again the next day, he departed; to my grief: I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair near

my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, all the room darkened and my heart again sank: inexpressible

Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might be rough. "I will try."

"Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twelve o'clock; but you may call me if you want anything in the

"You fell sick, I suppose, in the redroom with crying; you'll be better soon, no doubt."

"Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren't for my life be alone with that poor child tonight:

she might die; it's such a strange thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything. Missis was

Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering together for halfanhour before

they fell asleep. I caught scraps of their conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly to infer the

"Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished""A great black dog behind him""Three loud

raps on the chamber door""A light in the churchyard just over his grave," &c. &c.

At last both slept: the fire and the candle went out. For me, the watches of that long night passed in ghastly

No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the redroom; it only gave my nerves a shock

of which I feel the reverberation to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental

suffering, but I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did: while rending my heartstrings, you

Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl by the nursery hearth. I felt physically

weak and broken down: but my worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a wretchedness

which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another

followed. Yet, I thought, I ought to have been happy, for none of the Reeds were there, they were all gone out

in the carriage with their mama. Abbot, too, was sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved hither

and thither, putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed to me every now and then a word of

unwonted kindness. This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a

life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that

Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a tart on a certain brightly painted china

plate, whose bird of paradise, nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir in me a

most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my

hand in order to examine it more closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a privilege.

This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate

pastry upon it. Vain favour! coming, like most other favours long deferred and often wished for, too late! I

could not eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird, the tints of the flowers, seemed strangely faded: I put both

plate and tart away. Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word BOOK acted as a transient stimulus, and I

begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from the library. This book I had again and again perused with delight.

I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy

tales: for as to the elves, having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and

beneath the groundivy mantling old wallnooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they

were all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the

population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my creed, solid parts of the earth's surface,

I doubted not that I might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses,

and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds of the one realm; and the cornfields

foresthigh, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats, the towerlike men and women, of the other. Yet, when

this cherished volume was now placed in my handwhen I turned over its leaves, and sought in its

marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to findall was eerie and dreary; the giants were

gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and

dangerous regions. I closed the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the

Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having washed her hands, she opened a certain

little drawer, full of splendid shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana's doll.

I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for Bessie had a sweet voice,at least, I

thought so. But now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness.

Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very low, very lingeringly; "A long time ago"

came out like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn. She passed into another ballad, this time a really doleful

"My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary; Long is the way, and the mountains are wild; Soon will

Why did they send me so far and so lonely, Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled? Men are

Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing, Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild, God, in His

Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing, Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled, Still will

There is a thought that for strength should avail me, Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled; Heaven is

"Come, Miss Jane, don't cry," said Bessie as she finished. She might as well have said to the fire, "don't

burn!" but how could she divine the morbid suffering to which I was a prey? In the course of the morning Mr.

"What, already up!" said he, as he entered the nursery. "Well, nurse, how is she?"

"Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Miss Jane: your name is Jane, is it not?"

"Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what about? Have you any pain?"

"Oh! I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with Missis in the carriage," interposed Bessie.

I thought so too; and my selfesteem being wounded by the false charge, I answered promptly, "I never cried

for such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable."

The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before him; he fixed his eyes on me very

steadily: his eyes were small and grey; not very bright, but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had

a hardfeatured yet goodnatured looking face. Having considered me at leisure, he said

"Fall! why, that is like a baby again! Can't she manage to walk at her age? She must be eight or nine years

"I was knocked down," was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me by another pang of mortified pride; "but

that did not make me ill," I added; while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff.

As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang for the servants' dinner; he knew what it

was. "That's for you, nurse," said he; "you can go down; I'll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back."

Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced

"The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?" pursued Mr. Lloyd when Bessie was gone.

"Of Mr. Reed's ghost I am: he died in that room, and was laid out there. Neither Bessie nor any one else will

go into it at night, if they can help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle,so cruel that I

"Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in daylight?"

"No: but night will come again before long: and besides,I am unhappy,very unhappy, for other things."

How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was to frame any answer! Children can

feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not

how to express the result of the process in words. Fearful, however, of losing this first and only opportunity

of relieving my grief by imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a meagre, though, as far as

"Don't you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?" asked he. "Are you not very thankful to have such a

"It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here than a servant."

"If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a

"I don't know. I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might have some poor, low relations called

I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of

industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes,

scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with

I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn to speak

like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes

nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead: no, I was not

"I cannot tell; Aunt. Reed says if I have any, they must be a beggarly set: I should not like to go a begging."

Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where young

ladies sat in the stocks, wore backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise: John

Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed's tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie's

accounts of schooldiscipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming

to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young

ladies were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by

them executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of French books

they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened. Besides, school would be a complete

change: it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.

"I should indeed like to go to school," was the audible conclusion of my musings.

"Well, well! who knows what may happen?" said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. "The child ought to have change of

Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling up the gravelwalk.

"Is that your mistress, nurse?" asked Mr. Lloyd. "I should like to speak to her before I go."

Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfastroom, and led the way out. In the interview which followed

between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume, from afteroccurrences, that the apothecary ventured to recommend

my being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt readily enough adopted; for as Abbot said, in

discussing the subject with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was in bed, and, as

they thought, asleep, "Missis was, she dared say, glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome, illconditioned

child, who always looked as if she were watching everybody, and scheming plots underhand." Abbot, I think,

On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot's communications to Bessie, that my

father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who

considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her

off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the typhus

fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where

that disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of

Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, "Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot."

"Yes," responded Abbot; "if she were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness; but one

"Not a great deal, to be sure," agreed Bessie: "at any rate, a beauty like Miss Georgiana would be more

"Yes, I doat on Miss Georgiana!" cried the fervent Abbot. "Little darling!with her long curls and her blue

eyes, and such a sweet colour as she has; just as if she were painted!Bessie, I could fancy a Welsh rabbit

From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported conference between Bessie and Abbot, I

gathered enough of hope to suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near, I desired

and waited it in silence. It tarried, however: days and weeks passed: I had regained my normal state of health,

but no new allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded. Mrs. Reed surveyed me at times with a

severe eye, but seldom addressed me: since my illness, she had drawn a more marked line of separation than

ever between me and her own children; appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself, condemning me to

take my meals alone, and pass all my time in the nursery, while my cousins were constantly in the

drawingroom. Not a hint, however, did she drop about sending me to school: still I felt an instinctive

certainty that she would not long endure me under the same roof with her; for her glance, now more than

Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible: John thrust his

tongue in his cheek whenever he saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I instantly turned against

him, roused by the same sentiment of deep ire and desperate revolt which had stirred my corruption before,

he thought it better to desist, and ran from me tittering execrations, and vowing I had burst his nose. I had

indeed levelled at that prominent feature as hard a blow as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that

either that or my look daunted him, I had the greatest inclination to follow up my advantage to purpose; but

he was already with his mama. I heard him in a blubbering tone commence the tale of how "that nasty Jane

"Don't talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her; she is not worthy of notice; I do not choose

Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and without at all deliberating on my words

Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this strange and audacious declaration, she ran nimbly

up the stair, swept me like a whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge of my crib, dared

me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place, or utter one syllable during the remainder of the day.

"What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?" was my scarcely voluntary demand. I say scarcely

voluntary, for it seemed as if my tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their utterance:

"What?" said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold composed grey eye became troubled with a look

like fear; she took her hand from my arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child

"My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mama: they know how

Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly, she boxed both my ears, and then left me

without a word. Bessie supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she proved beyond a

doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared under a roof. I half believed her; for I felt

November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the New Year had been celebrated at

Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given.

From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety consisted in witnessing the daily

apparelling of Eliza and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawingroom, dressed out in thin muslin

frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ringletted; and afterwards, in listening to the sound of the

piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the jingling of glass

and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawingroom door opened

and closed. When tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead to the solitary and silent nursery:

there, though somewhat sad, I was not miserable. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into company,

for in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had but been kind and companionable, I should have

deemed it a treat to spend the evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them under the formidable eye of

Mrs. Reed, in a room full of ladies and gentlemen. But Bessie, as soon as she had dressed her young ladies,

used to take herself off to the lively regions of the kitchen and housekeeper's room, generally bearing the

candle along with her. I then sat with my doll on my knee till the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to

make sure that nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers sank to a dull

red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings as I best might, and sought shelter from cold and

darkness in my crib. To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something, and, in the

dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven

image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doated

on this little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my

nightgown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy, believing it to be happy

Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie's

step on the stairs: sometimes she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her scissors, or perhaps

to bring me something by way of suppera bun or a cheesecakethen she would sit on the bed while I ate

it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed me, and said, "Good

night, Miss Jane." When thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world; and I

wished most intensely that she would always be so pleasant and amiable, and never push me about, or scold,

or task me unreasonably, as she was too often wont to do. Bessie Lee must, I think, have been a girl of good

natural capacity, for she was smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative; so, at least, I judge

from the impression made on me by her nursery tales. She was pretty too, if my recollections of her face and

person are correct. I remember her as a slim young woman, with black hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and

good, clear complexion; but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas of principle or

justice: still, such as she was, I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall.

It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o'clock in the morning: Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my

cousins had not yet been summoned to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm gardencoat to

go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she was fond: and not less so of selling the eggs to the

housekeeper and hoarding up the money she thus obtained. She had a turn for traffic, and a marked

propensity for saving; shown not only in the vending of eggs and chickens, but also in driving hard bargains

with the gardener about flowerroots, seeds, and slips of plants; that functionary having orders from Mrs.

Reed to buy of his young lady all the products of her parterre she wished to sell: and Eliza would have sold

the hair off her head if she could have made a handsome profit thereby. As to her money, she first secreted it

in odd corners, wrapped in a rag or an old curlpaper; but some of these hoards having been discovered by

the housemaid, Eliza, fearful of one day losing her valued treasure, consented to intrust it to her mother, at a

usurious rate of interestfifty or sixty per cent.; which interest she exacted every quarter, keeping her

Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass, and interweaving her curls with artificial flowers

and faded feathers, of which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I was making my bed, having

received strict orders from Bessie to get it arranged before she returned (for Bessie now frequently employed

me as a sort of undernurserymaid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs, &c.). Having spread the quilt and folded

my nightdress, I went to the windowseat to put in order some picturebooks and doll's house furniture

scattered there; an abrupt command from Georgiana to let her playthings alone (for the tiny chairs and

mirrors, the fairy plates and cups, were her property) stopped my proceedings; and then, for lack of other

occupation, I fell to breathing on the frostflowers with which the window was fretted, and thus clearing a

space in the glass through which I might look out on the grounds, where all was still and petrified under the

From this window were visible the porter's lodge and the carriageroad, and just as I had dissolved so much of

the silverwhite foliage veiling the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates thrown open and a carriage

roll through. I watched it ascending the drive with indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none

ever brought visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of the house, the doorbell rang loudly, the

newcomer was admitted. All this being nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found livelier attraction in

the spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and chirruped on the twigs of the leafless cherrytree

nailed against the wall near the casement. The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the table,

and having crumbled a morsel of roll, I was tugging at the sash to put out the crumbs on the windowsill,

"Miss Jane, take off your pinafore; what are you doing there? Have you washed your hands and face this

morning?" I gave another tug before I answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its bread: the sash

yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone sill, some on the cherrytree bough, then, closing the

"Troublesome, careless child! and what are you doing now? You look quite red, as if you had been about

I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great a hurry to listen to explanations; she

hauled me to the washstand, inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face and hands with soap,

water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then

hurrying me to the top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in the breakfastroom.

I would have asked who wanted me: I would have demanded if Mrs. Reed was there; but Bessie was already

gone, and had closed the nurserydoor upon me. I slowly descended. For nearly three months, I had never

been called to Mrs. Reed's presence; restricted so long to the nursery, the breakfast, dining, and

drawingrooms were become for me awful regions, on which it dismayed me to intrude.

I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfastroom door, and I stopped, intimidated and

trembling. What a miserable little poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of me in those

days! I feared to return to the nursery, and feared to go forward to the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated

hesitation; the vehement ringing of the breakfastroom bell decided me; I MUST enter.

"Who could want me?" I asked inwardly, as with both hands I turned the stiff doorhandle, which, for a

second or two, resisted my efforts. "What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment?a man or a

woman?" The handle turned, the door unclosed, and passing through and curtseying low, I looked up ata

black pillar!such, at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow, sableclad shape standing

erect on the rug: the grim face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft by way of capital.

Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a signal to me to approach; I did so, and she

introduced me to the stony stranger with the words: "This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to you."

HE, for it was a man, turned his head slowly towards where I stood, and having examined me with the two

inquisitivelooking grey eyes which twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in a bass

"So much?" was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny for some minutes. Presently he addressed

In uttering these words I looked up: he seemed to me a tall gentleman; but then I was very little; his features

were large, and they and all the lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim.

Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: my little world held a contrary opinion: I was silent. Mrs. Reed

answered for me by an expressive shake of the head, adding soon, "Perhaps the less said on that subject the

"Sorry indeed to hear it! she and I must have some talk;" and bending from the perpendicular, he installed his

I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before him. What a face he had, now that it was

almost on a level with mine! what a great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent teeth!

"No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where

I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable: "I must keep in good health, and

"How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die daily. I buried a little child of five years

old only a day or two since,a good little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to be feared the same

Not being in a condition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes down on the two large feet planted on the

"I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever having been the occasion of discomfort to your

"Benefactress! benefactress!" said I inwardly: "they all call Mrs. Reed my benefactress; if so, a benefactress

"I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some

"No? oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six Psalms by heart: and when you ask

him which he would rather have, a gingerbreadnut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh! the

verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;' says he, 'I wish to be a little angel here below;' he then gets two nuts in

"That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to change it: to give you a new and clean

I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which that operation of changing my heart was to

be performed, when Mrs. Reed interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to carry on the

"Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I wrote to you three weeks ago, that this little girl

has not quite the character and disposition I could wish: should you admit her into Lowood school, I should

be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard

against her worst fault, a tendency to deceit. I mention this in your hearing, Jane, that you may not attempt to

Well might I dread, well might I dislike Mrs. Reed; for it was her nature to wound me cruelly; never was I

happy in her presence; however carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my efforts

were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences as the above. Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation

cut me to the heart; I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope from the new phase of existence

which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing

aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye into

"Nothing, indeed," thought I, as I struggled to repress a sob, and hastily wiped away some tears, the impotent

"Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child," said Mr. Brocklehurst; "it is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have

their portion in the lake burning with fire and brimstone; she shall, however, be watched, Mrs. Reed. I will

"I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects," continued my benefactress; "to be

made useful, to be kept humble: as for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them always at

"Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam," returned Mr. Brocklehurst. "Humility is a Christian grace,

and one peculiarly appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that especial care shall be

bestowed on its cultivation amongst them. I have studied how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment

of pride; and, only the other day, I had a pleasing proof of my success. My second daughter, Augusta, went

with her mama to visit the school, and on her return she exclaimed: 'Oh, dear papa, how quiet and plain all

the girls at Lowood look, with their hair combed behind their ears, and their long pinafores, and those little

holland pockets outside their frocksthey are almost like poor people's children! and,' said she, 'they looked

"This is the state of things I quite approve," returned Mrs. Reed; "had I sought all England over, I could

scarcely have found a system more exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre. Consistency, my dear Mr.

"Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has been observed in every arrangement

connected with the establishment of Lowood: plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations,

hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house and its inhabitants."

"Quite right, sir. I may then depend upon this child being received as a pupil at Lowood, and there being

"Madam, you may: she shall be placed in that nursery of chosen plants, and I trust she will show herself

"I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for, I assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of

"No doubt, no doubt, madam; and now I wish you good morning. I shall return to Brocklehurst Hall in the

course of a week or two: my good friend, the Archdeacon, will not permit me to leave him sooner. I shall

send Miss Temple notice that she is to expect a new girl, so that there will he no difficulty about receiving

"Goodbye, Mr. Brocklehurst; remember me to Mrs. and Miss Brocklehurst, and to Augusta and Theodore,

"I will, madam. Little girl, here is a book entitled the 'Child's Guide,' read it with prayer, especially that part

containing 'An account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G , a naughty child addicted to falsehood and

With these words Mr. Brocklehurst put into my hand a thin pamphlet sewn in a cover, and having rung for his

Mrs. Reed and I were left alone: some minutes passed in silence; she was sewing, I was watching her. Mrs.

Reed might be at that time some six or seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame,

squareshouldered and stronglimbed, not tall, and, though stout, not obese: she had a somewhat large face,

the under jaw being much developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and prominent, mouth

and nose sufficiently regular; under her light eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of ruth; her skin was dark

and opaque, her hair nearly flaxen; her constitution was sound as a bellillness never came near her; she

was an exact, clever manager; her household and tenantry were thoroughly under her control; her children

only at times defied her authority and laughed it to scorn; she dressed well, and had a presence and port

Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her armchair, I examined her figure; I perused her features. In my

hand I held the tract containing the sudden death of the Liar, to which narrative my attention had been

pointed as to an appropriate warning. What had just passed; what Mrs. Reed had said concerning me to Mr.

Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of their conversation, was recent, raw, and stinging in my mind; I had felt

every word as acutely as I had heard it plainly, and a passion of resentment fomented now within me.

Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers at the same time suspended their

"Go out of the room; return to the nursery," was her mandate. My look or something else must have struck

her as offensive, for she spoke with extreme though suppressed irritation. I got up, I went to the door; I came

SPEAK I must: I had been trodden on severely, and MUST turn: but how? What strength had I to dart

retaliation at my antagonist? I gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence

"I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst

of anybody in the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give to your girl, Georgiana,

Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine.

"What more have you to say?" she asked, rather in the tone in which a person might address an opponent of

That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking from head to foot, thrilled with

"I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to

see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the

very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty."

"How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the TRUTH. You think I have no feelings, and that I can

do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you

thrust me backroughly and violently thrust me backinto the redroom, and locked me up there, to my

dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, 'Have mercy! Have

mercy, Aunt Reed!' And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck meknocked

me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good

Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of

triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhopedfor

liberty. Not without cause was this sentiment: Mrs. Reed looked frightened; her work had slipped from her

knee; she was lifting up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting her face as if she would cry.

"Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you? Why do you tremble so violently? Would you

"Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you, I desire to be your friend."

"Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a deceitful disposition; and I'll let everybody at

"Jane, you don't understand these things: children must be corrected for their faults."

"But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now return to the nurserythere's a dearand lie

"I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here."

"I will indeed send her to school soon," murmured Mrs. Reed sotto voce; and gathering up her work, she

I was left there alonewinner of the field. It was the hardest battle I had fought, and the first victory I had

gained: I stood awhile on the rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror's solitude.

First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated

throb of my pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings

uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of

reaction. A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind

when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed: the same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would

have represented as meetly my subsequent condition, when halfanhour's silence and reflection had shown

me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position.

Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and

racy: its afterflavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned. Willingly

would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed's pardon; but I knew, partly from experience and partly from

instinct, that was the way to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby reexciting every turbulent

I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking; fain find nourishment for some less

fiendish feeling than that of sombre indignation. I took a booksome Arabian tales; I sat down and

endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my own thoughts swam always between me and

the page I had usually found fascinating. I opened the glassdoor in the breakfastroom: the shrubbery was

quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and

arms with the skirt of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which was quite sequestrated;

but I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the falling fircones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves,

swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. I leaned against a gate, and looked into an empty

field where no sheep were feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched. It was a very grey day; a

most opaque sky, "onding on snaw," canopied all; thence flakes felt it intervals, which settled on the hard

path and on the hoary lea without melting. I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to myself over and

All at once I heard a clear voice call, "Miss Jane! where are you? Come to lunch!"

It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light step came tripping down the path.

Bessie's presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been brooding, seemed cheerful; even

though, as usual, she was somewhat cross. The fact is, after my conflict with and victory over Mrs. Reed, I

was not disposed to care much for the nursemaid's transitory anger; and I WAS disposed to bask in her

youthful lightness of heart. I just put my two arms round her and said, "Come, Bessie! don't scold."

The action was more frank and fearless than any I was habituated to indulge in: somehow it pleased her.

"You are a strange child, Miss Jane," she said, as she looked down at me; "a little roving, solitary thing: and

"Because you're such a queer, frightened, shy little thing. You should be bolder."

"Nonsense! But you are rather put upon, that's certain. My mother said, when she came to see me last week,

that she would not like a little one of her own to be in your place.Now, come in, and I've some good news

"Child! what do you mean? What sorrowful eyes you fix on me! Well, but Missis and the young ladies and

Master John are going out to tea this afternoon, and you shall have tea with me. I'll ask cook to bake you a

little cake, and then you shall help me to look over your drawers; for I am soon to pack your trunk. Missis

intends you to leave Gateshead in a day or two, and you shall choose what toys you like to take with you."

"Well, I will; but mind you are a very good girl, and don't be afraid of me. Don't start when I chance to speak

"I don't think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie, because I have got used to you, and I shall soon have

"I don't dislike you, Miss; I believe I am fonder of you than of all the others."

"You little sharp thing! you've got quite a new way of talking. What makes you so venturesome and hardy?"

"Why, I shall soon be away from you, and besides"I was going to say something about what had passed

between me and Mrs. Reed, but on second thoughts I considered it better to remain silent on that head.

"Just now! and rather! How coolly my little lady says it! I dare say now if I were to ask you for a kiss you

"I'll kiss you and welcome: bend your head down." Bessie stooped; we mutually embraced, and I followed

her into the house quite comforted. That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the evening Bessie

told me some of her most enchaining stories, and sang me some of her sweetest songs. Even for me life had

Five o'clock had hardly struck on the morning of the 19th of January, when Bessie brought a candle into my

closet and found me already up and nearly dressed. I had risen halfanhour before her entrance, and had

washed my face, and put on my clothes by the light of a halfmoon just setting, whose rays streamed through

the narrow window near my crib. I was to leave Gateshead that day by a coach which passed the lodge gates

at six a.m. Bessie was the only person yet risen; she had lit a fire in the nursery, where she now proceeded to

make my breakfast. Few children can eat when excited with the thoughts of a journey; nor could I. Bessie,

having pressed me in vain to take a few spoonfuls of the boiled milk and bread she had prepared for me,

wrapped up some biscuits in a paper and put them into my bag; then she helped me on with my pelisse and

bonnet, and wrapping herself in a shawl, she and I left the nursery. As we passed Mrs. Reed's bedroom, she

"No, Bessie: she came to my crib last night when you were gone down to supper, and said I need not disturb

her in the morning, or my cousins either; and she told me to remember that she had always been my best

"Nothing: I covered my face with the bedclothes, and turned from her to the wall."

"It was quite right, Bessie. Your Missis has not been my friend: she has been my foe."

"Goodbye to Gateshead!" cried I, as we passed through the hall and went out at the front door.

The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern, whose light glanced on wet steps and gravel

road sodden by a recent thaw. Raw and chill was the winter morning: my teeth chattered as I hastened down

the drive. There was a light in the porter's lodge: when we reached it, we found the porter's wife just kindling

her fire: my trunk, which had been carried down the evening before, stood corded at the door. It wanted but a

few minutes of six, and shortly after that hour had struck, the distant roll of wheels announced the coming

coach; I went to the door and watched its lamps approach rapidly through the gloom.

The coach drew up; there it was at the gates with its four horses and its top laden with passengers: the guard

and coachman loudly urged haste; my trunk was hoisted up; I was taken from Bessie's neck, to which I clung

"Be sure and take good care of her," cried she to the guard, as he lifted me into the inside.

"Ay, ay!" was the answer: the door was slapped to, a voice exclaimed "All right," and on we drove. Thus was

I severed from Bessie and Gateshead; thus whirled away to unknown, and, as I then deemed, remote and

I remember but little of the journey; I only know that the day seemed to me of a preternatural length, and that

we appeared to travel over hundreds of miles of road. We passed through several towns, and in one, a very

large one, the coach stopped; the horses were taken out, and the passengers alighted to dine. I was carried into

an inn, where the guard wanted me to have some dinner; but, as I had no appetite, he left me in an immense

room with a fireplace at each end, a chandelier pendent from the ceiling, and a little red gallery high up

against the wall filled with musical instruments. Here I walked about for a long time, feeling very strange,

and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their

exploits having frequently figured in Bessie's fireside chronicles. At last the guard returned; once more I was

stowed away in the coach, my protector mounted his own seat, sounded his hollow horn, and away we rattled

The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty: as it waned into dusk, I began to feel that we were getting

very far indeed from Gateshead: we ceased to pass through towns; the country changed; great grey hills

heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, we descended a valley, dark with wood, and long after

Lulled by the sound, I at last dropped asleep; I had not long slumbered when the sudden cessation of motion

awoke me; the coachdoor was open, and a person like a servant was standing at it: I saw her face and dress by

"Is there a little girl called Jane Eyre here?" she asked. I answered "Yes," and was then lifted out; my trunk

I was stiff with long sitting, and bewildered with the noise and motion of the coach: Gathering my faculties, I

looked about me. Rain, wind, and darkness filled the air; nevertheless, I dimly discerned a wall before me and

a door open in it; through this door I passed with my new guide: she shut and locked it behind her. There was

now visible a house or housesfor the building spread farwith many windows, and lights burning in

some; we went up a broad pebbly path, splashing wet, and were admitted at a door; then the servant led me

I stood and warmed my numbed fingers over the blaze, then I looked round; there was no candle, but the

uncertain light from the hearth showed, by intervals, papered walls, carpet, curtains, shining mahogany

furniture: it was a parlour, not so spacious or splendid as the drawingroom at Gateshead, but comfortable

enough. I was puzzling to make out the subject of a picture on the wall, when the door opened, and an

The first was a tall lady with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale and large forehead; her figure was partly

"The child is very young to be sent alone," said she, putting her candle down on the table. She considered me

"She had better be put to bed soon; she looks tired: are you tired?" she asked, placing her hand on my

"And hungry too, no doubt: let her have some supper before she goes to bed, Miss Miller. Is this the first time

I explained to her that I had no parents. She inquired how long they had been dead: then how old I was, what

was my name, whether I could read, write, and sew a little: then she touched my cheek gently with her

forefinger, and saying, "She hoped I should be a good child," dismissed me along with Miss Miller.

The lady I had left might be about twentynine; the one who went with me appeared some years younger: the

first impressed me by her voice, look, and air. Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in complexion, though

of a careworn countenance; hurried in gait and action, like one who had always a multiplicity of tasks on

hand: she looked, indeed, what I afterwards found she really was, an underteacher. Led by her, I passed

from compartment to compartment, from passage to passage, of a large and irregular building; till, emerging

from the total and somewhat dreary silence pervading that portion of the house we had traversed, we came

upon the hum of many voices, and presently entered a wide, long room, with great deal tables, two at each

end, on each of which burnt a pair of candles, and seated all round on benches, a congregation of girls of

every age, from nine or ten to twenty. Seen by the dim light of the dips, their number to me appeared

countless, though not in reality exceeding eighty; they were uniformly dressed in brown stuff frocks of quaint

fashion, and long holland pinafores. It was the hour of study; they were engaged in conning over their

tomorrow' s task, and the hum I had heard was the combined result of their whispered repetitions.

Miss Miller signed to me to sit on a bench near the door, then walking up to the top of the long room she

"Monitors, collect the lessonbooks and put them away! Four tall girls arose from different tables, and going

round, gathered the books and removed them. Miss Miller again gave the word of command

The tall girls went out and returned presently, each bearing a tray, with portions of something, I knew not

what, arranged thereon, and a pitcher of water and mug in the middle of each tray. The portions were handed

round; those who liked took a draught of the water, the mug being common to all. When it came to my turn, I

drank, for I was thirsty, but did not touch the food, excitement and fatigue rendering me incapable of eating: I

The meal over, prayers were read by Miss Miller, and the classes filed off, two and two, upstairs.

Overpowered by this time with weariness, I scarcely noticed what sort of a place the bedroom was, except

that, like the schoolroom, I saw it was very long. Tonight I was to be Miss Miller's bedfellow; she helped

me to undress: when laid down I glanced at the long rows of beds, each of which was quickly filled with two

occupants; in ten minutes the single light was extinguished, and amidst silence and complete darkness I fell

The night passed rapidly. I was too tired even to dream; I only once awoke to hear the wind rave in furious

gusts, and the rain fall in torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken her place by my side. When I

again unclosed my eyes, a loud bell was ringing; the girls were up and dressing; day had not yet begun to

dawn, and a rushlight or two burned in the room. I too rose reluctantly; it was bitter cold, and I dressed as

well as I could for shivering, and washed when there was a basin at liberty, which did not occur soon, as there

was but one basin to six girls, on the stands down the middle of the room. Again the bell rang: all formed in

file, two and two, and in that order descended the stairs and entered the cold and dimly lit schoolroom: here

A great tumult succeeded for some minutes, during which Miss Miller repeatedly exclaimed, "Silence!" and

"Order!" When it subsided, I saw them all drawn up in four semicircles, before four chairs, placed at the four

tables; all held books in their hands, and a great book, like a Bible, lay on each table, before the vacant seat.

A pause of some seconds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum of numbers; Miss Miller walked from

A distant bell tinkled: immediately three ladies entered the room, each walked to a table and took her seat.

Miss Miller assumed the fourth vacant chair, which was that nearest the door, and around which the smallest

of the children were assembled: to this inferior class I was called, and placed at the bottom of it.

Business now began, the day's Collect was repeated, then certain texts of Scripture were said, and to these

succeeded a protracted reading of chapters in the Bible, which lasted an hour. By the time that exercise was

terminated, day had fully dawned. The indefatigable bell now sounded for the fourth time: the classes were

marshalled and marched into another room to breakfast: how glad I was to behold a prospect of getting

something to eat! I was now nearly sick from inanition, having taken so little the day before.

The refectory was a great, lowceiled, gloomy room; on two long tables smoked basins of something hot,

which, however, to my dismay, sent forth an odour far from inviting. I saw a universal manifestation of

discontent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils of those destined to swallow it; from the van of the

"Silence!" ejaculated a voice; not that of Miss Miller, but one of the upper teachers, a little and dark

personage, smartly dressed, but of somewhat morose aspect, who installed herself at the top of one table,

while a more buxom lady presided at the other. I looked in vain for her I had first seen the night before; she

was not visible: Miss Miller occupied the foot of the table where I sat, and a strange, foreignlooking, elderly

lady, the French teacher, as I afterwards found, took the corresponding seat at the other board. A long grace

was said and a hymn sung; then a servant brought in some tea for the teachers, and the meal began.

Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my portion without thinking of its taste; but

the first edge of hunger blunted, I perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess; burnt porridge is almost as

bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over it. The spoons were moved slowly: I saw each girl

taste her food and try to swallow it; but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished. Breakfast was over,

and none had breakfasted. Thanks being returned for what we had not got, and a second hymn chanted, the

refectory was evacuated for the schoolroom. I was one of the last to go out, and in passing the tables, I saw

one teacher take a basin of the porridge and taste it; she looked at the others; all their countenances expressed

A quarter of an hour passed before lessons again began, during which the schoolroom was in a glorious

tumult; for that space of time it seemed to be permitted to talk loud and more freely, and they used their

privilege. The whole conversation ran on the breakfast, which one and all abused roundly. Poor things! it was

the sole consolation they had. Miss Miller was now the only teacher in the room: a group of great girls

standing about her spoke with serious and sullen gestures. I heard the name of Mr. Brocklehurst pronounced

by some lips; at which Miss Miller shook her head disapprovingly; but she made no great effort to cheek the

A clock in the schoolroom struck nine; Miss Miller left her circle, and standing in the middle of the room,

Discipline prevailed: in five minutes the confused throng was resolved into order, and comparative silence

quelled the Babel clamour of tongues. The upper teachers now punctually resumed their posts: but still, all

seemed to wait. Ranged on benches down the sides of the room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect; a

quaint assemblage they appeared, all with plain locks combed from their faces, not a curl visible; in brown

dresses, made high and surrounded by a narrow tucker about the throat, with little pockets of holland (shaped

something like a Highlander's purse) tied in front of their frocks, and destined to serve the purpose of a

workbag: all, too, wearing woollen stockings and countrymade shoes, fastened with brass buckles. Above

twenty of those clad in this costume were fullgrown girls, or rather young women; it suited them ill, and

I was still looking at them, and also at intervals examining the teachersnone of whom precisely pleased

me; for the stout one was a little coarse, the dark one not a little fierce, the foreigner harsh and grotesque, and

Miss Miller, poor thing! looked purple, weatherbeaten, and overworkedwhen, as my eye wandered from

face to face, the whole school rose simultaneously, as if moved by a common spring.

What was the matter? I had heard no order given: I was puzzled. Ere I had gathered my wits, the classes were

again seated: but as all eyes were now turned to one point, mine followed the general direction, and

encountered the personage who had received me last night. She stood at the bottom of the long room, on the

hearth; for there was a fire at each end; she surveyed the two rows of girls silently and gravely. Miss Miller

approaching, seemed to ask her a question, and having received her answer, went back to her place, and said

While the direction was being executed, the lady consulted moved slowly up the room. I suppose I have a

considerable organ of veneration, for I retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes traced her

steps. Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked tall, fair, and shapely; brown eyes with a benignant light in

their irids, and a fine pencilling of long lashes round, relieved the whiteness of her large front; on each of her

temples her hair, of a very dark brown, was clustered in round curls, according to the fashion of those times,

when neither smooth bands nor long ringlets were in vogue; her dress, also in the mode of the day, was of

purple cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish trimming of black velvet; a gold watch (watches were not so

common then as now) shone at her girdle. Let the reader add, to complete the picture, refined features; a

complexion, if pale, clear; and a stately air and carriage, and he will have, at least, as clearly as words can

give it, a correct idea of the exterior of Miss TempleMaria Temple, as I afterwards saw the name written in

The superintendent of Lowood (for such was this lady) having taken her seat before a pair of globes placed

on one of the tables, summoned the first class round her, and commenced giving a lesson on geography; the

lower classes were called by the teachers: repetitions in history, grammar, &c., went on for an hour; writing

and arithmetic succeeded, and music lessons were given by Miss Temple to some of the elder girls. The

duration of each lesson was measured by the clock, which at last struck twelve. The superintendent rose

The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth, but it sank at her voice. She went on

"You had this morning a breakfast which you could not eat; you must be hungry:I have ordered that a

"It is to be done on my responsibility," she added, in an explanatory tone to them, and immediately

The bread and cheese was presently brought in and distributed, to the high delight and refreshment of the

whole school. The order was now given "To the garden!" Each put on a coarse straw bonnet, with strings of

coloured calico, and a cloak of grey frieze. I was similarly equipped, and, following the stream, I made my

The garden was a wide inclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to exclude every glimpse of prospect; a

covered verandah ran down one side, and broad walks bordered a middle space divided into scores of little

beds: these beds were assigned as gardens for the pupils to cultivate, and each bed had an owner. When full

of flowers they would doubtless look pretty; but now, at the latter end of January, all was wintry blight and

brown decay. I shuddered as I stood and looked round me: it was an inclement day for outdoor exercise; not

positively rainy, but darkened by a drizzling yellow fog; all under foot was still soaking wet with the floods

of yesterday. The stronger among the girls ran about and engaged in active games, but sundry pale and thin

ones herded together for shelter and warmth in the verandah; and amongst these, as the dense mist penetrated

As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice of me; I stood lonely enough: but to that

feeling of isolation I was accustomed; it did not oppress me much. I leant against a pillar of the verandah,

drew my grey mantle close about me, and, trying to forget the cold which nipped me without, and the

unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within, delivered myself up to the employment of watching and

thinking. My reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit record: I hardly yet knew where I was;

Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance; the present was vague and

strange, and of the future I could form no conjecture. I looked round the conventlike garden, and then up at

the housea large building, half of which seemed grey and old, the other half quite new. The new part,

containing the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and latticed windows, which gave it a

"Lowood Institution.This portion was rebuilt A.D., by Naomi Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this

county." "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father

I read these words over and over again: I felt that an explanation belonged to them, and was unable fully to

penetrate their import. I was still pondering the signification of "Institution," and endeavouring to make out a

connection between the first words and the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a cough close behind me

made me turn my head. I saw a girl sitting on a stone bench near; she was bent over a book, on the perusal of

which she seemed intent: from where I stood I could see the titleit was "Rasselas;" a name that struck me

as strange, and consequently attractive. In turning a leaf she happened to look up, and I said to her directly

"Is your book interesting?" I had already formed the intention of asking her to lend it to me some day.

"I like it," she answered, after a pause of a second or two, during which she examined me.

"What is it about?" I continued. I hardly know where I found the hardihood thus to open a conversation with

a stranger; the step was contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a chord of

sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or

I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were less taking than the title: "Rasselas" looked

dull to my trifling taste; I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright variety seemed spread

over the closelyprinted pages. I returned it to her; she received it quietly, and without saying anything she

was about to relapse into her former studious mood: again I ventured to disturb her

"Can you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door means? What is Lowood Institution?"

"And why do they call it Institution? Is it in any way different from other schools?"

"It is partly a charityschool: you and I, and all the rest of us, are charitychildren. I suppose you are an

"Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and this is called an institution for educating

"Because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching, and the deficiency is supplied by

"Different benevolentminded ladies and gentlemen in this neighbourhood and in London."

"The lady who built the new part of this house as that tablet records, and whose son overlooks and directs

"Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a watch, and who said we were to have some

"To Miss Temple? Oh, no! I wish it did: she has to answer to Mr. Brocklehurst for all she does. Mr.

"The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the work, and cuts outfor we make our own

clothes, our frocks, and pelisses, and everything; the little one with black hair is Miss Scatcherd; she teaches

history and grammar, and hears the second class repetitions; and the one who wears a shawl, and has a

pockethandkerchief tied to her side with a yellow ribband, is Madame Pierrot: she comes from Lisle, in

"Do you like the little black one, and the Madame ?I cannot pronounce her name as you do."

"Miss Scatcherd is hastyyou must take care not to offend her; Madame Pierrot is not a bad sort of person."

"Miss Temple is very good and very clever; she is above the rest, because she knows far more than they do."

"You ask rather too many questions. I have given you answers enough for the present: now I want to read."

But at that moment the summons sounded for dinner; all reentered the house. The odour which now filled

the refectory was scarcely more appetising than that which had regaled our nostrils at breakfast: the dinner

was served in two huge tinplated vessels, whence rose a strong steam redolent of rancid fat. I found the

mess to consist of indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked together. Of this

preparation a tolerably abundant plateful was apportioned to each pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered

After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom: lessons recommenced, and were continued till

The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with whom I had conversed in the verandah

dismissed in disgrace by Miss Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to stand in the middle of the large

schoolroom. The punishment seemed to me in a high degree ignominious, especially for so great a girlshe

looked thirteen or upwards. I expected she would show signs of great distress and shame; but to my surprise

she neither wept nor blushed: composed, though grave, she stood, the central mark of all eyes. "How can she

bear it so quietlyso firmly?" I asked of myself. "Were I in her place, it seems to me I should wish the earth

to open and swallow me up. She looks as if she were thinking of something beyond her punishmentbeyond

her situation: of something not round her nor before her. I have heard of daydreamsis she in a daydream

now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I am sure they do not see it her sight seems turned in, gone down

into her heart: she is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not at what is really present. I wonder what

Soon after five p.m. we had another meal, consisting of a small mug of coffee, and halfaslice of brown

bread. I devoured my bread and drank my coffee with relish; but I should have been glad of as much moreI

was still hungry. Halfanhour's recreation succeeded, then study; then the glass of water and the piece of

The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by rushlight; but this morning we were obliged

to dispense with the ceremony of washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen. A change had taken place in

the weather the preceding evening, and a keen northeast wind, whistling through the crevices of our

bedroom windows all night long, had made us shiver in our beds, and turned the contents of the ewers to ice.

Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Biblereading was over, I felt ready to perish with cold.

Breakfasttime came at last, and this morning the porridge was not burnt; the quality was eatable, the

In the course of the day I was enrolled a member of the fourth class, and regular tasks and occupations were

assigned me: hitherto, I had only been a spectator of the proceedings at Lowood; I was now to become an

actor therein. At first, being little accustomed to learn by heart, the lessons appeared to me both long and

difficult; the frequent change from task to task, too, bewildered me; and I was glad when, about three o'clock

in the afternoon, Miss Smith put into my hands a border of muslin two yards long, together with needle,

thimble, &c., and sent me to sit in a quiet corner of the schoolroom, with directions to hem the same. At that

hour most of the others were sewing likewise; but one class still stood round Miss Scatcherd's chair reading,

and as all was quiet, the subject of their lessons could be heard, together with the manner in which each girl

acquitted herself, and the animadversions or commendations of Miss Scatcherd on the performance. It was

English history: among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah: at the commencement of the

lesson, her place had been at the top of the class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some inattention to

stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom. Even in that obscure position, Miss Scatcherd continued to

make her an object of constant notice: she was continually addressing to her such phrases as the following:

"Burns" (such it seems was her name: the girls here were all called by their surnames, as boys are elsewhere),

"Burns, you are standing on the side of your shoe; turn your toes out immediately." "Burns, you poke your

chin most unpleasantly; draw it in." "Burns, I insist on your holding your head up; I will not have you before

A chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed and the girls examined. The lesson had

comprised part of the reign of Charles I., and there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage and

shipmoney, which most of them appeared unable to answer; still, every little difficulty was solved instantly

when it reached Burns: her memory seemed to have retained the substance of the whole lesson, and she was

ready with answers on every point. I kept expecting that Miss Scatcherd would praise her attention; but,

Burns made no answer: I wondered at her silence. "Why," thought I, "does she not explain that she could

My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a skein of thread: while she was winding

it, she talked to me from time to time, asking whether I had ever been at school before, whether I could mark,

stitch, knit, &c.; till she dismissed me, I could not pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd's movements.

When I returned to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order of which I did not catch the import; but

Burns immediately left the class, and going into the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in

half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one end. This ominous tool she

presented to Miss Scatcherd with a respectful curtesy; then she quietly, and without being told, unloosed her

pinafore, and the teacher instantly and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs.

Not a tear rose to Burns' eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this

spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its

"Hardened girl!" exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; "nothing can correct you of your slatternly habits: carry the rod

Burns obeyed: I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from the bookcloset; she was just putting back her

handkerchief into her pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek.

The playhour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction of the day at Lowood: the bit of bread, the

draught of coffee swallowed at five o'clock had revived vitality, if it had not satisfied hunger: the long

restraint of the day was slackened; the schoolroom felt warmer than in the morningits fires being allowed

to burn a little more brightly, to supply, in some measure, the place of candles, not yet introduced: the ruddy

gloaming, the licensed uproar, the confusion of many voices gave one a welcome sense of liberty.

On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog her pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual

among the forms and tables and laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely: when I passed

the windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked out; it snowed fast, a drift was already forming against

the lower panes; putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from the gleeful tumult within, the

Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most

keenly have regretted the separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would

have disturbed my peace! as it was, I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I

wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour.

Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of the fireplaces; there, kneeling by

the high wire fender, I found Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the companionship of a

And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this. "Now," thought I, "I can perhaps get her to talk." I

"No! why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it would be of no use going away until I

"And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist her. If she struck me with that rod, I should

"Probably you would do nothing of the sort: but if you did, Mr. Brocklehurst would expel you from the

school; that would be a great grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody

feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with

"But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand in the middle of a room full of people;

and you are such a great girl: I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it."

"Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you CANNOT

I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of endurance; and still less could I understand

or sympathise with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen Burns considered

things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the

"Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances: I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and

never keep, things, in order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my lessons; I have no

method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot BEAR to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all

very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and particular."

"And cross and cruel," I added; but Helen Burns would not admit my addition: she kept silence.

At the utterance of Miss Temple's name, a soft smile flitted over her grave face.

"Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to any one, even the worst in the school: she sees

my errors, and tells me of them gently; and, if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives me my meed

liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so

rational, have not influence to cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most highly, cannot

"For YOU I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this morning, and saw you were closely

attentive: your thoughts never seemed to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you.

Now, mine continually rove away; when I should be listening to Miss Scatcherd, and collecting all she says

with assiduity, often I lose the very sound of her voice; I fall into a sort of dream. Sometimes I think I am in

Northumberland, and that the noises I hear round me are the bubbling of a little brook which runs through

Deepden, near our house;then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be awakened; and having heard

nothing of what was read for listening to the visionary brook, I have no answer ready."

"It was mere chance; the subject on which we had been reading had interested me. This afternoon, instead of

dreaming of Deepden, I was wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and unwisely

as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what a pity it was that, with his integrity and

conscientiousness, he could see no farther than the prerogatives of the crown. If he had but been able to look

to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age was tending! Still, I like CharlesI respect

himI pity him, poor murdered king! Yes, his enemies were the worst: they shed blood they had no right to

Helen was talking to herself now: she had forgotten I could not very well understand herthat I was

ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject she discussed. I recalled her to my level.

"No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something to say which is newer than my own

reflections; her language is singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is often just

"Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such

"A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always

kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they

would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck

at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we shouldso hard as to teach the

"You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are but a little untaught girl."

"But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must

resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or

"Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilised nations disown it."

"It is not violence that best overcomes hatenor vengeance that most certainly heals injury."

"Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His

"Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you."

"Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless her son John, which is impossible."

In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale

of my sufferings and resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve or

Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then make a remark, but she said nothing.

"She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss

Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly

deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No illusage so brands its record on my

feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it

excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and

must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall

put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this

cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,the impalpable principle of light and

thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to

be communicated to some being higher than manperhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale

human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from

man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I

seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a

resta mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between

the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge

never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live

Helen's head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished this sentence. I saw by her look she wished

no longer to talk to me, but rather to converse with her own thoughts. She was not allowed much time for

meditation: a monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up, exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent

"Helen Burns, if you don't go and put your drawer in order, and fold up your work this minute, I'll tell Miss

Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor without reply as without delay.

My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age either; it comprised an irksome struggle

with difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure in these points

harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot; though these were no trifles.

During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after their melting, the almost impassable

roads, prevented our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but within these limits we had

to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold: we

had no boots, the snow got into our shoes and melted there: our ungloved hands became numbed and covered

with chilblains, as were our feet: I remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this cause every

evening, when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes in

the morning. Then the scanty supply of food was distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we

had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse,

which pressed hardly on the younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they

would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants

the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at teatime; and after relinquishing to a third half the contents

of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me

Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk two miles to Brocklebridge Church, where

our patron officiated. We set out cold, we arrived at church colder: during the morning service we became

almost paralysed. It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance of cold meat and bread, in the same

penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served round between the services.

At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and hilly road, where the bitter winter wind,

blowing over a range of snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.

I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the

frosty wind fluttered, gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and example, to keep up our

spirits, and march forward, as she said, "like stalwart soldiers." The other teachers, poor things, were

How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got back! But, to the little ones at least, this

was denied: each hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row of great girls, and

behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores.

A little solace came at teatime, in the shape of a double ration of breada whole, instead of a half,

slicewith the delicious addition of a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all

looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast

The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh

chapters of St. Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose irrepressible yawns

attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus

by some halfdozen of little girls, who, overpowered with sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft,

yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust them forward into the centre of

the schoolroom, and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet failed them,

and they sank together in a heap; they were then propped up with the monitors' high stools.

I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed that gentleman was from home during the

greater part of the first month after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the archdeacon: his

absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had my own reasons for dreading his coming: but come he

One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling

over a sum in long division, my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure just

passing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline; and when, two minutes after, all the school,

teachers included, rose en masse, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain whose entrance

they thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself

had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearthrug of

Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr. Brocklehurst,

buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid than ever.

I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too well I remembered the perfidious hints given

by Mrs. Reed about my disposition, &c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise Miss Temple

and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had been dreading the fulfilment of this promise,I had

been looking out daily for the "Coming Man," whose information respecting my past life and conversation

He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did not doubt he was making disclosures of

my villainy; and I watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on

me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the

room, I caught most of what he said: its import relieved me from immediate apprehension.

"I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do; it struck me that it would be just of the

quality for the calico chemises, and I sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith that I forgot to

make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she shall have some papers sent in next week; and she is

not, on any account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil: if they have more, they are apt to be

careless and lose them. And, O ma'am! I wish the woollen stockings were better looked to!when I was here

last, I went into the kitchengarden and examined the clothes drying on the line; there was a quantity of black

hose in a very bad state of repair: from the size of the holes in them I was sure they had not been well mended

"And, ma'am," he continued, "the laundress tells me some of the girls have two clean tuckers in the week: it

"I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and Catherine Johnstone were invited to take tea with

some friends at Lowton last Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers for the occasion."

"Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance occur too often. And there is another thing

which surprised me; I find, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch, consisting of bread and

cheese, has twice been served out to the girls during the past fortnight. How is this? I looked over the

regulations, and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned. Who introduced this innovation? and by what

"I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir," replied Miss Temple: "the breakfast was so ill prepared that

the pupils could not possibly eat it; and I dared not allow them to remain fasting till dinnertime."

"Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them

to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, selfdenying. Should any little

accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing

of a dish, the incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with something more delicate the comfort lost,

thus pampering the body and obviating the aim of this institution; it ought to be improved to the spiritual

edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude under temporary privation. A brief address

on those occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor would take the opportunity of

referring to the sufferings of the primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs; to the exhortations of our

blessed Lord Himself, calling upon His disciples to take up their cross and follow Him; to His warnings that

man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God; to His divine

consolations, "If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye." Oh, madam, when you put bread and

cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you

Mr. Brocklehurst again pausedperhaps overcome by his feelings. Miss Temple had looked down when he

first began to speak to her; but she now gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale as marble,

appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that material; especially her mouth, closed as if it

would have required a sculptor's chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into petrified severity.

Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands behind his back, majestically surveyed

the whole school. Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled or shocked its

"Miss Temple, Miss Temple, whatWHAT is that girl with curled hair? Red hair, ma'am, curledcurled all

over?" And extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.

"Julia Severn, ma'am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why, in defiance of every precept and

principle of this house, does she conform to the world so openlyhere in an evangelical, charitable

"Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish these girls to be the children of Grace: and why

that abundance? I have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged closely, modestly,

plainly. Miss Temple, that girl's hair must be cut off entirely; I will send a barber tomorrow: and I see others

who have far too much of the excrescencethat tall girl, tell her to turn round. Tell all the first form to rise

Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth away the involuntary smile that curled

them; she gave the order, however, and when the first class could take in what was required of them, they

obeyed. Leaning a little back on my bench, I could see the looks and grimaces with which they commented

on this manoeuvre: it was a pity Mr. Brocklehurst could not see them too; he would perhaps have felt that,

whatever he might do with the outside of the cup and platter, the inside was further beyond his interference

He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes, then pronounced sentence. These words

"Madam," he pursued, "I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world: my mission is to mortify

in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shamefacedness and sobriety, not

with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in

plaits which vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of"

Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, now entered the room. They ought to have

come a little sooner to have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired in velvet, silk, and

furs. The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen and seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion,

shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful headdress fell a profusion of light

tresses, elaborately curled; the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with ermine, and

These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs. and the Misses Brocklehurst, and

conducted to seats of honour at the top of the room. It seems they had come in the carriage with their

reverend relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the room upstairs, while he transacted

business with the housekeeper, questioned the laundress, and lectured the superintendent. They now

proceeded to address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who was charged with the care of the linen

and the inspection of the dormitories: but I had no time to listen to what they said; other matters called off

Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss Temple, I had not, at the same time,

neglected precautions to secure my personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if I could only elude

observation. To this end, I had sat well back on the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had

held my slate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped notice, had not my treacherous

slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye

upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my

"A careless girl!" said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after"It is the new pupil, I perceive." And before

I could draw breath, "I must not forget I have a word to say respecting her." Then aloud: how loud it seemed

Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but the two great girls who sit on each side of

me, set me on my legs and pushed me towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently assisted me to

"Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," thought I; and an impulse of fury against Reed,

Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded in my pulses at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns.

"Fetch that stool," said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one from which a monitor had just risen: it

And I was placed there, by whom I don't know: I was in no condition to note particulars; I was only aware

that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard of me, and that

a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below

"Ladies," said he, turning to his family, "Miss Temple, teachers, and children, you all see this girl?"

Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burningglasses against my scorched skin.

"You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form of childhood; God has graciously

given her the shape that He has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character.

Who would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is

A pausein which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and

"My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos, "this is a sad, a melancholy occasion;

for it becomes my duty to warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is a little castaway:

not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and an alien. You must be on your guard against

her; you must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut her

out from your converse. Teachers, you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her

words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my

tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little

heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernautthis girl isa liar!"

Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in perfect possession of my wits, observed all

the female Brocklehursts produce their pockethandkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, while the

elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two younger ones whispered, "How shocking!" Mr.

"This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable lady who adopted her in her orphan state,

reared her as her own daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl repaid by an

ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own

young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity: she has sent her here to be

healed, even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers,

With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button of his surtout, muttered something to

his family, who rose, bowed to Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in state from the room.

"Let her stand halfanhour longer on that stool, and let no one speak to her during the remainder of the

There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in

the middle of the room, was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my sensations were

no language can describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came

up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange light inspired them! What an extraordinary

sensation that ray sent through me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed

a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and

took a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was

chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she again went by. What a

smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up her

marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a reflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet at

that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm "the untidy badge;" scarcely an hour ago I had heard her

condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she had blotted an

exercise in copying it out. Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest

planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness

Ere the halfhour ended, five o'clock struck; school was dismissed, and all were gone into the refectory to

tea. I now ventured to descend: it was deep dusk; I retired into a corner and sat down on the floor. The spell

by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve; reaction took place, and soon, so overwhelming was

the grief that seized me, I sank prostrate with my face to the ground. Now I wept: Helen Burns was not here;

nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards. I had meant to be

so good, and to do so much at Lowood: to make so many friends, to earn respect and win affection. Already I

had made visible progress: that very morning I had reached the head of my class; Miss Miller had praised me

warmly; Miss Temple had smiled approbation; she had promised to teach me drawing, and to let me learn

French, if I continued to make similar improvement two months longer: and then I was well received by my

fellowpupils; treated as an equal by those of my own age, and not molested by any; now, here I lay again

"Never," I thought; and ardently I wished to die. While sobbing out this wish in broken accents, some one

approached: I started up again Helen Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed her coming up the

"Come, eat something," she said; but I put both away from me, feeling as if a drop or a crumb would have

choked me in my present condition. Helen regarded me, probably with surprise: I could not now abate my

agitation, though I tried hard; I continued to weep aloud. She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her

knees with her arms, and rested her head upon them; in that attitude she remained silent as an Indian. I was

"Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you called so, and the world contains

"Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either despises or dislikes you: many, I am sure, pity

"Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired man: he is little liked here; he never took

steps to make himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies,

declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared.

Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their

hearts; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere long appear so much the more evidently for

"Well, Helen?" said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my fingers gently to warm them, and went on

"If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved

"No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others don't love me I would rather die

than liveI cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or

Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken,

or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest"

"Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, too vehement; the

sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your

feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an

invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch

us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all

sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence (if innocent we be: as I know

you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at secondhand from

Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the

separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed

with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness to glory?"

I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but in the tranquillity she imparted there was an alloy of inexpressible

sadness. I felt the impression of woe as she spoke, but I could not tell whence it came; and when, having done

speaking, she breathed a little fast and coughed a short cough, I momentarily forgot my own sorrows to yield

Resting my head on Helen's shoulder, I put my arms round her waist; she drew me to her, and we reposed in

silence. We had not sat long thus, when another person came in. Some heavy clouds, swept from the sky by a

rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light, streaming in through a window near, shone full both on us

"I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre," said she; "I want you in my room; and as Helen Burns is with

We went; following the superintendent's guidance, we had to thread some intricate passages, and mount a

staircase before we reached her apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful. Miss Temple told

Helen Burns to be seated in a low armchair on one side of the hearth, and herself taking another, she called

"Is it all over?" she asked, looking down at my face. "Have you cried your grief away?"

"Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody else, will now think me wicked."

"We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue to act as a good girl, and you will

"You will," said she, passing her arm round me. "And now tell me who is the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst

"No, ma'am; she was sorry to have to do it: but my uncle, as I have often heard the servants say, got her to

"Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when a criminal is accused, he is always allowed to

speak in his own defence. You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to me as well as you can.

Say whatever your memory suggests is true; but add nothing and exaggerate nothing."

I resolved, in the depth of my heart, that I would be most moderate most correct; and, having reflected a

few minutes in order to arrange coherently what I had to say, I told her all the story of my sad childhood.

Exhausted by emotion, my language was more subdued than it generally was when it developed that sad

theme; and mindful of Helen's warnings against the indulgence of resentment, I infused into the narrative far

less of gall and wormwood than ordinary. Thus restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible: I felt as I

In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come to see me after the fit: for I never forgot

the, to me, frightful episode of the redroom: in detailing which, my excitement was sure, in some degree, to

break bounds; for nothing could soften in my recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when

Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark and haunted

"I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his reply agrees with your statement, you shall be

She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was well contented to stand, for I derived a child's

pleasure from the contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two ornaments, her white forehead, her

clustered and shining curls, and beaming dark eyes), she proceeded to address Helen Burns.

Miss Temple got up, took her hand and examined her pulse; then she returned to her own seat: as she

resumed it, I heard her sigh low. She was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself, she said cheerfully

"But you two are my visitors tonight; I must treat you as such." She rang her bell.

"Barbara," she said to the servant who answered it, "I have not yet had tea; bring the tray and place cups for

And a tray was soon brought. How pretty, to my eyes, did the china cups and bright teapot look, placed on the

little round table near the fire! How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the scent of the toast! of

which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was beginning to be hungry) discerned only a very small portion:

"Barbara," said she, "can you not bring a little more bread and butter? There is not enough for three."

Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper: a woman after Mr. Brocklehurst's own heart, made up of

"Oh, very well!" returned Miss Temple; "we must make it do, Barbara, I suppose." And as the girl withdrew

she added, smiling, "Fortunately, I have it in my power to supply deficiencies for this once."

Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before each of us a cup of tea with one

delicious but thin morsel of toast, she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in

"I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you," said she, "but as there is so little toast, you must

We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least delight of the entertainment was the

smile of gratification with which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on the

Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire; we sat one on each side of her, and now a

conversation followed between her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted to hear.

Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state in her mien, of refined propriety in her

language, which precluded deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which chastened the

pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her, by a controlling sense of awe; and such was my

The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of her beloved instructress, or, perhaps,

more than all these, something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers within her. They woke, they

kindled: first, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never seen but pale and

bloodless; then they shone in the liquid lustre of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more

singular than that of Miss Temple'sa beauty neither of fine colour nor long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but

of meaning, of movement, of radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source

I cannot tell. Has a girl of fourteen a heart large enough, vigorous enough, to hold the swelling spring of pure,

full, fervid eloquence? Such was the characteristic of Helen's discourse on that, to me, memorable evening;

her spirit seemed hastening to live within a very brief span as much as many live during a protracted

They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times past; of countries far away; of secrets of

nature discovered or guessed at: they spoke of books: how many they had read! What stores of knowledge

they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with French names and French authors: but my amazement

reached its climax when Miss Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the Latin

her father had taught her, and taking a book from a shelf, bade her read and construe a page of Virgil; and

Helen obeyed, my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding line. She had scarcely finished ere the

bell announced bedtime! no delay could be admitted; Miss Temple embraced us both, saying, as she drew us

Helen she held a little longer than me: she let her go more reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the

door; it was for her she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from her cheek.

On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd: she was examining drawers; she had just

pulled out Helen Burns's, and when we entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told that

tomorrow she should have halfadozen of untidily folded articles pinned to her shoulder.

"My things were indeed in shameful disorder," murmured Helen to me, in a low voice: "I intended to have

Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece of pasteboard the word "Slattern,"

and bound it like a phylactery round Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and benignlooking forehead. She wore it

till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss Scatcherd

withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of which she

was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and large, had continually been scalding my

cheek; for the spectacle of her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart.

About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss Temple, who had written to Mr. Lloyd,

received his answer: it appeared that what he said went to corroborate my account. Miss Temple, having

assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry had been made into the charges alleged against Jane

Eyre, and that she was most happy to be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every imputation.

The teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a murmur of pleasure ran through the ranks of my

Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work afresh, resolved to pioneer my way through

every difficulty: I toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts; my memory, not naturally

tenacious, improved with practice; exercise sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher

class; in less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing. I learned the first two tenses

of the verb ETRE, and sketched my first cottage (whose walls, bythebye, outrivalled in slope those of the

leaning tower of Pisa), on the same day. That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the

Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my

inward cravings: I feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark; all the work of

my own hands: freely pencilled houses and trees, picturesque rocks and ruins, Cuyplike groups of cattle,

sweet paintings of butterflies hovering over unblown roses, of birds picking at ripe cherries, of wren's nests

enclosing pearllike eggs, wreathed about with young ivy sprays. I examined, too, in thought, the possibility

of my ever being able to translate currently a certain little French story which Madame Pierrot had that day

shown me; nor was that problem solved to my satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep.

Well has Solomon said"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."

I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for Gateshead and its daily luxuries.

But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened. Spring drew on: she was indeed already

come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched

feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler

breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in

our veins; we could now endure the playhour passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even

to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested

the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps. Flowers

peeped out amongst the leaves; snowdrops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and goldeneyed pansies. On

Thursday afternoons (halfholidays) we now took walks, and found still sweeter flowers opening by the

I discovered, too, that a great pleasure, an enjoyment which the horizon only bounded, lay all outside the high

and spikeguarded walls of our garden: this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble summits girdling a great

hillhollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a bright beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies. How

different had this scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky of winter, stiffened in frost,

shrouded with snow! when mists as chill as death wandered to the impulse of east winds along those

purple peaks, and rolled down "ing" and holm till they blended with the frozen fog of the beck! That beck

itself was then a torrent, turbid and curbless: it tore asunder the wood, and sent a raving sound through the air,

often thickened with wild rain or whirling sleet; and for the forest on its banks, THAT showed only ranks of

April advanced to May: a bright serene May it was; days of blue sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or

southern gales filled up its duration. And now vegetation matured with vigour; Lowood shook loose its

tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its great elm, ash, and oak skeletons were restored to majestic life;

woodland plants sprang up profusely in its recesses; unnumbered varieties of moss filled its hollows, and it

made a strange groundsunshine out of the wealth of its wild primrose plants: I have seen their pale gold

gleam in overshadowed spots like scatterings of the sweetest lustre. All this I enjoyed often and fully, free,

unwatched, and almost alone: for this unwonted liberty and pleasure there was a cause, to which it now

Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak of it as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising

from the verge of a stream? Assuredly, pleasant enough: but whether healthy or not is another question.

That forestdell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and fogbred pestilence; which, quickening with

the quickening spring, crept into the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded schoolroom and

Semistarvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils to receive infection: fortyfive out

of the eighty girls lay ill at one time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few who continued well

were allowed almost unlimited license; because the medical attendant insisted on the necessity of frequent

exercise to keep them in health: and had it been otherwise, no one had leisure to watch or restrain them. Miss

Temple's whole attention was absorbed by the patients: she lived in the sickroom, never quitting it except to

snatch a few hours' rest at night. The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and making other

necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were fortunate enough to have friends and

relations able and willing to remove them from the seat of contagion. Many, already smitten, went home only

to die: some died at the school, and were buried quietly and quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding

While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its frequent visitor; while there was

gloom and fear within its walls; while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells, the drug and the

pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of mortality, that bright May shone unclouded over the bold

hills and beautiful woodland out of doors. Its garden, too, glowed with flowers: hollyhocks had sprung up tall

as trees, lilies had opened, tulips and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay with pink

thrift and crimson double daisies; the sweetbriars gave out, morning and evening, their scent of spice and

apples; and these fragrant treasures were all useless for most of the inmates of Lowood, except to furnish now

But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the beauties of the scene and season; they let us ramble

in the wood, like gipsies, from morning till night; we did what we liked, went where we liked: we lived better

too. Mr. Brocklehurst and his family never came near Lowood now: household matters were not scrutinised

into; the cross housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear of infection; her successor, who had been

matron at the Lowton Dispensary, unused to the ways of her new abode, provided with comparative

liberality. Besides, there were fewer to feed; the sick could eat little; our breakfastbasins were better filled;

when there was no time to prepare a regular dinner, which often happened, she would give us a large piece of

cold pie, or a thick slice of bread and cheese, and this we carried away with us to the wood, where we each

My favourite seat was a smooth and broad stone, rising white and dry from the very middle of the beck, and

only to be got at by wading through the water; a feat I accomplished barefoot. The stone was just broad

enough to accommodate, comfortably, another girl and me, at that time my chosen comradeone Mary Ann

Wilson; a shrewd, observant personage, whose society I took pleasure in, partly because she was witty and

original, and partly because she had a manner which set me at my ease. Some years older than I, she knew

more of the world, and could tell me many things I liked to hear: with her my curiosity found gratification: to

my faults also she gave ample indulgence, never imposing curb or rein on anything I said. She had a turn for

narrative, I for analysis; she liked to inform, I to question; so we got on swimmingly together, deriving much

And where, meantime, was Helen Burns? Why did I not spend these sweet days of liberty with her? Had I

forgotten her? or was I so worthless as to have grown tired of her pare society? Surely the Mary Arm Wilson

I have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance: she could only tell me amusing stories, and

reciprocate any racy and pungent gossip I chose to indulge in; while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, she was

qualified to give those who enjoyed the privilege of her converse a taste of far higher things.

True, reader; and I knew and felt this: and though I am a defective being, with many faults and few

redeeming points, yet I never tired of Helen Burns; nor ever ceased to cherish for her a sentiment of

attachment, as strong, tender, and respectful as any that ever animated my heart. How could it be otherwise,

when Helen, at all times and under all circumstances, evinced for me a quiet and faithful friendship, which

illhumour never soured, nor irritation never troubled? But Helen was ill at present: for some weeks she had

been removed from my sight to I knew not what room upstairs. She was not, I was told, in the hospital

portion of the house with the fever patients; for her complaint was consumption, not typhus: and by

consumption I, in my ignorance, understood something mild, which time and care would be sure to alleviate.

I was confirmed in this idea by the fact of her once or twice coming downstairs on very warm sunny

afternoons, and being taken by Miss Temple into the garden; but, on these occasions, I was not allowed to go

and speak to her; I only saw her from the schoolroom window, and then not distinctly; for she was much

One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late with Mary Ann in the wood; we had, as

usual, separated ourselves from the others, and had wandered far; so far that we lost our way, and had to ask

it at a lonely cottage, where a man and woman lived, who looked after a herd of halfwild swine that fed on

the mast in the wood. When we got back, it was after moonrise: a pony, which we knew to be the surgeon's,

was standing at the garden door. Mary Ann remarked that she supposed some one must be very ill, as Mr.

Bates had been sent for at that time of the evening. She went into the house; I stayed behind a few minutes to

plant in my garden a handful of roots I had dug up in the forest, and which I feared would wither if I left them

till the morning. This done, I lingered yet a little longer: the flowers smelt so sweet as the dew fell; it was

such a pleasant evening, so serene, so warm; the still glowing west promised so fairly another fine day on the

morrow; the moon rose with such majesty in the grave east. I was noting these things and enjoying them as a

"How sad to be lying now on a sick bed, and to be in danger of dying! This world is pleasantit would be

And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what had been infused into it concerning

heaven and hell; and for the first time it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing behind, on each side,

and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf: it felt the one point where it stoodthe present; all the

rest was formless cloud and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of tottering, and plunging amid that

chaos. While pondering this new idea, I heard the front door open; Mr. Bates came out, and with him was a

nurse. After she had seen him mount his horse and depart, she was about to close the door, but I ran up to her.

This phrase, uttered in my hearing yesterday, would have only conveyed the notion that she was about to be

removed to Northumberland, to her own home. I should not have suspected that it meant she was dying; but I

knew instantly now! It opened clear on my comprehension that Helen Burns was numbering her last days in

this world, and that she was going to be taken to the region of spirits, if such region there were. I experienced

a shock of horror, then a strong thrill of grief, then a desirea necessity to see her; and I asked in what room

"Oh no, child! It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come in; you'll catch the fever if you stop out

The nurse closed the front door; I went in by the side entrance which led to the schoolroom: I was just in

It might be two hours later, probably near eleven, when Inot having been able to fall asleep, and deeming,

from the perfect silence of the dormitory, that my companions were all wrapt in profound reposerose

softly, put on my frock over my nightdress, and, without shoes, crept from the apartment, and set off in

quest of Miss Temple's room. It was quite at the other end of the house; but I knew my way; and the light of

the unclouded summer moon, entering here and there at passage windows, enabled me to find it without

difficulty. An odour of camphor and burnt vinegar warned me when I came near the fever room: and I passed

its door quickly, fearful lest the nurse who sat up all night should hear me. I dreaded being discovered and

sent back; for I MUST see Helen,I must embrace her before she died,I must give her one last kiss,

Having descended a staircase, traversed a portion of the house below, and succeeded in opening and shutting,

without noise, two doors, I reached another flight of steps; these I mounted, and then just opposite to me was

Miss Temple's room. A light shone through the keyhole and from under the door; a profound stillness

pervaded the vicinity. Coming near, I found the door slightly ajar; probably to admit some fresh air into the

close abode of sickness. Indisposed to hesitate, and full of impatient impulsessoul and senses quivering

with keen throesI put it back and looked in. My eye sought Helen, and feared to find death.

Close by Miss Temple's bed, and half covered with its white curtains, there stood a little crib. I saw the

outline of a form under the clothes, but the face was hid by the hangings: the nurse I had spoken to in the

garden sat in an easychair asleep; an unsnuffed candle burnt dimly on the table. Miss Temple was not to be

seen: I knew afterwards that she had been called to a delirious patient in the feverroom. I advanced; then

paused by the crib side: my hand was on the curtain, but I preferred speaking before I withdrew it. I still

She stirred herself, put back the curtain, and I saw her face, pale, wasted, but quite composed: she looked so

"Oh!" I thought, "she is not going to die; they are mistaken: she could not speak and look so calmly if she

I got on to her crib and kissed her: her forehead was cold, and her cheek both cold and thin, and so were her

"Why are you come here, Jane? It is past eleven o'clock: I heard it strike some minutes since."

"I came to see you, Helen: I heard you were very ill, and I could not sleep till I had spoken to you."

"No, no, Helen!" I stopped, distressed. While I tried to devour my tears, a fit of coughing seized Helen; it did

not, however, wake the nurse; when it was over, she lay some minutes exhausted; then she whispered

I did so: she put her arm over me, and I nestled close to her. After a long silence, she resumed, still

"I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing

to grieve about. We all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is gentle and

gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me much: I have only a father; and he is lately married,

and will not miss me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make

"My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power, and confide

wholly in His goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal

"You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven, and that our souls can get to it when we die?"

"I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to Him without any

misgiving. God is my father; God is my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me."

"You will come to the same region of happiness: be received by the same mighty, universal Parent, no doubt,

Again I questioned, but this time only in thought. "Where is that region? Does it exist?" And I clasped my

arms closer round Helen; she seemed dearer to me than ever; I felt as if I could not let her go; I lay with my

"How comfortable I am! That last fit of coughing has tired me a little; I feel as if I could sleep: but don't leave

When I awoke it was day: an unusual movement roused me; I looked up; I was in somebody's arms; the nurse

held me; she was carrying me through the passage back to the dormitory. I was not reprimanded for leaving

my bed; people had something else to think about; no explanation was afforded then to my many questions;

but a day or two afterwards I learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had found me

laid in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns's shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and

Her grave is in Brocklebridge churchyard: for fifteen years after her death it was only covered by a grassy

mound; but now a grey marble tablet marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word "Resurgam."

Hitherto I have recorded in detail the events of my insignificant existence: to the first ten years of my life I

have given almost as many chapters. But this is not to be a regular autobiography. I am only bound to invoke

Memory where I know her responses will possess some degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of

eight years almost in silence: a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links of connection.

When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at Lowood, it gradually disappeared from

thence; but not till its virulence and the number of its victims had drawn public attention on the school.

Inquiry was made into the origin of the scourge, and by degrees various facts came out which excited public

indignation in a high degree. The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and quality of the children's food;

the brackish, fetid water used in its preparation; the pupils' wretched clothing and accommodationsall these

things were discovered, and the discovery produced a result mortifying to Mr. Brocklehurst, but beneficial to

Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribed largely for the erection of a more

convenient building in a better situation; new regulations were made; improvements in diet and clothing

introduced; the funds of the school were intrusted to the management of a committee. Mr. Brocklehurst, who,

from his wealth and family connections, could not be overlooked, still retained the post of treasurer; but he

was aided in the discharge of his duties by gentlemen of rather more enlarged and sympathising minds: his

office of inspector, too, was shared by those who knew how to combine reason with strictness, comfort with

economy, compassion with uprightness. The school, thus improved, became in time a truly useful and noble

institution. I remained an inmate of its walls, after its regeneration, for eight years: six as pupil, and two as

teacher; and in both capacities I bear my testimony to its value and importance.

During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy, because it was not inactive. I had the means

of an excellent education placed within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies, and a desire to excel in

all, together with a great delight in pleasing my teachers, especially such as I loved, urged me on: I availed

myself fully of the advantages offered me. In time I rose to be the first girl of the first class; then I was

invested with the office of teacher; which I discharged with zeal for two years: but at the end of that time I

Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendent of the seminary: to her instruction I

owed the best part of my acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continual solace; she had

stood me in the stead of mother, governess, and, latterly, companion. At this period she married, removed

with her husband (a clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy of such a wife) to a distant county, and

From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was gone every settled feeling, every association

that had made Lowood in some degree a home to me. I had imbibed from her something of her nature and

much of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed better regulated feelings had become the

inmates of my mind. I had given in allegiance to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was content: to the

eyes of others, usually even to my own, I appeared a disciplined and subdued character.

But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between me and Miss Temple: I saw her in her

travelling dress step into a postchaise, shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise mount the

hill and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my own room, and there spent in solitude the greatest

I walked about the chamber most of the time. I imagined myself only to be regretting my loss, and thinking

how to repair it; but when my reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the afternoon was

gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned on me, namely, that in the interval I had

undergone a transforming process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Templeor rather

that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been breathing in her vicinityand that now I was

left in my natural element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions. It did not seem as if a prop were

withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but

the reason for tranquillity was no more. My world had for some years been in Lowood: my experience had

been of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes

and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek

I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. There were the two wings of the building; there was the

garden; there were the skirts of Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all other objects to rest

on those most remote, the blue peaks; it was those I longed to surmount; all within their boundary of rock and

heath seemed prisonground, exile limits. I traced the white road winding round the base of one mountain,

and vanishing in a gorge between two; how I longed to follow it farther! I recalled the time when I had

travelled that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill at twilight; an age seemed to have

elapsed since the day which brought me first to Lowood, and I had never quitted it since. My vacations had

all been spent at school: Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had

ever been to visit me. I had had no communication by letter or message with the outer world: schoolrules,

schoolduties, schoolhabits and notions, and voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences,

and antipathiessuch was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough; I tired of the

routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it

seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for

change, stimulus: that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space: "Then," I cried, half desperate, "grant

I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till bedtime: even then a teacher who

occupied the same room with me kept me from the subject to which I longed to recur, by a prolonged

effusion of small talk. How I wished sleep would silence her. It seemed as if, could I but go back to the idea

which had last entered my mind as I stood at the window, some inventive suggestion would rise for my relief.

Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman, and till now her habitual nasal strains had never

been regarded by me in any other light than as a nuisance; tonight I hailed the first deep notes with

satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my halfeffaced thought instantly revived.

"A new servitude! There is something in that," I soliloquised (mentally, be it understood; I did not talk

aloud), "I know there is, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement,

Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is

mere waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be matter of fact. Any one may serve: I have

served here eight years; now all I want is to serve elsewhere. Can I not get so much of my own will? Is not

the thing feasible? Yesyesthe end is not so difficult; if I had only a brain active enough to ferret out the

I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain: it was a chilly night; I covered my shoulders with a shawl,

"What do I want? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces, under new circumstances: I want this

because it is of no use wanting anything better. How do people do to get a new place? They apply to friends, I

suppose: I have no friends. There are many others who have no friends, who must look about for themselves

I could not tell: nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain to find a response, and quickly. It worked and

worked faster: I felt the pulses throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in chaos; and

no result came of its efforts. Feverish with vain labour, I got up and took a turn in the room; undrew the

A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required suggestion on my pillow; for as I lay down, it

came quietly and naturally to my mind."Those who want situations advertise; you must advertise in the

"You must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it under a cover directed to the editor of the

Herald; you must put it, the first opportunity you have, into the post at Lowton; answers must be addressed to

J.E., at the postoffice there; you can go and inquire in about a week after you send your letter, if any are

This scheme I went over twice, thrice; it was then digested in my mind; I had it in a clear practical form: I felt

With earliest day, I was up: I had my advertisement written, enclosed, and directed before the bell rang to

"A young lady accustomed to tuition" (had I not been a teacher two years?) "is desirous of meeting with a

situation in a private family where the children are under fourteen (I thought that as I was barely eighteen, it

would not do to undertake the guidance of pupils nearer my own age). She is qualified to teach the usual

branches of a good English education, together with French, Drawing, and Music" (in those days, reader, this

now narrow catalogue of accomplishments, would have been held tolerably comprehensive). "Address, J.E.,

This document remained locked in my drawer all day: after tea, I asked leave of the new superintendent to go

to Lowton, in order to perform some small commissions for myself and one or two of my fellowteachers;

permission was readily granted; I went. It was a walk of two miles, and the evening was wet, but the days

were still long; I visited a shop or two, slipped the letter into the postoffice, and came back through heavy

The succeeding week seemed long: it came to an end at last, however, like all sublunary things, and once

more, towards the close of a pleasant autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton. A picturesque

track it was, by the way; lying along the side of the beck and through the sweetest curves of the dale: but that

day I thought more of the letters, that might or might not be awaiting me at the little burgh whither I was

My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of shoes; so I discharged that business

first, and when it was done, I stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the shoemaker's to the

postoffice: it was kept by an old dame, who wore horn spectacles on her nose, and black mittens on her

She peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a drawer and fumbled among its contents for a

long time, so long that my hopes began to falter. At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly

five minutes, she presented it across the counter, accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful

"There are no more," said she; and I put it in my pocket and turned my face homeward: I could not open it

Various duties awaited me on my arrival. I had to sit with the girls during their hour of study; then it was my

turn to read prayers; to see them to bed: afterwards I supped with the other teachers. Even when we finally

retired for the night, the inevitable Miss Gryce was still my companion: we had only a short end of candle in

our candlestick, and I dreaded lest she should talk till it was all burnt out; fortunately, however, the heavy

supper she had eaten produced a soporific effect: she was already snoring before I had finished undressing.

There still remained an inch of candle: I now took out my letter; the seal was an initial F.; I broke it; the

"If J.E., who advertised in the shire Herald of last Thursday, possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if

she is in a position to give satisfactory references as to character and competency, a situation can be offered

her where there is but one pupil, a little girl, under ten years of age; and where the salary is thirty pounds per

annum. J.E. is requested to send references, name, address, and all particulars to the direction:

I examined the document long: the writing was oldfashioned and rather uncertain, like that of in elderly

lady. This circumstance was satisfactory: a private fear had haunted me, that in thus acting for myself, and by

my own guidance, I ran the risk of getting into some scrape; and, above all things, I wished the result of my

endeavours to be respectable, proper, en regle. I now felt that an elderly lady was no bad ingredient in the

business I had on hand. Mrs. Fairfax! I saw her in a black gown and widow's cap; frigid, perhaps, but not

uncivil: a model of elderly English respectability. Thornfield! that, doubtless, was the name of her house: a

neat orderly spot, I was sure; though I failed in my efforts to conceive a correct plan of the premises.

Millcote, shire; I brushed up my recollections of the map of England, yes, I saw it; both the shire and the

town. shire was seventy miles nearer London than the remote county where I now resided: that was a

recommendation to me. I longed to go where there was life and movement: Millcote was a large

manufacturing town on the banks of the A; a busy place enough, doubtless: so much the better; it would be

a complete change at least. Not that my fancy was much captivated by the idea of long chimneys and clouds

of smoke"but," I argued, "Thornfield will, probably, be a good way from the town."

Next day new steps were to be taken; my plans could no longer be confined to my own breast; I must impart

them in order to achieve their success. Having sought and obtained an audience of the superintendent during

the noontide recreation, I told her I had a prospect of getting a new situation where the salary would be

double what I now received (for at Lowood I only got 15 pounds per annum); and requested she would break

the matter for me to Mr. Brocklehurst, or some of the committee, and ascertain whether they would permit

me to mention them as references. She obligingly consented to act as mediatrix in the matter. The next day

she laid the affair before Mr. Brocklehurst, who said that Mrs. Reed must be written to, as she was my natural

guardian. A note was accordingly addressed to that lady, who returned for answer, that "I might do as I

pleased: she had long relinquished all interference in my affairs." This note went the round of the committee,

and at last, after what appeared to me most tedious delay, formal leave was given me to better my condition if

I could; and an assurance added, that as I had always conducted myself well, both as teacher and pupil, at

Lowood, a testimonial of character and capacity, signed by the inspectors of that institution, should forthwith

This testimonial I accordingly received in about a month, forwarded a copy of it to Mrs. Fairfax, and got that

lady's reply, stating that she was satisfied, and fixing that day fortnight as the period for my assuming the post

I now busied myself in preparations: the fortnight passed rapidly. I had not a very large wardrobe, though it

was adequate to my wants; and the last day sufficed to pack my trunk,the same I had brought with me

The box was corded, the card nailed on. In halfanhour the carrier was to call for it to take it to Lowton,

whether I myself was to repair at an early hour the next morning to meet the coach. I had brushed my black

stuff travellingdress, prepared my bonnet, gloves, and muff; sought in all my drawers to see that no article

was left behind; and now having nothing more to do, I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I had

been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was

closing tonight, a new one opening tomorrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch

"Miss," said a servant who met me in the lobby, where I was wandering like a troubled spirit, "a person

"The carrier, no doubt," I thought, and ran downstairs without inquiry. I was passing the backparlour or

teachers' sittingroom, the door of which was half open, to go to the kitchen, when some one ran out

"It's her, I am sure!I could have told her anywhere!" cried the individual who stopped my progress and

I looked: I saw a woman attired like a welldressed servant, matronly, yet still young; very goodlooking,

"Well, who is it?" she asked, in a voice and with a smile I half recognised; "you've not quite forgotten me, I

In another second I was embracing and kissing her rapturously: "Bessie! Bessie! Bessie!" that was all I said;

whereat she half laughed, half cried, and we both went into the parlour. By the fire stood a little fellow of

"Yes; nearly five years since to Robert Leaven, the coachman; and I've a little girl besides Bobby there, that

"Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them, Bessie: but sit down first; and, Bobby,

come and sit on my knee, will you?" but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother.

"You're not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout," continued Mrs. Leaven. "I dare say they've not

kept you too well at school: Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are; and Miss Georgiana

"Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there everybody admired her, and a young lord

fell in love with her: but his relations were against the match; andwhat do you think?he and Miss

Georgiana made it up to run away; but they were found out and stopped. It was Miss Reed that found them

out: I believe she was envious; and now she and her sister lead a cat and dog life together; they are always

"Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to college, and he gotplucked, I think they

call it: and then his uncles wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such a dissipated young

"He is very tall: some people call him a finelooking young man; but he has such thick lips."

"Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she's not quite easy in her mind: Mr. John's

"No, indeed: but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heard that there had been a letter from you, and

that you were going to another part of the country, I thought I'd just set of, and get a look at you before you

"I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie." I said this laughing: I perceived that Bessie's glance, though

"No, Miss Jane, not exactly: you are genteel enough; you look like a lady, and it is as much as ever I expected

I smiled at Bessie's frank answer: I felt that it was correct, but I confess I was not quite indifferent to its

import: at eighteen most people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an exterior likely to

"I dare say you are clever, though," continued Bessie, by way of solace. "What can you do? Can you play on

There was one in the room; Bessie went and opened it, and then asked me to sit down and give her a tune: I

"The Miss Reeds could not play as well!" said she exultingly. "I always said you would surpass them in

"That is one of my paintings over the chimneypiece." It was a landscape in water colours, of which I had

made a present to the superintendent, in acknowledgment of her obliging mediation with the committee on

"Well, that is beautiful, Miss Jane! It is as fine a picture as any Miss Reed's drawingmaster could paint, let

alone the young ladies themselves, who could not come near it: and have you learnt French?"

"Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane! I knew you would be: you will get on whether your relations notice you

or not. There was something I wanted to ask you. Have you ever heard anything from your father's kinsfolk,

"Well, you know Missis always said they were poor and quite despicable: and they may be poor; but I believe

they are as much gentry as the Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to Gateshead

and wanted to see you; Missis said you were it school fifty miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, for he

could not stay: he was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the ship was to sail from London in a day

or two. He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe he was your father's brother."

"Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house: Missis was very high with him; she called him afterwards a

Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer, and then she was obliged to leave me: I saw her again

for a few minutes the next morning at Lowton, while I was waiting for the coach. We parted finally at the

door of the Brocklehurst Arms there: each went her separate way; she set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to

meet the conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me

A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time,

reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the

walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints,

including a portrait of George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death

of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an

excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the table, and I am

warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen hours' exposure to the rawness of an October

day: I left Lowton at four o'clock a.m., and the Millcote town clock is now just striking eight.

Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind. I thought when the

coach stopped here there would be some one to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the

wooden steps the "boots" placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced, and to see

some description of carriage waiting to convey me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I

asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no

resource but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and

It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from

every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many

impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow

of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when

"Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?" I asked of the waiter who answered the summons.

"Thornfield? I don't know, ma'am; I'll inquire at the bar." He vanished, but reappeared instantly

I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the innpassage: a man was standing by the open

"This will be your luggage, I suppose?" said the man rather abruptly when he saw me, pointing to my trunk in

"Yes." He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and then I got in; before he shut me up, I asked

He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set off. Our progress was leisurely, and

gave me ample time to reflect; I was content to be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I leaned

back in the comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I meditated much at my ease.

"I suppose," thought I, "judging from the plainness of the servant and carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very

dashing person: so much the better; I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable

with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall

surely be able to get on with her; I will do my best; it is a pity that doing one's best does not always answer.

At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I remember

my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if

she does, I am not bound to stay with her! let the worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. How far are

I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by the number of its lights, it seemed

a place of considerable magnitude, much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort of

common; but there were houses scattered all over the district; I felt we were in a different region to Lowood,

The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk all the way, and the hour and a half

extended, I verify believe, to two hours; at last he turned in his seat and said

Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower against the sky, and its bell was

tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About ten

minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed to behind

us. We now slowly ascended a drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed from one

curtained bowwindow; all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the front door; it was opened by a

"Will you walk this way, ma'am?" said the girl; and I followed her across a square hall with high doors all

round: she ushered me into a room whose double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me,

contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours inured; when I could see,

A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an armchair highbacked and oldfashioned, wherein

sat the neatest imaginable little elderly lady, in widow's cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron;

exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder looking. She was occupied in

knitting; a large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the beauideal of

domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for a new governess could scarcely be conceived; there

was no grandeur to overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady got up and

"How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John drives so slowly; you must be cold,

She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and untie my bonnetstrings; I

"Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with cold. Leah, make a little hot negus

And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and delivered them to the servant.

"Now, then, draw nearer to the fire," she continued. "You've brought your luggage with you, haven't you, my

"She treats me like a visitor," thought I. "I little expected such a reception; I anticipated only coldness and

stiffness: this is not like what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult too soon."

She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a book or two from the table, to make

room for the tray which Leah now brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather

confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever before received, and, that too, shown by my

employer and superior; but as she did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out of her place, I

"Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax tonight?" I asked, when I had partaken of what she offered

"What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf," returned the good lady, approaching her ear to my mouth.

"Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your future pupil."

I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss Varens was connected with her; but I

recollected it was not polite to ask too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time.

"I am so glad," she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took the cat on her knee; "I am so glad

you are come; it will be quite pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at any

time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place;

yet you know in wintertime one feels dreary quite alone in the best quarters. I say aloneLeah is a nice girl

to be sure, and John and his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one

can't converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one's

authority. I'm sure last winter (it was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained

and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from November till February; and I

really got quite melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I

don't think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt it confining. In spring and summer one got on better:

sunshine and long days make such a difference; and then, just at the commencement of this autumn, little

Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be

My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew my chair a little nearer to her, and

expressed my sincere wish that she might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated.

"But I'll not keep you sitting up late tonight," said she; "it is on the stroke of twelve now, and you have been

travelling all day: you must feel tired. If you have got your feet well warmed, I'll show you your bedroom.

I've had the room next to mine prepared for you; it is only a small apartment, but I thought you would like it

better than one of the large front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but they are so dreary and

I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued with my long journey, expressed my

readiness to retire. She took her candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to see if the

halldoor was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the way upstairs. The steps and banisters

were of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the bedroom

doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a house. A very chill and vaultlike air

pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was glad, when finally

ushered into my chamber, to find it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style.

When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind goodnight, and I had fastened my door, gazed leisurely round, and

in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and

that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, I remembered that, after a day of bodily

fatigue and mental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart, and I

knelt down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore

aid on my further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me before it

was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that night; my solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I

The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in between the gay blue chintz window

curtains, showing papered walls and a carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of

Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view. Externals have a great effect on the young: I thought that a fairer era

of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My

faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely

define what they expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at an

I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plainfor I had no article of attire that was not made with

extreme simplicityI was still by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful of

appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and

to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I

sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately,

and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular

and so marked. And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not

then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when I had

brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frockwhich, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit

of fitting to a nicetyand adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to

appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having

opened my chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and neat on the toilet table, I ventured

Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of oak; then I gained the hall: I halted

there a minute; I looked at some pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in a cuirass,

and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great

clock whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. Everything appeared

very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little accustomed to grandeur. The halldoor, which was

half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the early sun shone

serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the

front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though considerable: a gentleman's

manorhouse, not a nobleman's seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front stood

out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the

lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where

an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the

mansion's designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like

barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace

Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A little

hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district

stood nearer Thornfield: its old towertop looked over a knoll between the house and gates.

I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet listening with delight to the cawing of the

rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was for one lonely

"What! out already?" said she. "I see you are an early riser." I went up to her, and was received with an

"Yes," she said, "it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take

it into his head to come and reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: great houses and fine

"The owner of Thornfield," she responded quietly. "Did you not know he was called Rochester?"

Of course I did notI had never heard of him before; but the old lady seemed to regard his existence as a

universally understood fact, with which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.

"To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the housekeeperthe manager. To be sure I am

distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother's side, or at least my husband was; he was a clergyman,

incumbent of Haythat little village yonder on the hilland that church near the gates was his. The present

Mr. Rochester's mother was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on the

connectionin fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my

"She is Mr. Rochester's ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for her. He intended to have her

brought up in shire, I believe. Here she comes, with her 'bonne,' as she calls her nurse." The enigma then

was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame; but a dependant like myself. I did not

like her the worse for that; on the contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her and me

was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part: so much the bettermy position was all the freer.

As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her attendant, came running up the lawn. I

looked at my pupil, who did not at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or eight

years old, slightly built, with a pale, smallfeatured face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her

"Good morning, Miss Adela," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Come and speak to the lady who is to teach you, and to

"C'est le ma gouverante!" said she, pointing to me, and addressing her nurse; who answered

"The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I believe, never left it till within six

months ago. When she first came here she could speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a little: I

don't understand her, she mixes it so with French; but you will make out her meaning very well, I dare say."

Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a

point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years,

learnt a portion of French by heart dailyapplying myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as

closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and

correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came and

shook hand with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed

some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and

she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering

"Ah!" cried she, in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can

to him, and so can Sophie. She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English.

Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smokedhow it did

smoke!and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in

a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell out of mine; it

"Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite daylight, at a great

citya huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and

Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a

coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel. We stayed there

nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and

there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs."

I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame Pierrot.

"I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two about her parents: I wonder if she

"Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?"

"I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama used to teach me to dance and sing,

and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or

to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?"

She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of her accomplishments. Descending

from her chair, she came and placed herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her,

shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera. It

was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires

her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that

night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little his desertion has affected her.

The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the point of the exhibition lay in

hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point

Adele sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the naivete of her age. This achieved, she jumped from

Assuming an attitude, she began, "La Ligue des Rats: fable de La Fontaine." She then declaimed the little

piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness of gesture,

very unusual indeed at her age, and which proved she had been carefully trained.

"Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: 'Qu' avez vous donc? lui dit un de ces rats; parlez!' She made me

lift my handsoto remind me to raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you?"

"No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you say, with whom did you live then?"

"With Madame Frederic and her husband: she took care of me, but she is nothing related to me. I think she is

poor, for she had not so fine a house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would like to

go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. Rochester before I knew Madame Frederic,

and he was always kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his word, for

he has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again himself, and I never see him."

After breakfast, Adele and I withdrew to the library, which room, it appears, Mr. Rochester had directed

should be used as the schoolroom. Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one

bookcase left open containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, and several

volumes of light literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that

these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me amply for

the present; compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they

seemed to offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and information. In this room, too, there was a cabinet

piano, quite new and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of globes.

I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she had not been used to regular occupation

of any kind. I felt it would be injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to her a great

deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her

nurse. I then proposed to occupy myself till dinnertime in drawing some little sketches for her use.

As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax called to me: "Your morning

schoolhours are over now, I suppose," said she. She was in a room the foldingdoors of which stood open: I

went in when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a Turkey

carpet, walnutpanelled walls, one vast window rich in slanted glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded.

Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard.

"What a beautiful room!" I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never before seen any half so imposing.

"Yes; this is the diningroom. I have just opened the window, to let in a little air and sunshine; for everything

gets so damp in apartments that are seldom inhabited; the drawingroom yonder feels like a vault."

She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it with a Tyriandyed curtain, now

looped up. Mounting to it by two broad steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy

place, so bright to my noviceeyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was merely a very pretty drawingroom,

and within it a boudoir, both spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers;

both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vineleaves, beneath which glowed in rich contrast

crimson couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Pariain mantelpiece were of sparkling

Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and

"In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!" said I. "No dust, no canvas coverings: except that the air

"Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester's visits here are rare, they are always sudden and unexpected; and as

I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his

"Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman's tastes and habits, and he expects to have things managed in

"Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the land in this neighbourhood, as far as

"Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he liked for himself?"

"I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is considered a just and liberal landlord by

"Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps: he has travelled a great deal,

and seen a great deal of the world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much conversation

"I don't knowit is not easy to describenothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you; you cannot

be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don't thoroughly

understand him, in shortat least, I don't: but it is of no consequence, he is a very good master."

This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and mine. There are people who seem to

have no notion of sketching a character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons or

things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my queries puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr.

Rochester was Mr. Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietornothing more: she inquired and

searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish to gain a more definite notion of his identity.

When we left the diningroom, she proposed to show me over the rest of the house; and I followed her

upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front

chambers I thought especially grand: and some of the thirdstorey rooms, though dark and low, were

interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time

to time been removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement

showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of

palm branches and cherubs' heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, highbacked and

narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of halfeffaced

embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffindust. All these relics gave to the

third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the

gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night's repose on one of those

wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English

hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest

human beings, all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.

"No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever sleeps here: one would almost say

"I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a violent than a quiet race in their time:

"Yes'after life's fitful fever they sleep well,'" I muttered. "Where are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?" for she

"On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?" I followed still, up a very narrow staircase to

the attics, and thence by a ladder and through a trapdoor to the roof of the hall. I was now on a level with the

crow colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed

the grounds laid out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion; the

field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly

overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the gates, the road, the tranquil

hills, all reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with

pearly white. No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I turned from it and

repassed the trapdoor, I could scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault

compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene of grove, pasture,

and green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and over which I had been gazing with delight.

Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trapdoor; I, by drift of groping, found the outlet from the

attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led,

separating the front and back rooms of the third storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at

the far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard's

While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a

curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it began again,

louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an

echo in every lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed out the door whence

"Mrs. Fairfax!" I called out: for I now heard her descending the great stairs. "Did you hear that loud laugh?

"Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms. Sometimes Leah is with her; they are

The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an odd murmur.

I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever

heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious

cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid.

However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.

The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,a woman of between thirty and forty; a set,

squaremade figure, redhaired, and with a hard, plain face: any apparition less romantic or less ghostly

"Too much noise, Grace," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Remember directions!" Grace curtseyed silently and went in.

"She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid's work," continued the widow; "not

altogether unobjectionable in some points, but she does well enough. Bythebye, how have you got on with

The conversation, thus turned on Adele, continued till we reached the light and cheerful region below. Adele

The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was

not belied on a longer acquaintance with the place and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out to be what she

appeared, a placidtempered, kindnatured woman, of competent education and average intelligence. My

pupil was a lively child, who had been spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes wayward; but as she

was committed entirely to my care, and no injudicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans

for her improvement, she soon forgot her little freaks, and became obedient and teachable. She had no great

talents, no marked traits of character, no peculiar development of feeling or taste which raised her one inch

above the ordinary level of childhood; but neither had she any deficiency or vice which sunk her below it.

She made reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps not very profound, affection;

and by her simplicity, gay prattle, and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of attachment

This, par parenthese, will be thought cool language by persons who entertain solemn doctrines about the

angelic nature of children, and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an

idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am

merely telling the truth. I felt a conscientious solicitude for Adele's welfare and progress, and a quiet liking

for her little self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in

her society proportionate to the tranquil regard she had for me, and the moderation of her mind and character.

Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in

the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele

played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed the three staircases, raised

the trapdoor of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and

along dim skylinethat then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might

reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seenthat then I desired more of

practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of

character, than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in

Adele; but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I

Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was

in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third

storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell

on whatever bright visions rose before itand, certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be

heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all,

to open my inward ear to a tale that was never endeda tale my imagination created, and narrated

continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will

make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent

revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses

of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel;

they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer

from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrowminded

in their more privileged fellowcreatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings

and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or

laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole's laugh: the same peal, the same low, slow ha! ha!

which, when first heard, had thrilled me: I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There

were days when she was quite silent; but there were others when I could not account for the sounds she made.

Sometimes I saw her: she would come out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a tray in her hand, go down

to the kitchen and shortly return, generally (oh, romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!)

bearing a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral oddities:

hardfeatured and staid, she had no point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to draw her

into conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply usually cut short every effort

The other members of the household, viz., John and his wife, Leah the housemaid, and Sophie the French

nurse, were decent people; but in no respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and sometimes I

asked her questions about her native country; but she was not of a descriptive or narrative turn, and generally

gave such vapid and confused answers as were calculated rather to check than encourage inquiry.

October, November, December passed away. One afternoon in January, Mrs. Fairfax had begged a holiday

for Adele, because she had a cold; and, as Adele seconded the request with an ardour that reminded me how

precious occasional holidays had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it, deeming that I did well in

showing pliability on the point. It was a fine, calm day, though very cold; I was tired of sitting still in the

library through a whole long morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a letter which was waiting to be posted,

so I put on my bonnet and cloak and volunteered to carry it to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a

pleasant winter afternoon walk. Having seen Adele comfortably seated in her little chair by Mrs. Fairfax's

parlour fireside, and given her her best wax doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a drawer)

to play with, and a storybook for change of amusement; and having replied to her "Revenez bientot, ma

The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast till I got warm, and then I walked

slowly to enjoy and analyse the species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was three

o'clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the charm of the hour lay in its approaching

dimness, in the lowgliding and palebeaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild

roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips

and haws, but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of air stirred, it

made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel

bushes were as still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path. Far and wide, on

each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred

occasionally in the hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.

This lane inclined uphill all the way to Hay; having reached the middle, I sat down on a stile which led

thence into a field. Gathering my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel the

cold, though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice covering the causeway, where a little brooklet,

now congealed, had overflowed after a rapid thaw some days since. From my seat I could look down on

Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall was the principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark

rookery rose against the west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, and sank crimson and clear

On the hilltop above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but brightening momentarily, she looked

over Hay, which, half lost in trees, sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a mile distant, but

in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs of life. My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in

what dales and depths I could not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks

threading their passes. That evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of the

A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so far away and so clear: a positive

tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, which effaced the soft wavewanderings; as, in a picture, the solid mass of a

crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong on the foreground, efface the aerial distance

The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the lane yet hid it, but it approached. I

was just leaving the stile; yet, as the path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In those days I was young, and

all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories were there amongst

other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what

childhood could give. As this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I

remembered certain of Bessie's tales, wherein figured a NorthofEngland spirit called a "Gytrash," which,

in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers,

It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge,

and close down by the hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct

object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie's Gytrasha lionlike creature with long hair and

a huge head: it passed me, however, quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes, in

my face, as I half expected it would. The horse followed,a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the

human being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my

notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the

commonplace human form. No Gytrash was this,only a traveller taking the short cut to Millcote. He

passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned: a sliding sound and an exclamation of "What the deuce is to

do now?" and a clattering tumble, arrested my attention. Man and horse were down; they had slipped on the

sheet of ice which glazed the causeway. The dog came bounding back, and seeing his master in a

predicament, and hearing the horse groan, barked till the evening hills echoed the sound, which was deep in

proportion to his magnitude. He snuffed round the prostrate group, and then he ran up to me; it was all he

could do,there was no other help at hand to summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to the traveller, by

this time struggling himself free of his steed. His efforts were so vigorous, I thought he could not be much

I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was pronouncing some formula which prevented

"You must just stand on one side," he answered as he rose, first to his knees, and then to his feet. I did;

whereupon began a heaving, stamping, clattering process, accompanied by a barking and baying which

removed me effectually some yards' distance; but I would not be driven quite away till I saw the event. This

was finally fortunate; the horse was reestablished, and the dog was silenced with a "Down, Pilot!" The

traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and leg, as if trying whether they were sound; apparently something ailed

I was in the mood for being useful, or at least officious, I think, for I now drew near him again.

"If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch some one either from Thornfield Hall or from Hay."

"Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones,only a sprain;" and again he stood up and tried his foot, but

Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I could see him plainly. His figure was

enveloped in a riding cloak, fur collared and steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced the

general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest. He had a dark face, with stern features and

a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth, but

had not reached middleage; perhaps he might be thirtyfive. I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had

he been a handsome, heroiclooking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus questioning him

against his will, and offering my services unasked. I had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life

spoken to one. I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry, fascination; but had I

met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape, I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor

could have sympathy with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would fire, lightning, or

If even this stranger had smiled and been goodhumoured to me when I addressed him; if he had put off my

offer of assistance gaily and with thanks, I should have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew

inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my ease: I retained my station when he

"I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your

He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes in my direction before.

"I should think you ought to be at home yourself," said he, "if you have a home in this neighbourhood: where

"From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when it is moonlight: I will run over to Hay for

"You live just belowdo you mean at that house with the battlements?" pointing to Thornfield Hall, on

which the moon cast a hoary gleam, bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods that, by contrast with the

"You are not a servant at the hall, of course. You are" He stopped, ran his eye over my dress, which, as

usual, was quite simple: a black merino cloak, a black beaver bonnet; neither of them half fine enough for a

"Ah, the governess!" he repeated; "deuce take me, if I had not forgotten! The governess!" and again my

raiment underwent scrutiny. In two minutes he rose from the stile: his face expressed pain when he tried to

"I cannot commission you to fetch help," he said; "but you may help me a little yourself, if you will be so

I should have been afraid to touch a horse when alone, but when told to do it, I was disposed to obey. I put

down my muff on the stile, and went up to the tall steed; I endeavoured to catch the bridle, but it was a

spirited thing, and would not let me come near its head; I made effort on effort, though in vain: meantime, I

was mortally afraid of its trampling forefeet. The traveller waited and watched for some time, and at last he

"I see," he said, "the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go

I came. "Excuse me," he continued: "necessity compels me to make you useful." He laid a heavy hand on my

shoulder, and leaning on me with some stress, limped to his horse. Having once caught the bridle, he

mastered it directly and sprang to his saddle; grimacing grimly as he made the effort, for it wrenched his

"Now," said he, releasing his under lip from a hard bite, "just hand me my whip; it lies there under the

"Thank you; now make haste with the letter to Hay, and return as fast as you can."

A touch of a spurred heel made his horse first start and rear, and then bound away; the dog rushed in his

I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and was gone for me: it WAS an incident of no

moment, no romance, no interest in a sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life.

My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to have done something; trivial,

transitory though the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive. The

new face, too, was like a new picture introduced to the gallery of memory; and it was dissimilar to all the

others hanging there: firstly, because it was masculine; and, secondly, because it was dark, strong, and stern. I

had it still before me when I entered Hay, and slipped the letter into the postoffice; I saw it as I walked fast

downhill all the way home. When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked round and listened, with an

idea that a horse's hoofs might ring on the causeway again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrashlike

Newfoundland dog, might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a pollard willow before me, rising up

still and straight to meet the moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among the

trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when I glanced down in the direction of the murmur, my eye,

traversing the hallfront, caught a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was late, and I hurried

I did not like reentering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall,

to ascend the darksome staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil Mrs. Fairfax,

and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only, was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened

by my walk,to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too still existence; of an

existence whose very privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it

would have done me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain struggling life, and to have

been taught by rough and bitter experience to long for the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes, just as

much good as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a "too easy chair" to take a long walk: and just as

I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backwards and forwards on the pavement; the shutters

of the glass door were closed; I could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed drawn

from the gloomy housefrom the greyhollow filled with rayless cells, as it appeared to meto that sky

expanded before me,a blue sea absolved from taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march; her

orb seeming to look up as she left the hilltops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below her,

and aspired to the zenith, midnight dark in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; and for those

trembling stars that followed her course; they made my heart tremble, my veins glow when I viewed them.

Little things recall us to earth; the clock struck in the hall; that sufficed; I turned from moon and stars, opened

The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the highhung bronze lamp; a warm glow suffused both it

and the lower steps of the oak staircase. This ruddy shine issued from the great diningroom, whose

twoleaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the grate, glancing on marble hearth and brass

fireirons, and revealing purple draperies and polished furniture, in the most pleasant radiance. It revealed,

too, a group near the mantelpiece: I had scarcely caught it, and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling

of voices, amongst which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adele, when the door closed.

I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax's room; there was a fire there too, but no candle, and no Mrs. Fairfax. Instead, all

alone, sitting upright on the rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a great black and white

longhaired dog, just like the Gytrash of the lane. It was so like it that I went forward and said"Pilot" and

the thing got up and came to me and snuffed me. I caressed him, and he wagged his great tail; but he looked

an eerie creature to be alone with, and I could not tell whence he had come. I rang the bell, for I wanted a

"Yes, and Miss Adele; they are in the diningroom, and John is gone for a surgeon; for master has had an

Leah brought it; she entered, followed by Mrs. Fairfax, who repeated the news; adding that Mr. Carter the

surgeon was come, and was now with Mr. Rochester: then she hurried out to give orders about tea, and I went

Mr. Rochester, it seems, by the surgeon's orders, went to bed early that night; nor did he rise soon next

morning. When he did come down, it was to attend to business: his agent and some of his tenants were

Adele and I had now to vacate the library: it would be in daily requisition as a receptionroom for callers. A

fire was lit in an apartment upstairs, and there I carried our books, and arranged it for the future schoolroom. I

discerned in the course of the morning that Thornfield Hall was a changed place: no longer silent as a church,

it echoed every hour or two to a knock at the door, or a clang of the bell; steps, too, often traversed the hall,

and new voices spoke in different keys below; a rill from the outer world was flowing through it; it had a

Adele was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept running to the door and looking over the

banisters to see if she could get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go downstairs, in

order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library, where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little

angry, and made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her "ami, Monsieur Edouard Fairfax DE

Rochester," as she dubbed him (I had not before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he

had brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that when his luggage came from Millcote,

there would be found amongst it a little box in whose contents she had an interest.

"Et cela doit signifier," said she, "qu'il y aura le dedans un cadeau pour moi, et peutetre pour vous aussi,

mademoiselle. Monsieur a parle de vous: il m'a demande le nom de ma gouvernante, et si elle n'etait pas une

petite personne, assez mince et un peu pale. J'ai dit qu'oui: car c'est vrai, n'estce pas, mademoiselle?"

I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax's parlour; the afternoon was wild and snowy, and we passed it

in the schoolroom. At dark I allowed Adele to put away books and work, and to run downstairs; for, from the

comparative silence below, and from the cessation of appeals to the doorbell, I conjectured that Mr.

Rochester was now at liberty. Left alone, I walked to the window; but nothing was to be seen thence: twilight

and snowflakes together thickened the air, and hid the very shrubs on the lawn. I let down the curtain and

In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I remembered to have seen of the castle of

Heidelberg, on the Rhine, when Mrs. Fairfax came in, breaking up by her entrance the fiery mosaic I had

been piercing together, and scattering too some heavy unwelcome thoughts that were beginning to throng on

"Mr. Rochester would be glad if you and your pupil would take tea with him in the drawingroom this

evening," said she: "he has been so much engaged all day that he could not ask to see you before."

"Oh, at six o'clock: he keeps early hours in the country. You had better change your frock now; I will go with

"Yes, you had better: I always dress for the evening when Mr. Rochester is here."

This additional ceremony seemed somewhat stately; however, I repaired to my room, and, with Mrs. Fairfax's

aid, replaced my black stuff dress by one of black silk; the best and the only additional one I had, except one

of light grey, which, in my Lowood notions of the toilette, I thought too fine to be worn, except on firstrate

"You want a brooch," said Mrs. Fairfax. I had a single little pearl ornament which Miss Temple gave me as a

parting keepsake: I put it on, and then we went downstairs. Unused as I was to strangers, it was rather a trial

to appear thus formally summoned in Mr. Rochester's presence. I let Mrs. Fairfax precede me into the

diningroom, and kept in her shade as we crossed that apartment; and, passing the arch, whose curtain was

Two wax candles stood lighted on the table, and two on the mantelpiece; basking in the light and heat of a

superb fire, lay PilotAdele knelt near him. Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester, his foot

supported by the cushion; he was looking at Adele and the dog: the fire shone full on his face. I knew my

traveller with his broad and jetty eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of his

black hair. I recognised his decisive nose, more remarkable for character than beauty; his full nostrils,

denoting, I thought, choler; his grim mouth, chin, and jawyes, all three were very grim, and no mistake.

His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonised in squareness with his physiognomy: I suppose it

was a good figure in the athletic sense of the termbroad chested and thin flanked, though neither tall nor

Mr. Rochester must have been aware of the entrance of Mrs. Fairfax and myself; but it appeared he was not

"Here is Miss Eyre, sir," said Mrs. Fairfax, in her quiet way. He bowed, still not taking his eyes from the

"Let Miss Eyre be seated," said he: and there was something in the forced stiff bow, in the impatient yet

formal tone, which seemed further to express, "What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be there or not?

I sat down quite disembarrassed. A reception of finished politeness would probably have confused me: I

could not have returned or repaid it by answering grace and elegance on my part; but harsh caprice laid me

under no obligation; on the contrary, a decent quiescence, under the freak of manner, gave me the advantage.

Besides, the eccentricity of the proceeding was piquant: I felt interested to see how he would go on.

He went on as a statue would, that is, he neither spoke nor moved. Mrs. Fairfax seemed to think it necessary

that some one should be amiable, and she began to talk. Kindly, as usualand, as usual, rather triteshe

condoled with him on the pressure of business he had had all day; on the annoyance it must have been to him

with that painful sprain: then she commended his patience and perseverance in going through with it.

"Madam, I should like some tea," was the sole rejoinder she got. She hastened to ring the bell; and when the

tray came, she proceeded to arrange the cups, spoons, &c., with assiduous celerity. I and Adele went to the

"Will you hand Mr. Rochester's cup?" said Mrs. Fairfax to me; "Adele might perhaps spill it."

I did as requested. As he took the cup from my hand, Adele, thinking the moment propitious for making a

"N'estce pas, monsieur, qu'il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre dans votre petit coffre?"

"Who talks of cadeaux?" said he gruffly. "Did you expect a present, Miss Eyre? Are you fond of presents?"

"I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are generally thought pleasant things."

"I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an answer worthy of your acceptance: a present

has many faces to it, has it not? and one should consider all, before pronouncing an opinion as to its nature."

"Miss Eyre, you are not so unsophisticated as Adele: she demands a 'cadeau,' clamorously, the moment she

"Because I have less confidence in my deserts than Adele has: she can prefer the claim of old acquaintance,

and the right too of custom; for she says you have always been in the habit of giving her playthings; but if I

had to make out a case I should be puzzled, since I am a stranger, and have done nothing to entitle me to an

"Oh, don't fall back on overmodesty! I have examined Adele, and find you have taken great pains with her:

she is not bright, she has no talents; yet in a short time she has made much improvement."

"Sir, you have now given me my 'cadeau;' I am obliged to you: it is the meed teachers most covetpraise of

"Come to the fire," said the master, when the tray was taken away, and Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner

with her knitting; while Adele was leading me by the hand round the room, showing me the beautiful books

and ornaments on the consoles and chiffonnieres. We obeyed, as in duty bound; Adele wanted to take a seat

"Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in such a place would have done up any

constitution! No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of

face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a

mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?"

"I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on that stile?"

"For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did I break through one of your rings,

I shook my head. "The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago," said I, speaking as seriously

as he had done. "And not even in Hay Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of them. I don't think

either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their revels more."

Mrs. Fairfax had dropped her knitting, and, with raised eyebrows, seemed wondering what sort of talk this

"Well," resumed Mr. Rochester, "if you disown parents, you must have some sort of kinsfolk: uncles and

"Yes," said the good lady, who now knew what ground we were upon, "and I am daily thankful for the choice

Providence led me to make. Miss Eyre has been an invaluable companion to me, and a kind and careful

"Don't trouble yourself to give her a character," returned Mr. Rochester: "eulogiums will not bias me; I shall

"None but the pupils and teachers of Lowood, and now the inmates of Thornfield."

"Only such books as came in my way; and they have not been numerous or very learned."

"You have lived the life of a nun: no doubt you are well drilled in religious forms;Brocklehurst, who I

"And you girls probably worshipped him, as a convent full of religieuses would worship their director."

"You are very cool! No! What! a novice not worship her priest! That sounds blasphemous."

"I disliked Mr. Brocklehurst; and I was not alone in the feeling. He is a harsh man; at once pompous and

meddling; he cut off our hair; and for economy's sake bought us bad needles and thread, with which we could

"That was very false economy," remarked Mrs. Fairfax, who now again caught the drift of the dialogue.

"He starved us when he had the sole superintendence of the provision department, before the committee was

appointed; and he bored us with long lectures once a week, and with evening readings from books of his own

inditing, about sudden deaths and judgments, which made us afraid to go to bed."

"Arithmetic, you see, is useful; without its aid, I should hardly have been able to guess your age. It is a point

difficult to fix where the features and countenance are so much at variance as in your case. And now what did

"Of course: that is the established answer. Go into the libraryI mean, if you please.(Excuse my tone of

command; I am used to say, 'Do this,' and it is done: I cannot alter my customary habits for one new

inmate.)Go, then, into the library; take a candle with you; leave the door open; sit down to the piano, and

"Enough!" he called out in a few minutes. "You play A LITTLE, I see; like any other English schoolgirl;

I closed the piano and returned. Mr. Rochester continued"Adele showed me some sketches this morning,

which she said were yours. I don't know whether they were entirely of your doing; probably a master aided

"Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can vouch for its contents being original; but

"Approach the table," said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adele and Mrs. Fairfax drew near to see the

"No crowding," said Mr. Rochester: "take the drawings from my hand as I finish with them; but don't push

He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laid aside; the others, when he had examined

"Take them off to the other table, Mrs. Fairfax," said he, and look at them with Adele;you" (glancing at

me) "resume your seat, and answer my questions. I perceive those pictures were done by one hand: was that

"And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, and some thought."

"I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no other occupation."

While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and first, I must premise that they are nothing

wonderful. The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I

attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it

These pictures were in watercolours. The first represented clouds low and livid, rolling over a swollen sea:

all the distance was in eclipse; so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there was no

land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a halfsubmerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large,

with wings flecked with foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set with gems, that I had touched with as brilliant

tints as my palette could yield, and as glittering distinctness as my pencil could impart. Sinking below the

bird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair arm was the only limb clearly

The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a hill, with grass and some leaves slanting

as if by a breeze. Beyond and above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight: rising into the sky was

a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dusk and soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was

crowned with a star; the lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark

and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail. On the neck

lay a pale reflection like moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds from which rose and

The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter sky: a muster of northern lights reared

their dim lances, close serried, along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the foreground, a

head,a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, and resting against it. Two thin hands, joined under the

forehead, and supporting it, drew up before the lower features a sable veil, a brow quite bloodless, white as

bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of meaning but for the glassiness of despair, alone were visible.

Above the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in its character and consistency as

cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge. This pale crescent was

"the likeness of a kingly crown;" what it diademed was "the shape which shape had none."

"Were you happy when you painted these pictures?" asked Mr. Rochester presently.

"I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in short, was to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures

"That is not saying much. Your pleasures, by your own account, have been few; but I daresay you did exist in

a kind of artist's dreamland while you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you sit at them long each

"I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at them from morning till noon, and from

noon till night: the length of the midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply."

"Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my handiwork: in each case I had

"Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought; but no more, probably. You had not enough of the

artist's skill and science to give it full being: yet the drawings are, for a schoolgirl, peculiar. As to the

thoughts, they are elfish. These eyes in the Evening Star you must have seen in a dream. How could you

make them look so clear, and yet not at all brilliant? for the planet above quells their rays. And what meaning

is that in their solemn depth? And who taught you to paint wind. There is a high gale in that sky, and on this

hilltop. Where did you see Latmos? For that is Latmos. There! put the drawings away!"

I had scarce tied the strings of the portfolio, when, looking at his watch, he said abruptly

"It is nine o'clock: what are you about, Miss Eyre, to let Adele sit up so long? Take her to bed."

Adele went to kiss him before quitting the room: he endured the caress, but scarcely seemed to relish it more

"I wish you all goodnight, now," said he, making a movement of the hand towards the door, in token that he

was tired of our company, and wished to dismiss us. Mrs. Fairfax folded up her knitting: I took my portfolio:

"You said Mr. Rochester was not strikingly peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax," I observed, when I rejoined her in her

"True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed to his manner, I never think of it; and

"Partly because it is his natureand we can none of us help our nature; and partly because he has painful

"Not now, but he has hador, at least, relatives. He lost his elder brother a few years since."

"Yes. The present Mr. Rochester has not been very long in possession of the property; only about nine years."

"Nine years is a tolerable time. Was he so very fond of his brother as to be still inconsolable for his loss?"

"Why, noperhaps not. I believe there were some misunderstandings between them. Mr. Rowland

Rochester was not quite just to Mr. Edward; and perhaps he prejudiced his father against him. The old

gentleman was fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together. He did not like to diminish the

property by division, and yet he was anxious that Mr. Edward should have wealth, too, to keep up the

consequence of the name; and, soon after he was of age, some steps were taken that were not quite fair, and

made a great deal of mischief. Old Mr. Rochester and Mr. Rowland combined to bring Mr. Edward into what

he considered a painful position, for the sake of making his fortune: what the precise nature of that position

was I never clearly knew, but his spirit could not brook what he had to suffer in it. He is not very forgiving:

he broke with his family, and now for many years he has led an unsettled kind of life. I don't think he has

ever been resident at Thornfield for a fortnight together, since the death of his brother without a will left him

The answer was evasive. I should have liked something clearer; but Mrs. Fairfax either could not, or would

not, give me more explicit information of the origin and nature of Mr. Rochester's trials. She averred they

were a mystery to herself, and that what she knew was chiefly from conjecture. It was evident, indeed, that

For several subsequent days I saw little of Mr. Rochester. In the mornings he seemed much engaged with

business, and, in the afternoon, gentlemen from Millcote or the neighbourhood called, and sometimes stayed

to dine with him. When his sprain was well enough to admit of horse exercise, he rode out a good deal;

probably to return these visits, as he generally did not come back till late at night.

During this interval, even Adele was seldom sent for to his presence, and all my acquaintance with him was

confined to an occasional rencontre in the hall, on the stairs, or in the gallery, when he would sometimes pass

me haughtily and coldly, just acknowledging my presence by a distant nod or a cool glance, and sometimes

bow and smile with gentlemanlike affability. His changes of mood did not offend me, because I saw that I

had nothing to do with their alternation; the ebb and flow depended on causes quite disconnected with me.

One day he had had company to dinner, and had sent for my portfolio; in order, doubtless, to exhibit its

contents: the gentlemen went away early, to attend a public meeting at Millcote, as Mrs. Fairfax informed

me; but the night being wet and inclement, Mr. Rochester did not accompany them. Soon after they were

gone he rang the bell: a message came that I and Adele were to go downstairs. I brushed Adele's hair and

made her neat, and having ascertained that I was myself in my usual Quaker trim, where there was nothing to

retouch all being too close and plain, braided locks included, to admit of disarrangementwe descended,

Adele wondering whether the petit coffre was at length come; for, owing to some mistake, its arrival had

hitherto been delayed. She was gratified: there it stood, a little carton, on the table when we entered the

"Yes, there is your 'boite' at last: take it into a corner, you genuine daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with

disembowelling it," said the deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester, proceeding from the depths of

an immense easychair at the fireside. "And mind," he continued, "don't bother me with any details of the

anatomical process, or any notice of the condition of the entrails: let your operation be conducted in silence:

Adele seemed scarcely to need the warningshe had already retired to a sofa with her treasure, and was

busy untying the cord which secured the lid. Having removed this impediment, and lifted certain silvery

"Oh ciel! Que c'est beau!" and then remained absorbed in ecstatic contemplation.

"Is Miss Eyre there?" now demanded the master, half rising from his seat to look round to the door, near

"Ah! well, come forward; be seated here." He drew a chair near his own. "I am not fond of the prattle of

children," he continued; "for, old bachelor as I am, I have no pleasant associations connected with their lisp.

It would be intolerable to me to pass a whole evening teteetete with a brat. Don't draw that chair farther

off, Miss Eyre; sit down exactly where I placed itif you please, that is. Confound these civilities! I

continually forget them. Nor do I particularly affect simpleminded old ladies. Bythe bye, I must have mine

in mind; it won't do to neglect her; she is a Fairfax, or wed to one; and blood is said to be thicker than water."

He rang, and despatched an invitation to Mrs. Fairfax, who soon arrived, knittingbasket in hand.

"Good evening, madam; I sent to you for a charitable purpose. I have forbidden Adele to talk to me about her

presents, and she is bursting with repletion: have the goodness to serve her as auditress and interlocutrice; it

Adele, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs. Fairfax, than she summoned her to her sofa, and there quickly filled her

lap with the porcelain, the ivory, the waxen contents of her "boite;" pouring out, meantime, explanations and

"Now I have performed the part of a good host," pursued Mr. Rochester, "put my guests into the way of

amusing each other, I ought to be at liberty to attend to my own pleasure. Miss Eyre, draw your chair still a

little farther forward: you are yet too far back; I cannot see you without disturbing my position in this

I did as I was bid, though I would much rather have remained somewhat in the shade; but Mr. Rochester had

such a direct way of giving orders, it seemed a matter of course to obey him promptly.

We were, as I have said, in the diningroom: the lustre, which had been lit for dinner, filled the room with a

festal breadth of light; the large fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains hung rich and ample before the

lofty window and loftier arch; everything was still, save the subdued chat of Adele (she dared not speak

loud), and, filling up each pause, the beating of winter rain against the panes.

Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damaskcovered chair, looked different to what I had seen him look before;

not quite so stern much less gloomy. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether with

wine or not, I am not sure; but I think it very probable. He was, in short, in his afterdinner mood; more

expanded and genial, and also more selfindulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; still he

looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the

light of the fire on his granitehewn features, and in his great, dark eyes; for he had great, dark eyes, and very

fine eyes, toonot without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness,

He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the same length of time at him, when,

I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but

"Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you," said he: "you have the air of a little nonnette;

quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the

carpet (except, bythebye, when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and

when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round

"Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon. I ought to have replied that it was not easy to give an impromptu

answer to a question about appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little consequence, or

"You ought to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little consequence, indeed! And so, under pretence of

softening the previous outrage, of stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under my

ear! Go on: what fault do you find with me, pray? I suppose I have all my limbs and all my features like any

"Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer: I intended no pointed repartee: it was only a blunder."

"Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise me: does my forehead not please you?"

He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of

intellectual organs, but an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen.

"Far from it, sir. You would, perhaps, think me rude if I inquired in return whether you are a philanthropist?"

"There again! Another stick of the penknife, when she pretended to pat my head: and that is because I said I

did not like the society of children and old women (low be it spoken!). No, young lady, I am not a general

philanthropist; but I bear a conscience;" and he pointed to the prominences which are said to indicate that

faculty, and which, fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving, indeed, a marked breadth to

the upper part of his head: "and, besides, I once had a kind of rude tenderness of heart. When I was as old as

you, I was a feeling fellow enough, partial to the unfledged, unfostered, and unlucky; but Fortune has

knocked me about since: she has even kneaded me with her knuckles, and now I flatter myself I am hard and

tough as an Indiarubber ball; pervious, though, through a chink or two still, and with one sentient point in

"Decidedly he has had too much wine," I thought; and I did not know what answer to make to his queer

"You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty any more than I am handsome, yet

a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my

physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug; so puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed

With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning his arm on the marble mantelpiece: in that

attitude his shape was seen plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, disproportionate almost to

his length of limb. I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much

unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his

own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to

atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the

indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence.

"I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative tonight," he repeated, "and that is why I sent for you:

the fire and the chandelier were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of these

can talk. Adele is a degree better, but still far below the mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can

suit me if you will: you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here. I have almost forgotten you

since: other ideas have driven yours from my head; but tonight I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what

importunes, and recall what pleases. It would please me now to draw you outto learn more of

Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive smile either.

"Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the manner of treating it entirely to yourself."

Accordingly I sat and said nothing: "If he expects me to talk for the mere sake of talking and showing off, he

I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with a single hasty glance seemed to dive into my

"Stubborn?" he said, "and annoyed. Ah! it is consistent. I put my request in an absurd, almost insolent form.

Miss Eyre, I beg your pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don't wish to treat you like an inferior: that is"

(correcting himself), "I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years' difference in age and a

century's advance in experience. This is legitimate, et j'y tiens, as Adele would say; and it is by virtue of this

superiority, and this alone, that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and divert my

thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one pointcankering as a rusty nail."

He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel insensible to his condescension, and

"I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sirquite willing; but I cannot introduce a topic, because how do I

know what will interest you? Ask me questions, and I will do my best to answer them."

"Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right to be a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps

exacting, sometimes, on the grounds I stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your father, and that I have

battled through a varied experience with many men of many nations, and roamed over half the globe, while

"That is no answer; or rather it is a very irritating, because a very evasive one. Reply clearly."

"I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have

seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time

"Humph! Promptly spoken. But I won't allow that, seeing that it would never suit my case, as I have made an

indifferent, not to say a bad, use of both advantages. Leaving superiority out of the question, then, you must

still agree to receive my orders now and then, without being piqued or hurt by the tone of command. Will

I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester IS peculiarhe seems to forget that he pays me 30 pounds per

"The smile is very well," said he, catching instantly the passing expression; "but speak too."

"I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid

"Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh yes, I had forgotten the salary! Well

"No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did forget it, and that you care whether or not a

"And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms and phrases, without thinking that

"I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence: one I rather like, the other nothing freeborn

"Humbug! Most things freeborn will submit to anything for a salary; therefore, keep to yourself, and don't

venture on generalities of which you are intensely ignorant. However, I mentally shake hands with you for

your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of

the speech; the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the contrary,

affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarseminded misapprehension of one's meaning are the usual rewards of

candour. Not three in three thousand raw schoolgirlgovernesses would have answered me as you have just

done. But I don't mean to flatter you: if you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of

yours: Nature did it. And then, after all, I go too fast in my conclusions: for what I yet know, you may be no

better than the rest; you may have intolerable defects to counterbalance your few good points."

"And so may you," I thought. My eye met his as the idea crossed my mind: he seemed to read the glance,

"Yes, yes, you are right," said he; "I have plenty of faults of my own: I know it, and I don't wish to palliate

them, I assure you. God wot I need not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a

colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my

neighbours to myself. I started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune

and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of oneandtwenty, and have never

recovered the right course since: but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you

wiseralmost as stainless. I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory.

Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasurean inexhaustible source of

"All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned it to fetid puddle. I was your equal at

eighteenquite your equal. Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one of the better

kind, and you see I am not so. You would say you don't see it; at least I flatter myself I read as much in your

eye (beware, bythebye, what you express with that organ; I am quick at interpreting its language). Then

take my word for it,I am not a villain: you are not to suppose thatnot to attribute to me any such bad

eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite

commonplace sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try to put

on life. Do you wonder that I avow this to you? Know, that in the course of your future life you will often

find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances' secrets: people will instinctively find

out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves;

they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate

sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations."

"I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were writing my thoughts in a diary. You would

say, I should have been superior to circumstances; so I shouldso I should; but you see I was not. When fate

wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any

vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am better than he: I

am forced to confess that he and I are on a level. I wish I had stood firmGod knows I do! Dread remorse

"It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could reformI have strength yet for thatifbut

where is the use of thinking of it, hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since happiness is

irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and I WILL get it, cost what it may."

"Possibly: yet why should I, if I can get sweet, fresh pleasure? And I may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild

"How do you know?you never tried it. How very serioushow very solemn you look: and you are as

ignorant of the matter as this cameo head" (taking one from the mantelpiece). "You have no right to preach to

me, you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life, and are absolutely unacquainted with its mysteries."

"I only remind you of your own words, sir: you said error brought remorse, and you pronounced remorse the

"And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that flittered across my brain was an error. I believe

it was an inspiration rather than a temptation: it was very genial, very soothingI know that. Here it comes

again! It is no devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put on the robes of an angel of light. I think I must admit

"Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to distinguish between a fallen seraph of the

"I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said the suggestion had returned upon you.

"Not at allit bears the most gracious message in the world: for the rest, you are not my consciencekeeper,

He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his own; then, folding his arms, which he had

half extended, on his chest, he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being.

"Now," he continued, again addressing me, "I have received the pilgrima disguised deity, as I verify

believe. Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine."

"To speak truth, sir, I don't understand you at all: I cannot keep up the conversation, because it has got out of

my depth. Only one thing, I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you

regretted your own imperfection;one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory

was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what

you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and

actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might

"Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am paving hell with energy."

"I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint. Certainly, my associates and pursuits

"And betterso much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You seem to doubt me; I don't doubt myself: I

know what my aim is, what my motives are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes

"They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute: unheardof combinations of

"That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that it is liable to abuse."

"The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely

"MAY it be right then," I said, as I rose, deeming it useless to continue a discourse which was all darkness to

me; and, besides, sensible that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my penetration; at least, beyond

its present reach; and feeling the uncertainty, the vague sense of insecurity, which accompanies a conviction

"Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I am certainly not afraid."

"If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake it for sense. Do you never laugh, Miss

Eyre? Don't trouble yourself to answerI see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me,

you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you

somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the

presence of a man and a brotheror father, or master, or what you willto smile too gaily, speak too freely,

or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be

conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they

dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the closeset bars of a cage: a

vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloudhigh. You are still bent on

"Never mind,wait a minute: Adele is not ready to go to bed yet. My position, Miss Eyre, with my back to

the fire, and my face to the room, favours observation. While talking to you, I have also occasionally watched

Adele (I have my own reasons for thinking her a curious study,reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart

to you some day). She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a little pink silk frock; rapture lit her face

as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones.

'Il faut que je l'essaie!' cried she, 'et e l'instant meme!' and she rushed out of the room. She is now with

Sophie, undergoing a robing process: in a few minutes she will reenter; and I know what I shall see,a

miniature of Celine Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the rising of But never mind that.

However, my tenderest feelings are about to receive a shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see

Ere long, Adele's little foot was heard tripping across the hall. She entered, transformed as her guardian had

predicted. A dress of rosecoloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could be gathered, replaced

the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in

"Estce que ma robe va bien?" cried she, bounding forwards; "et mes souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois

And spreading out her dress, she chasseed across the room till, having reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled

lightly round before him on tiptoe, then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming

"Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonte;" then rising, she added, "C'est comme cela que maman

"Precisely!" was the answer; "and, 'comme cela,' she charmed my English gold out of my British breeches'

pocket. I have been green, too, Miss Eyre,ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you now than

once freshened me. My Spring is gone, however, but it has left me that French floweret on my hands, which,

in some moods, I would fain be rid of. Not valuing now the root whence it sprang; having found that it was of

a sort which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but half a liking to the blossom, especially when it

looks so artificial as just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating

numerous sins, great or small, by one good work. I'll explain all this some day. Goodnight."

Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it. It was one afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and

Adele in the grounds: and while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk up and down

He then said that she was the daughter of a French operadancer, Celine Varens, towards whom he had once

cherished what he called a "grande passion." This passion Celine had professed to return with even superior

ardour. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was: he believed, as he said, that she preferred his "taille

"And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I

installed her in an hotel; gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres, diamonds,

dentelles, &c. In short, I began the process of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoony. I

had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trode the old track

with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I hadas I deserved to havethe fate of

all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening when Celine did not expect me, I found her out; but it was a

warm night, and I was tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air

consecrated so lately by her presence. No,I exaggerate; I never thought there was any consecrating virtue

about her: it was rather a sort of pastille perfume she had left; a scent of musk and amber, than an odour of

sanctity. I was just beginning to stifle with the fumes of conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, when I

bethought myself to open the window and step out on to the balcony. It was moonlight and gaslight besides,

and very still and serene. The balcony was furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar,I

Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a cigar; having placed it to his lips and

breathed a trail of Havannah incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on

"I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was croquant (overlook the barbarism)croquant

chocolate comfits, and smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along the

fashionable streets towards the neighbouring operahouse, when in an elegant close carriage drawn by a

beautiful pair of English horses, and distinctly seen in the brilliant citynight, I recognised the 'voiture' I had

given Celine. She was returning: of course my heart thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leant

upon. The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that is the very word for an opera

inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a cloakan unnecessary encumbrance, bythebye, on so warm a

June eveningI knew her instantly by her little foot, seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped

from the carriagestep. Bending over the balcony, I was about to murmur 'Mon ange'in a tone, of course,

which should be audible to the ear of love alonewhen a figure jumped from the carriage after her; cloaked

also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement, and that was a hatted head which now

"You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love.

You have both sentiments yet to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken

it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away.

Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the

flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell youand you may mark my wordsyou will come

some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and

tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some

"I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and stillness of the world under this frost. I like

Thornfield, its antiquity, its retirement, its old crowtrees and thorntrees, its grey facade, and lines of dark

windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like

He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck his boot against the hard ground. Some

hated thought seemed to have him in its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance.

We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before us. Lifting his eye to its battlements,

he cast over them a glare such as I never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire, impatience, disgust,

detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the large pupil dilating under his ebon

eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which should be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed:

something hard and cynical: selfwilled and resolute: it settled his passion and petrified his countenance: he

"During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with my destiny. She stood there, by that

beechtrunka hag like one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. 'You like

Thornfield?' she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the air a memento, which ran in lurid

hieroglyphics all along the housefront, between the upper and lower row of windows, 'Like it if you can!

"'I will like it,' said I; 'I dare like it;' and" (he subjoined moodily) "I will keep my word; I will break obstacles

to happiness, to goodnessyes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been, than I am; as Job's

leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will

Adele here ran before him with her shuttlecock. "Away!" he cried harshly; "keep at a distance, child; or go in

to Sophie!" Continuing then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the point whence he had

I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly welltimed question, but, on the contrary, waking out of his

scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. "Oh, I had

forgotten Celine! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I

seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony,

glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart's core. Strange!" he exclaimed,

suddenly starting again from the point. "Strange that I should choose you for the confidant of all this, young

lady; passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if it were the most usual thing in the world for a

man like me to tell stories of his operamistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you! But the last

singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before: you, with your gravity, considerateness, and caution

were made to be the recipient of secrets. Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication

with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I

do not mean to harm it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I converse, the

better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me." After this digression he proceeded

"I remained in the balcony. 'They will come to her boudoir, no doubt,' thought I: 'let me prepare an ambush.'

So putting my hand in through the open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening through

which I could take observations; then I closed the casement, all but a chink just wide enough to furnish an

outlet to lovers' whispered vows: then I stole back to my chair; and as I resumed it the pair came in. My eye

was quickly at the aperture. Celine's chambermaid entered, lit a lamp, left it on the table, and withdrew. The

couple were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there was 'the Varens,' shining in

satin and jewels,my gifts of course,and there was her companion in an officer's uniform; and I knew

him for a young roue of a vicomtea brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and

had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely. On recognising him, the fang of the snake

Jealousy was instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for Celine sank under an extinguisher. A

woman who could betray me for such a rival was not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less,

"They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous, mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it

was rather calculated to weary than enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on the table; this being perceived,

brought my name under discussion. Neither of them possessed energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but

they insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way: especially Celine, who even waxed rather

brilliant on my personal defectsdeformities she termed them. Now it had been her custom to launch out

into fervent admiration of what she called my 'beaute male:' wherein she differed diametrically from you,

who told me pointblank, at the second interview, that you did not think me handsome. The contrast struck

"Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and wishes to see you."

"Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in upon them; liberated Celine from my

protection; gave her notice to vacate her hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded

screams, hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an appointment with the vicomte for a meeting

at the Bois de Boulogne. Next morning I had the pleasure of encountering him; left a bullet in one of his poor

etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a chicken in the pip, and then thought I had done with the whole crew.

But unluckily the Varens, six months before, had given me this filette Adele, who, she affirmed, was my

daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim paternity written in her countenance:

Pilot is more like me than she. Some years after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her child, and

ran away to Italy with a musician or singer. I acknowledged no natural claim on Adele's part to be supported

by me, nor do I now acknowledge any, for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite destitute, I e'en

took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the

wholesome soil of an English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but now you know that it is

the illegitimate offspring of a French operagirl, you will perhaps think differently of your post and protegee:

you will be coming to me some day with notice that you have found another placethat you beg me to look

"No: Adele is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours: I have a regard for her; and now that I

know she is, in a sense, parentlessforsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir I shall cling closer

to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her

governess as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?"

"Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; and you too: it darkens."

But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adele and Pilotran a race with her, and played a game of

battledore and shuttlecock. When we went in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee;

kept her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking even some little freedoms and

trivialities into which she was apt to stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a superficiality of

character, inherited probably from her mother, hardly congenial to an English mind. Still she had her merits;

and I was disposed to appreciate all that was good in her to the utmost. I sought in her countenance and

features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none: no trait, no turn of expression announced relationship. It

was a pity: if she could but have been proved to resemble him, he would have thought more of her.

It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the night, that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr.

Rochester had told me. As he had said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of the

narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman's passion for a French dancer, and her treachery to him, were everyday

matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion

which had suddenly seized him when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of his mood,

and his newly revived pleasure in the old hall and its environs. I meditated wonderingly on this incident; but

gradually quitting it, as I found it for the present inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my master's

manner to myself. The confidence he had thought fit to repose in me seemed a tribute to my discretion: I

regarded and accepted it as such. His deportment had now for some weeks been more uniform towards me

than at the first. I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits of chilling hauteur: when he met me

unexpectedly, the encounter seemed welcome; he had always a word and sometimes a smile for me: when

summoned by formal invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a cordiality of reception that made me feel

I really possessed the power to amuse him, and that these evening conferences were sought as much for his

I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with relish. It was his nature to be communicative;

he liked to open to a mind unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do not mean its

corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their interest from the great scale on which they were

acted, the strange novelty by which they were characterised); and I had a keen delight in receiving the new

ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he portrayed, and following him in thought through the new

The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with

which he treated me, drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master: yet he

was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified did I

become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred: my thin crescentdestiny

seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and

And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable

and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the

brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could not, for he brought them frequently before

me. He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his great

kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I

more than once, when sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with his head bent on his

folded arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But I

believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say FORMER, for now he

seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a man of

better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education

instilled, or destiny encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials in him; though for the present they

hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled. I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and

Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I could not sleep for thinking of his

look when he paused in the avenue, and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be

"Why not?" I asked myself. "What alienates him from the house? Will he leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax

said he seldom stayed here longer than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight weeks. If he

does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless

I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any rate, I started wide awake on hearing a

vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had kept my

candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The

I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in

the hall, struck two. Just then it seemed my chamberdoor was touched; as if fingers had swept the panels in

groping a way along the dark gallery outside. I said, "Who is there?" Nothing answered. I was chilled with

All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the kitchendoor chanced to be left open, not

unfrequently found his way up to the threshold of Mr. Rochester's chamber: I had seen him lying there myself

in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down. Silence composes the nerves; and as an

unbroken hush now reigned again through the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it was

not fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely approached my ear, when it fled affrighted,

This was a demoniac laughlow, suppressed, and deeputtered, as it seemed, at the very keyhole of my

chamber door. The head of my bed was near the door, and I thought at first the goblinlaugher stood at my

bedsideor rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked round, and could see nothing; while, as I still

gazed, the unnatural sound was reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My first impulse was

Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery towards the thirdstorey staircase: a

door had lately been made to shut in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was still.

"Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?" thought I. Impossible now to remain longer by

myself: I must go to Mrs. Fairfax. I hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the door

with a trembling hand. There was a candle burning just outside, and on the matting in the gallery. I was

surprised at this circumstance: but still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with

smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and left, to find whence these blue wreaths issued, I became

Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr. Rochester's, and the smoke rushed in a cloud

from thence. I thought no more of Mrs. Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the laugh: in an instant,

I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of

"Wake! wake!" I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the smoke had stupefied him. Not a

moment could be lost: the very sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was

wide and the other deep, and both were filled with water. I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its occupant,

flew back to my own room, brought my own waterjug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God's aid,

The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I flung from my hand when I had emptied

it, and, above all, the splash of the showerbath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last.

Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him fulminating strange anathemas at finding

"No, sir," I answered; "but there has been a fire: get up, do; you are quenched now; I will fetch you a candle."

"In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?" he demanded. "What have you done with

me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?"

"I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven's name, get up. Somebody has plotted something: you cannot

"There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait two minutes till I get into some dry

I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery. He took it from my hand, held it up, and

surveyed the bed, all blackened and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water.

"What is it? and who did it?" he asked. I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I had

heard in the gallery: the step ascending to the third storey; the smoke,the smell of fire which had

conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the

He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more concern than astonishment; he did not

"Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What can she do? Let her sleep unmolested."

"Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not warm enough, you may take my cloak yonder;

wrap it about you, and sit down in the armchair: there,I will put it on. Now place your feet on the stool, to

keep them out of the wet. I am going to leave you a few minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you

are till I return; be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the second storey. Don't move, remember, or call

He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very softly, unclosed the staircase door with

as little noise as possible, shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left in total darkness. I listened for

some noise, but heard nothing. A very long time elapsed. I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of the cloak; and

then I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to rouse the house. I was on the point of risking Mr.

Rochester's displeasure by disobeying his orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery

wall, and I heard his unshod feet tread the matting. "I hope it is he," thought I, "and not something worse."

He reentered, pale and very gloomy. "I have found it all out," said he, setting his candle down on the

He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the ground. At the end of a few minutes he

"But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I should think, or something like it?"

"Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,she laughs in that way. She is a singular

"Just so. Grace Pooleyou have guessed it. She is, as you say, singularvery. Well, I shall reflect on the

subject. Meantime, I am glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the precise details

of tonight's incident. You are no talking fool: say nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs"

(pointing to the bed): "and now return to your own room. I shall do very well on the sofa in the library for the

"But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of acknowledgment and goodwill: not, in short, in

that brief, dry fashion. Why, you have saved my life!snatched me from a horrible and excruciating death!

He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, them in both his own.

"You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else

that has being would have been tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation: but you: it

He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips, but his voice was checked.

"Goodnight again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation, in the case."

"I knew," he continued, "you would do me good in some way, at some time;I saw it in your eyes when I

first beheld you: their expression and smile did not"(again he stopped)"did not" (he proceeded hastily)

"strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good

genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, goodnight!"

"Cold? Yes,and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!" But he still retained my hand, and I could not free

I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet

sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a

shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit

triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancya counteracting breeze blew off

land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion. Too

I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this sleepless night: I wanted to

hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye. During the early part of the morning, I momentarily expected

his coming; he was not in the frequent habit of entering the schoolroom, but he did step in for a few minutes

But the morning passed just as usual: nothing happened to interrupt the quiet course of Adele's studies; only

soon after breakfast, I heard some bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester's chamber, Mrs. Fairfax's

voice, and Leah's, and the cook'sthat is, John's wifeand even John's own gruff tones. There were

exclamations of "What a mercy master was not burnt in his bed!" "It is always dangerous to keep a candle lit

at night." "How providential that he had presence of mind to think of the waterjug!" "I wonder he waked

nobody!" "It is to be hoped he will not take cold with sleeping on the library sofa," &c.

To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to rights; and when I passed the room, in

going downstairs to dinner, I saw through the open door that all was again restored to complete order; only

the bed was stripped of its hangings. Leah stood up in the windowseat, rubbing the panes of glass dimmed

with smoke. I was about to address her, for I wished to know what account had been given of the affair: but,

on advancing, I saw a second person in the chambera woman sitting on a chair by the bedside, and sewing

There she sat, staid and taciturnlooking, as usual, in her brown stuff gown, her check apron, white

handkerchief, and cap. She was intent on her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on her

hard forehead, and in her commonplace features, was nothing either of the paleness or desperation one would

have expected to see marking the countenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose intended

victim had followed her last night to her lair, and (as I believed), charged her with the crime she wished to

perpetrate. I was amazedconfounded. She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no start, no increase or

failure of colour betrayed emotion, consciousness of guilt, or fear of detection. She said "Good morning,

Miss," in her usual phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking up another ring and more tape, went on with her

"I will put her to some test," thought I: "such absolute impenetrability is past comprehension."

"Good morning, Grace," I said. "Has anything happened here? I thought I heard the servants all talking

"Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep with his candle lit, and the curtains got on

fire; but, fortunately, he awoke before the bedclothes or the woodwork caught, and contrived to quench the

"A strange affair!" I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her fixedly"Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody?

She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of consciousness in their expression. She

"The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be likely to hear. Mrs. Fairfax's room and

yours are the nearest to master's; but Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get elderly, they often

sleep heavy." She paused, and then added, with a sort of assumed indifference, but still in a marked and

significant tone"But you are young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper: perhaps you may have heard a

"I did," said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still polishing the panes, could not hear me, "and at

first I thought it was Pilot: but Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a strange one."

She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her needle with a steady hand, and then

"It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he was in such danger: You must have

"I was not dreaming," I said, with some warmth, for her brazen coolness provoked me. Again she looked at

"You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the gallery?" she further asked.

She appeared to be crossquestioning me, attempting to draw from me information unawares. The idea struck

me that if she discovered I knew or suspected her guilt, she would be playing of some of her malignant

"Then you are not in the habit of bolting your door every night before you get into bed?"

"Fiend! she wants to know my habits, that she may lay her plans accordingly!" Indignation again prevailed

over prudence: I replied sharply, "Hitherto I have often omitted to fasten the bolt: I did not think it necessary.

I was not aware any danger or annoyance was to be dreaded at Thornfield Hall: but in future" (and I laid

marked stress on the words) "I shall take good care to make all secure before I venture to lie down."

"It will be wise so to do," was her answer: "this neighbourhood is as quiet as any I know, and I never heard of

the hall being attempted by robbers since it was a house; though there are hundreds of pounds' worth of plate

in the platecloset, as is well known. And you see, for such a large house, there are very few servants,

because master has never lived here much; and when he does come, being a bachelor, he needs little waiting

on: but I always think it best to err on the safe side; a door is soon fastened, and it is as well to have a drawn

bolt between one and any mischief that may be about. A deal of people, Miss, are for trusting all to

Providence; but I say Providence will not dispense with the means, though He often blesses them when they

are used discreetly." And here she closed her harangue: a long one for her, and uttered with the demureness

I still stood absolutely dumfoundered at what appeared to me her miraculous selfpossession and most

"Mrs. Poole," said she, addressing Grace, "the servants' dinner will soon be ready: will you come down?"

"No; just put my pint of porter and bit of pudding on a tray, and I'll carry it upstairs."

"Never mind it at present: I shall be coming down before teatime: I'll make it myself."

The cook here turned to me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for me: so I departed.

I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax's account of the curtain conflagration during dinner, so much was I occupied in

puzzling my brains over the enigmatical character of Grace Poole, and still more in pondering the problem of

her position at Thornfield and questioning why she had not been given into custody that morning, or, at the

very least, dismissed from her master's service. He had almost as much as declared his conviction of her

criminality last night: what mysterious cause withheld him from accusing her? Why had he enjoined me, too,

to secrecy? It was strange: a bold, vindictive, and haughty gentleman seemed somehow in the power of one

of the meanest of his dependants; so much in her power, that even when she lifted her hand against his life, he

Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to think that tenderer feelings than

prudence or fear influenced Mr. Rochester in her behalf; but, hardfavoured and matronly as she was, the

idea could not be admitted. "Yet," I reflected, "she has been young once; her youth would be contemporary

with her master's: Mrs. Fairfax told me once, she had lived here many years. I don't think she can ever have

been pretty; but, for aught I know, she may possess originality and strength of character to compensate for the

want of personal advantages. Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric: Grace is eccentric at

least. What if a former caprice (a freak very possible to a nature so sudden and headstrong as his) has

delivered him into her power, and she now exercises over his actions a secret influence, the result of his own

indiscretion, which he cannot shake off, and dare not disregard?" But, having reached this point of conjecture,

Mrs. Poole's square, flat figure, and uncomely, dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my mind's eye,

that I thought, "No; impossible! my supposition cannot be correct. Yet," suggested the secret voice which

talks to us in our own hearts, "you are not beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you: at any

rate, you have often felt as if he did; and last nightremember his words; remember his look; remember his

I well remembered all; language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment vividly renewed. I was now in the

schoolroom; Adele was drawing; I bent over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start.

"Qu' avezvous, mademoiselle?" said she. "Vos doigts tremblent comme la feuille, et vos joues sont rouges:

I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been conceiving respecting Grace Poole; it

disgusted me. I compared myself with her, and found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was quite a

lady; and she spoke truthI was a lady. And now I looked much better than I did when Bessie saw me; I had

more colour and more flesh, more life, more vivacity, because I had brighter hopes and keener enjoyments.

"Evening approaches," said I, as I looked towards the window. "I have never heard Mr. Rochester's voice or

step in the house today; but surely I shall see him before night: I feared the meeting in the morning; now I

desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown impatient."

When dusk actually closed, and when Adele left me to go and play in the nursery with Sophie, I did most

keenly desire it. I listened for the bell to ring below; I listened for Leah coming up with a message; I fancied

sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester's own tread, and I turned to the door, expecting it to open and admit him.

The door remained shut; darkness only came in through the window. Still it was not late; he often sent for me

at seven and eight o'clock, and it was yet but six. Surely I should not be wholly disappointed tonight, when I

had so many things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace Poole, and to hear what he

would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if he really believed it was she who had made last night's hideous

attempt; and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret. It little mattered whether my curiosity irritated him; I

knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct

always prevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of provocation I never ventured; on the extreme

brink I liked well to try my skill. Retaining every minute form of respect, every propriety of my station, I

could still meet him in argument without fear or uneasy restraint; this suited both him and me.

A tread creaked on the stairs at last. Leah made her appearance; but it was only to intimate that tea was ready

in Mrs. Fairfax's room. Thither I repaired, glad at least to go downstairs; for that brought me, I imagined,

"You must want your tea," said the good lady, as I joined her; "you ate so little at dinner. I am afraid," she

"Then you must prove it by evincing a good appetite; will you fill the teapot while I knit off this needle?"

Having completed her task, she rose to draw down the blind, which she had hitherto kept up, by way, I

suppose, of making the most of daylight, though dusk was now fast deepening into total obscurity.

"It is fair tonight," said she, as she looked through the panes, "though not starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on

"Oh, he set of the moment he had breakfasted! He is gone to the Leas, Mr. Eshton's place, ten miles on the

other side Millcote. I believe there is quite a party assembled there; Lord Ingram, Sir George Lynn, Colonel

"Nonor tomorrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a week or more: when these fine,

fashionable people get together, they are so surrounded by elegance and gaiety, so well provided with all that

can please and entertain, they are in no hurry to separate. Gentlemen especially are often in request on such

occasions; and Mr. Rochester is so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he is a general favourite:

the ladies are very fond of him; though you would not think his appearance calculated to recommend him

particularly in their eyes: but I suppose his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his wealth and good blood,

"There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughtersvery elegant young ladies indeed; and there are the

Honourable Blanche and Mary Ingram, most beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanche, six or

seven years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a Christmas ball and party Mr.

Rochester gave. You should have seen the diningroom that dayhow richly it was decorated, how

brilliantly lit up! I should think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen presentall of the first county families;

"Yes, I saw her. The diningroom doors were thrown open; and, as it was Christmastime, the servants were

allowed to assemble in the hall, to hear some of the ladies sing and play. Mr. Rochester would have me to

come in, and I sat down in a quiet corner and watched them. I never saw a more splendid scene: the ladies

were magnificently dressed; most of themat least most of the younger oneslooked handsome; but Miss

"Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck: olive complexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes

rather like Mr. Rochester's: large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then she had such a fine head

of hair; ravenblack and so becomingly arranged: a crown of thick plaits behind, and in front the longest, the

glossiest curls I ever saw. She was dressed in pure white; an ambercoloured scarf was passed over her

shoulder and across her breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below her knee. She

wore an ambercoloured flower, too, in her hair: it contrasted well with the jetty mass of her curls."

"Yes, indeed: and not only for her beauty, but for her accomplishments. She was one of the ladies who sang:

"A very rich and powerful one: she sang delightfully; it was a treat to listen to her;and she played

afterwards. I am no judge of music, but Mr. Rochester is; and I heard him say her execution was remarkably

"It appears not: I fancy neither she nor her sister have very large fortunes. Old Lord Ingram's estates were

"But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to her: Mr. Rochester, for instance. He is

"Oh! yes. But you see there is a considerable difference in age: Mr. Rochester is nearly forty; she is but

"True: yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an idea of the sort. But you eat nothing: you

I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between Mr. Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but

When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into my heart, examined its thoughts

and feelings, and endeavoured to bring back with a strict hand such as had been straying through

imagination's boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense.

Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been

cherishing since last nightof the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past;

Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had

rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal;I pronounced judgment to this effect:

That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never

"YOU," I said, "a favourite with Mr. Rochester? YOU gifted with the power of pleasing him? YOU of

importance to him in any way? Go! your folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional

tokens of preferenceequivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man of the world to a

dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid dupe!Could not even selfinterest make you wiser?

You repeated to yourself this morning the brief scene of last night?Cover your face and be ashamed! He

said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own

accursed senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who cannot possibly intend

to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and

unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, ignisfatuslike,

"Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: tomorrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own

picture, faithfully, without softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity;

"Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivoryyou have one prepared in your drawingbox: take your palette,

mix your freshest, finest, clearest tints; choose your most delicate camelhair pencils; delineate carefully the

loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in your softest shades and sweetest lines, according to the description

given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental eye;What! you revert

to Mr. Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel!no sentiment!no regret! I will endure only sense and

resolution. Recall the august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and bust; let the round and

dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully

the attire, aerial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call it 'Blanche, an accomplished

"Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two

pictures and compare them: say, 'Mr. Rochester might probably win that noble lady's love, if he chose to

strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this indigent and insignificant plebeian?'"

"I'll do it," I resolved: and having framed this determination, I grew calm, and fell asleep.

I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in crayons; and in less than a fortnight I

had completed an ivory miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face enough, and when

compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast was as great as selfcontrol could desire. I derived benefit

from the task: it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given force and fixedness to the new

Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of wholesome discipline to which I had thus

forced my feelings to submit. Thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a decent calm,

which, had they found me unprepared, I should probably have been unequal to maintain, even externally.

A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten days, and still he did not come. Mrs. Fairfax said

she should not be surprised if he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the Continent,

and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to come; he had not unfrequently quitted it in a manner

quite as abrupt and unexpected. When I heard this, I was beginning to feel a strange chill and failing at the

heart. I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying my

wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got

over the temporary blunderhow I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester's movements a matter

in which I had any cause to take a vital interest. Not that I humbled myself by a slavish notion of inferiority:

"You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to receive the salary he gives you for

teaching his protegee, and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you

have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and

him; so don't make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not of your

order: keep to your caste, and be too selfrespecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength,

I went on with my day's business tranquilly; but ever and anon vague suggestions kept wandering across my

brain of reasons why I should quit Thornfield; and I kept involuntarily framing advertisements and pondering

conjectures about new situations: these thoughts I did not think check; they might germinate and bear fruit if

Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of a fortnight, when the post brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter.

"It is from the master," said she, as she looked at the direction. "Now I suppose we shall know whether we

And while she broke the seal and perused the document, I went on taking my coffee (we were at breakfast): it

was hot, and I attributed to that circumstance a fiery glow which suddenly rose to my face. Why my hand

shook, and why I involuntarily spilt half the contents of my cup into my saucer, I did not choose to consider.

"Well, I sometimes think we are too quiet; but we run a chance of being busy enough now: for a little while at

Ere I permitted myself to request an explanation, I tied the string of Adele's pinafore, which happened to be

loose: having helped her also to another bun and refilled her mug with milk, I said, nonchalantly

"Indeed he isin three days, he says: that will be next Thursday; and not alone either. I don't know how

many of the fine people at the Leas are coming with him: he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to be

prepared; and the library and drawingrooms are to be cleaned out; I am to get more kitchen hands from the

George Inn, at Millcote, and from wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the gentlemen

their valets: so we shall have a full house of it." And Mrs. Fairfax swallowed her breakfast and hastened away

The three days were, as she had foretold, busy enough. I had thought all the rooms at Thornfield beautifully

clean and well arranged; but it appears I was mistaken. Three women were got to help; and such scrubbing,

such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets, such taking down and putting up of pictures,

such polishing of mirrors and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, such airing of sheets and

featherbeds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since. Adele ran quite wild in the midst of it: the

preparations for company and the prospect of their arrival, seemed to throw her into ecstasies. She would

have Sophie to look over all her "toilettes," as she called frocks; to furbish up any that were "passees," and to

air and arrange the new. For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump on and off

the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piledup bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring

in the chimneys. From school duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her service, and I

was all day in the storeroom, helping (or hindering) her and the cook; learning to make custards and

The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, in time for dinner at six. During the intervening

period I had no time to nurse chimeras; and I believe I was as active and gay as anybodyAdele excepted.

Still, now and then, I received a damping check to my cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back

on the region of doubts and portents, and dark conjectures. This was when I chanced to see the thirdstorey

staircase door (which of late had always been kept locked) open slowly, and give passage to the form of

Grace Poole, in prim cap, white apron, and handkerchief; when I watched her glide along the gallery, her

quiet tread muffled in a list slipper; when I saw her look into the bustling, topsyturvy bedrooms,just say a

word, perhaps, to the charwoman about the proper way to polish a grate, or clean a marble mantelpiece, or

take stains from papered walls, and then pass on. She would thus descend to the kitchen once a day, eat her

dinner, smoke a moderate pipe on the hearth, and go back, carrying her pot of porter with her, for her private

solace, in her own gloomy, upper haunt. Only one hour in the twentyfour did she pass with her

fellowservants below; all the rest of her time was spent in some lowceiled, oaken chamber of the second

storey: there she sat and sewedand probably laughed drearily to herself,as companionless as a prisoner

The strangest thing of all was, that not a soul in the house, except me, noticed her habits, or seemed to marvel

at them: no one discussed her position or employment; no one pitied her solitude or isolation. I once, indeed,

overheard part of a dialogue between Leah and one of the charwomen, of which Grace formed the subject.

"Yes," said Leah; "I wish I had as good; not that mine are to complain of,there's no stinginess at

Thornfield; but they're not one fifth of the sum Mrs. Poole receives. And she is laying by: she goes every

quarter to the bank at Millcote. I should not wonder but she has saved enough to keep her independent if she

liked to leave; but I suppose she's got used to the place; and then she's not forty yet, and strong and able for

"Ah!she understands what she has to do,nobody better," rejoined Leah significantly; "and it is not every

The charwoman was going on; but here Leah turned and perceived me, and she instantly gave her companion

Leah shook her head, and the conversation was of course dropped. All I had gathered from it amounted to

this,that there was a mystery at Thornfield; and that from participation in that mystery I was purposely

Thursday came: all work had been completed the previous evening; carpets were laid down, bedhangings

festooned, radiant white counterpanes spread, toilet tables arranged, furniture rubbed, flowers piled in vases:

both chambers and saloons looked as fresh and bright as hands could make them. The hall, too, was scoured;

and the great carved clock, as well as the steps and banisters of the staircase, were polished to the brightness

of glass; in the diningroom, the sideboard flashed resplendent with plate; in the drawingroom and boudoir,

Afternoon arrived: Mrs. Fairfax assumed her best black satin gown, her gloves, and her gold watch; for it was

her part to receive the company,to conduct the ladies to their rooms, &c. Adele, too, would be dressed:

though I thought she had little chance of being introduced to the party that day at least. However, to please

her, I allowed Sophie to apparel her in one of her short, full muslin frocks. For myself, I had no need to make

any change; I should not be called upon to quit my sanctum of the schoolroom; for a sanctum it was now

It had been a mild, serene spring dayone of those days which, towards the end of March or the beginning

of April, rise shining over the earth as heralds of summer. It was drawing to an end now; but the evening was

"It gets late," said Mrs. Fairfax, entering in rustling state. "I am glad I ordered dinner an hour after the time

Mr. Rochester mentioned; for it is past six now. I have sent John down to the gates to see if there is anything

on the road: one can see a long way from thence in the direction of Millcote." She went to the window. "Here

Adele flew to the window. I followed, taking care to stand on one side, so that, screened by the curtain, I

The ten minutes John had given seemed very long, but at last wheels were heard; four equestrians galloped up

the drive, and after them came two open carriages. Fluttering veils and waving plumes filled the vehicles; two

of the cavaliers were young, dashinglooking gentlemen; the third was Mr. Rochester, on his black horse,

Mesrour, Pilot bounding before him; at his side rode a lady, and he and she were the first of the party. Her

purple ridinghabit almost swept the ground, her veil streamed long on the breeze; mingling with its

The cavalcade, following the sweep of the drive, quickly turned the angle of the house, and I lost sight of it.

Adele now petitioned to go down; but I took her on my knee, and gave her to understand that she must not on

any account think of venturing in sight of the ladies, either now or at any other time, unless expressly sent

for: that Mr. Rochester would be very angry, &c. "Some natural tears she shed" on being told this; but as I

A joyous stir was now audible in the hall: gentlemen's deep tones and ladies' silvery accents blent

harmoniously together, and distinguishable above all, though not loud, was the sonorous voice of the master

of Thornfield Hall, welcoming his fair and gallant guests under its roof. Then light steps ascended the stairs;

and there was a tripping through the gallery, and soft cheerful laughs, and opening and closing doors, and, for

"Elles changent de toilettes," said Adele; who, listening attentively, had followed every movement; and she

"Chez maman," said she, "quand il y avait du monde, je le suivais partout, au salon et e leurs chambres;

souvent je regardais les femmes de chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et c'etait si amusant: comme cela on

"Well now, while the ladies are in their rooms, I will venture down and get you something to eat."

And issuing from my asylum with precaution, I sought a backstairs which conducted directly to the kitchen.

All in that region was fire and commotion; the soup and fish were in the last stage of projection, and the cook

hung over her crucibles in a frame of mind and body threatening spontaneous combustion. In the servants'

hall two coachmen and three gentlemen's gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the abigails, I suppose, were

upstairs with their mistresses; the new servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about

everywhere. Threading this chaos, I at last reached the larder; there I took possession of a cold chicken, a roll

of bread, some tarts, a plate or two and a knife and fork: with this booty I made a hasty retreat. I had regained

the gallery, and was just shutting the backdoor behind me, when an accelerated hum warned me that the

ladies were about to issue from their chambers. I could not proceed to the schoolroom without passing some

of their doors, and running the risk of being surprised with my cargo of victualage; so I stood still at this end,

which, being windowless, was dark: quite dark now, for the sun was set and twilight gathering.

Presently the chambers gave up their fair tenants one after another: each came out gaily and airily, with dress

that gleamed lustrous through the dusk. For a moment they stood grouped together at the other extremity of

the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet subdued vivacity: they then descended the staircase almost as

noiselessly as a bright mist rolls down a hill. Their collective appearance had left on me an impression of

I found Adele peeping through the schoolroom door, which she held ajar. "What beautiful ladies!" cried she

in English. "Oh, I wish I might go to them! Do you think Mr. Rochester will send for us byand bye, after

"No, indeed, I don't; Mr. Rochester has something else to think about. Never mind the ladies tonight;

She was really hungry, so the chicken and tarts served to divert her attention for a time. It was well I secured

this forage, or both she, I, and Sophie, to whom I conveyed a share of our repast, would have run a chance of

getting no dinner at all: every one downstairs was too much engaged to think of us. The dessert was not

carried out till after nine and at ten footmen were still running to and fro with trays and coffeecups. I

allowed Adele to sit up much later than usual; for she declared she could not possibly go to sleep while the

doors kept opening and shutting below, and people bustling about. Besides, she added, a message might

possibly come from Mr. Rochester when she was undressed; "et alors quel dommage!"

I told her stories as long as she would listen to them; and then for a change I took her out into the gallery. The

hall lamp was now lit, and it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the servants passing

backwards and forwards. When the evening was far advanced, a sound of music issued from the

drawingroom, whither the piano had been removed; Adele and I sat down on the top step of the stairs to

listen. Presently a voice blent with the rich tones of the instrument; it was a lady who sang, and very sweet

her notes were. The solo over, a duet followed, and then a glee: a joyous conversational murmur filled up the

intervals. I listened long: suddenly I discovered that my ear was wholly intent on analysing the mingled

sounds, and trying to discriminate amidst the confusion of accents those of Mr. Rochester; and when it caught

them, which it soon did, it found a further task in framing the tones, rendered by distance inarticulate, into

The clock struck eleven. I looked at Adele, whose head leant against my shoulder; her eyes were waxing

heavy, so I took her up in my arms and carried her off to bed. It was near one before the gentlemen and ladies

The next day was as fine as its predecessor: it was devoted by the party to an excursion to some site in the

neighbourhood. They set out early in the forenoon, some on horseback, the rest in carriages; I witnessed both

the departure and the return. Miss Ingram, as before, was the only lady equestrian; and, as before, Mr.

Rochester galloped at her side; the two rode a little apart from the rest. I pointed out this circumstance to Mrs.

"You said it was not likely they should think of being married," said I, "but you see Mr. Rochester evidently

"And she him," I added; "look how she leans her head towards him as if she were conversing confidentially; I

"You will see her this evening," answered Mrs. Fairfax. "I happened to remark to Mr. Rochester how much

Adele wished to be introduced to the ladies, and he said: 'Oh! let her come into the drawingroom after

"Well, I observed to him that as you were unused to company, I did not think you would like appearing

before so gay a partyall strangers; and he replied, in his quick way'Nonsense! If she objects, tell her it is

my particular wish; and if she resists, say I shall come and fetch her in case of contumacy.'"

"I will not give him that trouble," I answered. "I will go, if no better may be; but I don't like it. Shall you be

"No; I pleaded off, and he admitted my plea. I'll tell you how to manage so as to avoid the embarrassment of

making a formal entrance, which is the most disagreeable part of the business. You must go into the

drawingroom while it is empty, before the ladies leave the dinnertable; choose your seat in any quiet nook

you like; you need not stay long after the gentlemen come in, unless you please: just let Mr. Rochester see

"Perhaps two or three weeks, certainly not more. After the Easter recess, Sir George Lynn, who was lately

elected member for Millcote, will have to go up to town and take his seat; I daresay Mr. Rochester will

accompany him: it surprises me that he has already made so protracted a stay at Thornfield."

It was with some trepidation that I perceived the hour approach when I was to repair with my charge to the

drawingroom. Adele had been in a state of ecstasy all day, after hearing she was to be presented to the ladies

in the evening; and it was not till Sophie commenced the operation of dressing her that she sobered down.

Then the importance of the process quickly steadied her, and by the time she had her curls arranged in

wellsmoothed, drooping clusters, her pink satin frock put on, her long sash tied, and her lace mittens

adjusted, she looked as grave as any judge. No need to warn her not to disarrange her attire: when she was

dressed, she sat demurely down in her little chair, taking care previously to lift up the satin skirt for fear she

should crease it, and assured me she would not stir thence till I was ready. This I quickly was: my best dress

(the silvergrey one, purchased for Miss Temple's wedding, and never worn since) was soon put on; my hair

was soon smoothed; my sole ornament, the pearl brooch, soon assumed. We descended.

Fortunately there was another entrance to the drawingroom than that through the saloon where they were all

seated at dinner. We found the apartment vacant; a large fire burning silently on the marble hearth, and wax

candles shining in bright solitude, amid the exquisite flowers with which the tables were adorned. The

crimson curtain hung before the arch: slight as was the separation this drapery formed from the party in the

adjoining saloon, they spoke in so low a key that nothing of their conversation could be distinguished beyond

Adele, who appeared to be still under the influence of a most solemnising impression, sat down, without a

word, on the footstool I pointed out to her. I retired to a windowseat, and taking a book from a table near,

endeavoured to read. Adele brought her stool to my feet; ere long she touched my knee.

"Estce que je ne puis pas prendrie une seule de ces fleurs magnifiques, mademoiselle? Seulement pour

"You think too much of your 'toilette,' Adele: but you may have a flower." And I took a rose from a vase and

fastened it in her sash. She sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfaction, as if her cup of happiness were now full. I

turned my face away to conceal a smile I could not suppress: there was something ludicrous as well as painful

A soft sound of rising now became audible; the curtain was swept back from the arch; through it appeared the

diningroom, with its lit lustre pouring down light on the silver and glass of a magnificent dessertservice

covering a long table; a band of ladies stood in the opening; they entered, and the curtain fell behind them.

There were but eight; yet, somehow, as they flocked in, they gave the impression of a much larger number.

Some of them were very tall; many were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of array that

seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the moon. I rose and curtseyed to them: one or two bent

They dispersed about the room, reminding me, by the lightness and buoyancy of their movements, of a flock

of white plumy birds. Some of them threw themselves in halfreclining positions on the sofas and ottomans:

some bent over the tables and examined the flowers and books: the rest gathered in a group round the fire: all

talked in a low but clear tone which seemed habitual to them. I knew their names afterwards, and may as well

First, there was Mrs. Eshton and two of her daughters. She had evidently been a handsome woman, and was

well preserved still. Of her daughters, the eldest, Amy, was rather little: naive, and childlike in face and

manner, and piquant in form; her white muslin dress and blue sash became her well. The second, Louisa, was

taller and more elegant in figure; with a very pretty face, of that order the French term minois chiffone: both

Lady Lynn was a large and stout personage of about forty, very erect, very haughtylooking, richly dressed

in a satin robe of changeful sheen: her dark hair shone glossily under the shade of an azure plume, and within

Mrs. Colonel Dent was less showy; but, I thought, more ladylike. She had a slight figure, a pale, gentle face,

and fair hair. Her black satin dress, her scarf of rich foreign lace, and her pearl ornaments, pleased me better

But the three most distinguishedpartly, perhaps, because the tallest figures of the bandwere the

Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters, Blanche and Mary. They were all three of the loftiest stature of

women. The Dowager might be between forty and fifty: her shape was still fine; her hair (by candlelight at

least) still black; her teeth, too, were still apparently perfect. Most people would have termed her a splendid

woman of her age: and so she was, no doubt, physically speaking; but then there was an expression of almost

insupportable haughtiness in her bearing and countenance. She had Roman features and a double chin,

disappearing into a throat like a pillar: these features appeared to me not only inflated and darkened, but even

furrowed with pride; and the chin was sustained by the same principle, in a position of almost preternatural

erectness. She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye: it reminded me of Mrs. Reed's; she mouthed her words

in speaking; her voice was deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical,very intolerable, in short. A

crimson velvet robe, and a shawl turban of some goldwrought Indian fabric, invested her (I suppose she

Blanche and Mary were of equal stature,straight and tall as poplars. Mary was too slim for her height, but

Blanche was moulded like a Dian. I regarded her, of course, with special interest. First, I wished to see

whether her appearance accorded with Mrs. Fairfax's description; secondly, whether it at all resembled the

fancy miniature I had painted of her; and thirdlyit will out! whether it were such as I should fancy likely

As far as person went, she answered point for point, both to my picture and Mrs. Fairfax's description. The

noble bust, the sloping shoulders, the graceful neck, the dark eyes and black ringlets were all there;but her

face? Her face was like her mother's; a youthful unfurrowed likeness: the same low brow, the same high

features, the same pride. It was not, however, so saturnine a pride! she laughed continually; her laugh was

Genius is said to be selfconscious. I cannot tell whether Miss Ingram was a genius, but she was

selfconsciousremarkably selfconscious indeed. She entered into a discourse on botany with the gentle

Mrs. Dent. It seemed Mrs. Dent had not studied that science: though, as she said, she liked flowers,

"especially wild ones;" Miss Ingram had, and she ran over its vocabulary with an air. I presently perceived

she was (what is vernacularly termed) TRAILING Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on her ignoranceher TRAIL

might be clever, but it was decidedly not goodnatured. She played: her execution was brilliant; she sang: her

voice was fine; she talked French apart to her mamma; and she talked it well, with fluency and with a good

Mary had a milder and more open countenance than Blanche; softer features too, and a skin some shades

fairer (Miss Ingram was dark as a Spaniard)but Mary was deficient in life: her face lacked expression, her

eye lustre; she had nothing to say, and having once taken her seat, remained fixed like a statue in its niche.

And did I now think Miss Ingram such a choice as Mr. Rochester would be likely to make? I could not

tellI did not know his taste in female beauty. If he liked the majestic, she was the very type of majesty:

then she was accomplished, sprightly. Most gentlemen would admire her, I thought; and that he DID admire

her, I already seemed to have obtained proof: to remove the last shade of doubt, it remained but to see them

You are not to suppose, reader, that Adele has all this time been sitting motionless on the stool at my feet: no;

when the ladies entered, she rose, advanced to meet them, made a stately reverence, and said with gravity

And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mocking air, and exclaimed, "Oh, what a little puppet!"

Lady Lynn had remarked, "It is Mr. Rochester's ward, I supposethe little French girl he was speaking of."

And then they had called her to a sofa, where she now sat, ensconced between them, chattering alternately in

French and broken English; absorbing not only the young ladies' attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton and Lady

At last coffee is brought in, and the gentlemen are summoned. I sit in the shadeif any shade there be in this

brilliantlylit apartment; the windowcurtain half hides me. Again the arch yawns; they come. The collective

appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is very imposing: they are all costumed in black; most of

them are tall, some young. Henry and Frederick Lynn are very dashing sparks indeed; and Colonel Dent is a

fine soldierly man. Mr. Eshton, the magistrate of the district, is gentlemanlike: his hair is quite white, his

eyebrows and whiskers still dark, which gives him something of the appearance of a "pere noble de theatre."

Lord Ingram, like his sisters, is very tall; like them, also, he is handsome; but he shares Mary's apathetic and

listless look: he seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of blood or vigour of brain.

He comes in last: I am not looking at the arch, yet I see him enter. I try to concentrate my attention on those

nettingneedles, on the meshes of the purse I am formingI wish to think only of the work I have in my

hands, to see only the silver beads and silk threads that lie in my lap; whereas, I distinctly behold his figure,

and I inevitably recall the moment when I last saw it; just after I had rendered him, what he deemed, an

essential service, and he, holding my hand, and looking down on my face, surveyed me with eyes that

revealed a heart full and eager to overflow; in whose emotions I had a part. How near had I approached him

at that moment! What had occurred since, calculated to change his and my relative positions? Yet now, how

distant, how far estranged we were! So far estranged, that I did not expect him to come and speak to me. I did

not wonder, when, without looking at me, he took a seat at the other side of the room, and began conversing

No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and that I might gaze without being observed, than

my eyes were drawn involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under control: they would rise, and

the irids would fix on him. I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking,a precious yet poignant pleasure;

pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirstperishing man might feel who knows

the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless.

Most true is it that "beauty is in the eye of the gazer." My master's colourless, olive face, square, massive

brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth,all energy, decision,

will,were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than beautiful to me; they were full of an

interest, an influence that quite mastered me,that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them

in his. I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the

germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green

I compared him with his guests. What was the gallant grace of the Lynns, the languid elegance of Lord

Ingram,even the military distinction of Colonel Dent, contrasted with his look of native pith and genuine

power? I had no sympathy in their appearance, their expression: yet I could imagine that most observers

would call them attractive, handsome, imposing; while they would pronounce Mr. Rochester at once

harshfeatured and melancholylooking. I saw them smile, laughit was nothing; the light of the candles

had as much soul in it as their smile; the tinkle of the bell as much significance as their laugh. I saw Mr.

Rochester smile: his stern features softened; his eye grew both brilliant and gentle, its ray both searching

and sweet. He was talking, at the moment, to Louisa and Amy Eshton. I wondered to see them receive with

calm that look which seemed to me so penetrating: I expected their eyes to fall, their colour to rise under it;

yet I was glad when I found they were in no sense moved. "He is not to them what he is to me," I thought:

"he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;I am sure he isI feel akin to himI understand the

language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in

my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. Did I say, a few days since,

that I had nothing to do with him but to receive my salary at his hands? Did I forbid myself to think of him in

any other light than as a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have

gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember

that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to

influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I

must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered: and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love

Coffee is handed. The ladies, since the gentlemen entered, have become lively as larks; conversation waxes

brisk and merry. Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics; their wives listen. The two proud dowagers,

Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate together. Sir Georgewhom, bythebye, I have forgotten to

describe,a very big, and very freshlooking country gentleman, stands before their sofa, coffeecup in

hand, and occasionally puts in a word. Mr. Frederick Lynn has taken a seat beside Mary Ingram, and is

showing her the engravings of a splendid volume: she looks, smiles now and then, but apparently says little.

The tall and phlegmatic Lord Ingram leans with folded arms on the chairback of the little and lively Amy

Eshton; she glances up at him, and chatters like a wren: she likes him better than she does Mr. Rochester.

Henry Lynn has taken possession of an ottoman at the feet of Louisa: Adele shares it with him: he is trying to

talk French with her, and Louisa laughs at his blunders. With whom will Blanche Ingram pair? She is

standing alone at the table, bending gracefully over an album. She seems waiting to be sought; but she will

Mr. Rochester, having quitted the Eshtons, stands on the hearth as solitary as she stands by the table: she

"Then, what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as that?" (pointing to Adele). "Where did you

"Why, I suppose you have a governess for her: I saw a person with her just nowis she gone? Oh, no! there

she is still, behind the windowcurtain. You pay her, of course; I should think it quite as expensive,more

I fearedor should I say, hoped?the allusion to me would make Mr. Rochester glance my way; and I

"I have not considered the subject," said he indifferently, looking straight before him.

"No, you men never do consider economy and common sense. You should hear mama on the chapter of

governesses: Mary and I have had, I should think, a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the

The young lady thus claimed as the dowager's special property, reiterated her question with an explanation.

"My dearest, don't mention governesses; the word makes me nervous. I have suffered a martyrdom from their

Mrs. Dent here bent over to the pious lady and whispered something in her ear; I suppose, from the answer

"Tant pis!" said her Ladyship, "I hope it may do her good!" Then, in a lower tone, but still loud enough for

me to hear, "I noticed her; I am a judge of physiognomy, and in hers I see all the faults of her class."

"I will tell you in your private ear," replied she, wagging her turban three times with portentous significancy.

"Oh, don't refer him to me, mama! I have just one word to say of the whole tribe; they are a nuisance. Not

that I ever suffered much from them; I took care to turn the tables. What tricks Theodore and I used to play

on our Miss Wilsons, and Mrs. Greys, and Madame Jouberts! Mary was always too sleepy to join in a plot

with spirit. The best fun was with Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor sickly thing, lachrymose and

lowspirited, not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible; no

blow took effect on her. But poor Madame Joubert! I see her yet in her raging passions, when we had driven

her to extremitiesspilt our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, tossed our books up to the ceiling, and

played a charivari with the ruler and desk, the fender and fireirons. Theodore, do you remember those merry

"Yaas, to be sure I do," drawled Lord Ingram; "and the poor old stick used to cry out 'Oh you villains

childs!'and then we sermonised her on the presumption of attempting to teach such clever blades as we

"We did; and, Tedo, you know, I helped you in prosecuting (or persecuting) your tutor, wheyfaced Mr.

Viningthe parson in the pip, as we used to call him. He and Miss Wilson took the liberty of falling in love

with each otherat least Tedo and I thought so; we surprised sundry tender glances and sighs which we

interpreted as tokens of 'la belle passion,' and I promise you the public soon had the benefit of our discovery;

we employed it as a sort of lever to hoist our deadweights from the house. Dear mama, there, as soon as she

got an inkling of the business, found out that it was of an immoral tendency. Did you not, my ladymother?"

"Certainly, my best. And I was quite right: depend on that: there are a thousand reasons why liaisons between

governesses and tutors should never be tolerated a moment in any wellregulated house; firstly"

"Oh, gracious, mama! Spare us the enumeration! Au reste, we all know them: danger of bad example to

innocence of childhood; distractions and consequent neglect of duty on the part of the attachedmutual

alliance and reliance; confidence thence resulting insolence accompanyingmutiny and general blowup.

Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding this dictum, joined in with her soft, infantine tone: "Louisa and I

used to quiz our governess too; but she was such a good creature, she would bear anything: nothing put her

"No, never: we might do what we pleased; ransack her desk and her workbox, and turn her drawers inside

"I suppose, now," said Miss Ingram, curling her lip sarcastically, "we shall have an abstract of the memoirs of

all the governesses extant: in order to avert such a visitation, I again move the introduction of a new topic.

"Then on me be the onus of bringing it forward. Signior Eduardo, are you in voice tonight?"

"Then, signior, I lay on you my sovereign behest to furbish up your lungs and other vocal organs, as they will

"A fig for Rizzio!" cried she, tossing her head with all its curls, as she moved to the piano. "It is my opinion

the fiddler David must have been an insipid sort of fellow; I like black Bothwell better: to my mind a man is

nothing without a spice of the devil in him; and history may say what it will of James Hepburn, but I have a

notion, he was just the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to gift with my hand."

"Gentlemen, you hear! Now which of you most resembles Bothwell?" cried Mr. Rochester.

Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the piano, spreading out her snowy robes in

queenly amplitude, commenced a brilliant prelude; talking meantime. She appeared to be on her high horse

tonight; both her words and her air seemed intended to excite not only the admiration, but the amazement of

her auditors: she was evidently bent on striking them as something very dashing and daring indeed.

"Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the present day!" exclaimed she, rattling away at the instrument.

"Poor, puny things, not fit to stir a step beyond papa's park gates: nor to go even so far without mama's

permission and guardianship! Creatures so absorbed in care about their pretty faces, and their white hands,

and their small feet; as if a man had anything to do with beauty! As if loveliness were not the special

prerogative of womanher legitimate appanage and heritage! I grant an ugly WOMAN is a blot on the fair

face of creation; but as to the GENTLEMEN, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and valour: let

their motto be: Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not worth a fillip. Such should be my device, were I a

"Whenever I marry," she continued after a pause which none interrupted, "I am resolved my husband shall

not be a rival, but a foil to me. I will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided homage:

his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he sees in his mirror. Mr. Rochester, now sing,

"Here then is a Corsairsong. Know that I doat on Corsairs; and for that reason, sing it con spirito."

"Commands from Miss Ingram's lips would put spirit into a mug of milk and water."

"Take care, then: if you don't please me, I will shame you by showing how such things SHOULD be done."

"Gardezvous en bien! If you err wilfully, I shall devise a proportionate punishment."

"Miss Ingram ought to be clement, for she has it in her power to inflict a chastisement beyond mortal

"Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must inform you that one of your frowns

"Sing!" said she, and again touching the piano, she commenced an accompaniment in spirited style.

"Now is my time to slip away," thought I: but the tones that then severed the air arrested me. Mrs. Fairfax had

said Mr. Rochester possessed a fine voice: he dida mellow, powerful bass, into which he threw his own

feeling, his own force; finding a way through the ear to the heart, and there waking sensation strangely. I

waited till the last deep and full vibration had expiredtill the tide of talk, checked an instant, had resumed

its flow; I then quitted my sheltered corner and made my exit by the sidedoor, which was fortunately near.

Thence a narrow passage led into the hall: in crossing it, I perceived my sandal was loose; I stopped to tie it,

kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of the staircase. I heard the diningroom door unclose;

a gentleman came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it was Mr. Rochester.

I thought I might have retorted the question on him who put it: but I would not take that freedom. I answered

"And getting a good deal paler than you wereas I saw at first sight. What is the matter?"

"But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyesindeed,

they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to the flag. If I

had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this

means. Well, tonight I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in

the drawingroom every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adele.

Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: how different from the first three months of

stillness, monotony, and solitude I had passed beneath its roof! All sad feelings seemed now driven from the

house, all gloomy associations forgotten: there was life everywhere, movement all day long. You could not

now traverse the gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chambers, once so tenantless, without

The kitchen, the butler's pantry, the servants' hall, the entrance hall, were equally alive; and the saloons were

only left void and still when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring weather called their

occupants out into the grounds. Even when that weather was broken, and continuous rain set in for some

days, no damp seemed cast over enjoyment: indoor amusements only became more lively and varied, in

I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change of entertainment was proposed: they spoke

of "playing charades," but in my ignorance I did not understand the term. The servants were called in, the

diningroom tables wheeled away, the lights otherwise disposed, the chairs placed in a semicircle opposite

the arch. While Mr. Rochester and the other gentlemen directed these alterations, the ladies were running up

and down stairs ringing for their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to give information respecting the

resources of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies of any kind; and certain wardrobes of the third storey

were ransacked, and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black

modes, lace lappets, &c., were brought down in armfuls by the abigails; then a selection was made, and such

Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him, and was selecting certain of their

number to be of his party. "Miss Ingram is mine, of course," said he: afterwards he named the two Misses

Eshton, and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I happened to be near him, as I had been fastening the clasp of Mrs.

"Will you play?" he asked. I shook my head. He did not insist, which I rather feared he would have done; he

He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party, which was headed by Colonel Dent, sat

down on the crescent of chairs. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to propose that I

Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up. Within the arch, the bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom

Mr. Rochester had likewise chosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, on a table, lay open a

large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton, draped in Mr. Rochester's cloak, and holding a book in her

hand. Somebody, unseen, rang the bell merrily; then Adele (who had insisted on being one of her guardian's

party), bounded forward, scattering round her the contents of a basket of flowers she carried on her arm. Then

appeared the magnificent figure of Miss Ingram, clad in white, a long veil on her head, and a wreath of roses

round her brow; by her side walked Mr. Rochester, and together they drew near the table. They knelt; while

Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton, dressed also in white, took up their stations behind them. A ceremony

followed, in dumb show, in which it was easy to recognise the pantomime of a marriage. At its termination,

Colonel Dent and his party consulted in whispers for two minutes, then the Colonel called out

A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its second rising displayed a more elaborately prepared

scene than the last. The drawingroom, as I have before observed, was raised two steps above the

diningroom, and on the top of the upper step, placed a yard or two back within the room, appeared a large

marble basin which I recognised as an ornament of the conservatorywhere it usually stood, surrounded

by exotics, and tenanted by gold fishand whence it must have been transported with some trouble, on

Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr. Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on

his head. His dark eyes and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the costume exactly: he looked the very

model of an Eastern emir, an agent or a victim of the bowstring. Presently advanced into view Miss Ingram.

She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied sashlike round the waist: an embroidered

handkerchief knotted about her temples; her beautifullymoulded arms bare, one of them upraised in the act

of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head. Both her cast of form and feature, her complexion and

her general air, suggested the idea of some Israelitish princess of the patriarchal days; and such was doubtless

She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head. The

personage on the wellbrink now seemed to accost her; to make some request: "She hasted, let down her

pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink." From the bosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it

and showed magnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid the

treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the stranger fastened

the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears. It was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were wanting.

The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they could not agree about the word or syllable

the scene illustrated. Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded "the tableau of the whole;" whereupon the

On its third rising only a portion of the drawingroom was disclosed; the rest being concealed by a screen,

hung with some sort of dark and coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place, stood a deal

table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the

Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands resting on his knees, and his eyes bent on the

ground. I knew Mr. Rochester; though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging loose from

one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back in a scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance, the

rough, bristling hair might well have disguised him. As he moved, a chain clanked; to his wrists were

A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary costume, they reentered the

diningroom. Mr. Rochester led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting.

"Do you know," said she, "that, of the three characters, I liked you in the last best? Oh, had you but lived a

"Alas! yes: the more's the pity! Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian's

"An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian bandit; and that could only be

"Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour since, in the presence of all these

"Now, Dent," continued Mr. Rochester, "it is your turn." And as the other party withdrew, he and his band

took the vacated seats. Miss Ingram placed herself at her leader's right hand; the other diviners filled the

chairs on each side of him and her. I did not now watch the actors; I no longer waited with interest for the

curtain to rise; my attention was absorbed by the spectators; my eyes, erewhile fixed on the arch, were now

irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs. What charade Colonel Dent and his party played, what word

they chose, how they acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I still see the consultation which

followed each scene: I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her incline her

head towards him, till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his cheek; I hear their mutual

whisperings; I recall their interchanged glances; and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle

I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could not unlove him now, merely because I

found that he had ceased to notice mebecause I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once

turn his eyes in my directionbecause I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to

touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by

chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation. I could not unlove him,

because I felt sure he would soon marry this very ladybecause I read daily in her a proud security in his

intentions respecting herbecause I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship which, if careless and

choosing rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating, and in its very pride,

There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances, though much to create despair. Much too,

you will think, reader, to engender jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume to be jealous of a

woman in Miss Ingram's. But I was not jealous: or very rarely;the nature of the pain I suffered could not be

explained by that word. Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she was too inferior to excite the feeling.

Pardon the seeming paradox; I mean what I say. She was very showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine

person, many brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed

spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness. She was not good; she was not

original: she used to repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own.

She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness

and truth were not in her. Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she

had conceived against little Adele: pushing her away with some contumelious epithet if she happened to

approach her; sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her with coldness and acrimony.

Other eyes besides mine watched these manifestations of characterwatched them closely, keenly,

shrewdly. Yes; the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended a ceaseless

surveillance; and it was from this sagacitythis guardedness of histhis perfect, clear consciousness of his

fair one's defects this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her, that my evertorturing

I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons, because her rank and connections

suited him; I felt he had not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted to win from him

that treasure. This was the pointthis was where the nerve was touched and teasedthis was where the

If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should

have covered my face, turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss Ingram had been a

good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour, kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle

with two tigersjealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I should have admired

heracknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my days: and the more absolute her

superiority, the deeper would have been my admirationthe more truly tranquil my quiescence. But as

matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram's efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeated

failureherself unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying that each shaft launched hit the mark, and

infatuatedly pluming herself on success, when her pride and selfcomplacency repelled further and further

what she wished to allureto witness THIS, was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless

Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that continually glanced off from

Mr. Rochester's breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen

in his proud hearthave called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still,

"Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw so near to him?" I asked myself.

"Surely she cannot truly like him, or not like him with true affection! If she did, she need not coin her smiles

so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It

seems to me that she might, by merely sitting quietly at his side, saying little and looking less, get nigher his

heart. I have seen in his face a far different expression from that which hardens it now while she is so

vivaciously accosting him; but then it came of itself: it was not elicited by meretricious arts and calculated

manoeuvres; and one had but to accept itto answer what he asked without pretension, to address him when

needful without grimaceand it increased and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed one like a fostering

sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when they are married? I do not think she will manage it; and

yet it might be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest woman the sun shines on."

I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester's project of marrying for interest and

connections. It surprised me when I first discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a man

unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice of a wife; but the longer I considered the

position, education, &c., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or Miss

Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood.

All their class held these principles: I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as I could not

fathom. It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom only such a wife as I

could love; but the very obviousness of the advantages to the husband's own happiness offered by this plan

convinced me that there must be arguments against its general adoption of which I was quite ignorant:

But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to my master: I was forgetting all his faults, for

which I had once kept a sharp lookout. It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of his

character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment.

Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like

keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as

comparatively insipid. And as for the vague somethingwas it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a

desponding expression? that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again

before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear

and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcaniclooking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground

quiver and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with

palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dareto divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram

happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets and analyse their

Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride saw only them, heard only their

discourse, and considered only their movements of importancethe rest of the party were occupied with

their own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn and Ingram continued to consort in solemn

conferences, where they nodded their two turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in confronting

gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according to the theme on which their gossip ran, like a pair of

magnified puppets. Mild Mrs. Dent talked with goodnatured Mrs. Eshton; and the two sometimes bestowed

a courteous word or smile on me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed politics, or

county affairs, or justice business. Lord Ingram flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and sang to and with

one of the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly to the gallant speeches of the other. Sometimes

all, as with one consent, suspended their byplay to observe and listen to the principal actors: for, after all,

Mr. Rochester andbecause closely connected with himMiss Ingram were the life and soul of the party.

If he was absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal over the spirits of his guests;

and his reentrance was sure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation.

The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one day that he had been summoned to

Millcote on business, and was not likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had

proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred.

Some of the gentlemen were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together with the younger ladies, were

playing billiards in the billiardroom. The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards.

Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton

to draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and

then, having fetched a novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared

to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence. The room and the house were silent: only now

It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of the hour to dress for dinner, when little

I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the others, too, looked up from their several

occupations; for at the same time a crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horsehoofs became

"What can possess him to come home in that style?" said Miss Ingram. "He rode Mesrour (the black horse),

did he not, when he went out? and Pilot was with him: what has he done with the animals?"

As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments so near the window, that I was obliged to

bend back almost to the breaking of my spine: in her eagerness she did not observe me at first, but when she

did, she curled her lip and moved to another casement. The postchaise stopped; the driver rang the

doorbell, and a gentleman alighted attired in travelling garb; but it was not Mr. Rochester; it was a tall,

"How provoking!" exclaimed Miss Ingram: "you tiresome monkey!" (apostrophising Adele), "who perched

you up in the window to give false intelligence?" and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I were in fault.

Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the newcomer entered. He bowed to Lady Ingram, as

"It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam," said he, "when my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home;

but I arrive from a very long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to

His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being somewhat unusual,not precisely

foreign, but still not altogether English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester's,between thirty and forty;

his complexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he was a finelooking man, at first sight especially. On

closer examination, you detected something in his face that displeased, or rather that failed to please. His

features were regular, but too relaxed: his eye was large and well cut, but the life looking out of it was a tame,

The sound of the dressingbell dispersed the party. It was not till after dinner that I saw him again: he then

seemed quite at his ease. But I liked his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as being at the same

time unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd

look, such as I never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not an unamiablelooking man, he

repelled me exceedingly: there was no power in that smoothskinned face of a full oval shape: no firmness in

that aquiline nose and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, even forehead; no command in

As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the girandoles on the mantelpiece beaming full

over himfor he occupied an armchair drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as if he were

cold, I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be

much greater between a sleek gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek sheep and the roughcoated

He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious friendship theirs must have been: a pointed

Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps of their conversation across the

room. At first I could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary

Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at intervals. These last

were discussing the stranger; they both called him "a beautiful man." Louisa said he was "a love of a

creature," and she "adored him;" and Mary instanced his "pretty little mouth, and nice nose," as her ideal of

"And what a sweettempered forehead he has!" cried Louisa,"so smoothnone of those frowning

And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry Lynn summoned them to the other side of the room, to settle some

I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the fire, and I presently gathered that the

newcomer was called Mr. Mason; then I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came

from some hot country: which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he sat so near the

hearth, and wore a surtout in the house. Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated the

West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little surprise I gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen

and become acquainted with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend's dislike of the burning heats, the

hurricanes, and rainy seasons of that region. I knew Mr. Rochester had been a traveller: Mrs. Fairfax had said

so; but I thought the continent of Europe had bounded his wanderings; till now I had never heard a hint given

I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my

musings. Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the

fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who

brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of

"Tell her she shall be put in the stocks if she does not take herself off," replied the magistrate.

"Nostop!" interrupted Colonel Dent. "Don't send her away, Eshton; we might turn the thing to account;

better consult the ladies." And speaking aloud, he continued"Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Common

to visit the gipsy camp; Sam here says that one of the old Mother Bunches is in the servants' hall at this

moment, and insists upon being brought in before 'the quality,' to tell them their fortunes. Would you like to

"Surely, colonel," cried Lady Ingram, "you would not encourage such a low impostor? Dismiss her, by all

"But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady," said the footman; "nor can any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax

is with her just now, entreating her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the chimneycomer, and says

"'To tell the gentry their fortunes,' she says, ma'am; and she swears she must and will do it."

"Why, she's a real sorceress!" cried Frederick Lynn. "Let us have her in, of course."

"To be sure," rejoined his brother; "it would be a thousand pities to throw away such a chance of fun."

"I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding," chimed in the Dowager Ingram.

"Indeed, mama, but you canand will," pronounced the haughty voice of Blanche, as she turned round on

the pianostool; where till now she had sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music. "I have a

"Yesyesyes!" cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. "Let her comeit will be excellent

Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery and jests was proceeding when Sam

"She won't come now," said he. "She says it's not her mission to appear before the 'vulgar herd' (them's her

words). I must show her into a room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her one by

"You see now, my queenly Blanche," began Lady Ingram, "she encroaches. Be advised, my angel

"Show her into the library, of course," cut in the "angel girl." "It is not my mission to listen to her before the

vulgar herd either: I mean to have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the library?"

Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full flow once more.

"She's ready now," said the footman, as he reappeared. "She wishes to know who will be her first visitor."

"I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go," said Colonel Dent.

"She says, sir, that she'll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble themselves to come near her; nor," he

added, with difficulty suppressing a titter, "any ladies either, except the young, and single."

Miss Ingram rose solemnly: "I go first," she said, in a tone which might have befitted the leader of a forlorn

"Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pausereflect!" was her mama's cry; but she swept past her in stately silence,

passed through the door which Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library.

A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it "le cas" to wring her hands: which she did

accordingly. Miss Mary declared she felt, for her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton

The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the librarydoor again opened. Miss Ingram

Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her with a glance of eager curiosity, and she met

all eyes with one of rebuff and coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked stiffly to her seat,

"What did you think? How do you feel?Is she a real fortuneteller ?" demanded the Misses Eshton.

"Now, now, good people," returned Miss Ingram, "don't press upon me. Really your organs of wonder and

credulity are easily excited: you seem, by the importance of you allmy good mama includedascribe to

this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the house, who is in close alliance with the old

gentleman. I have seen a gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of palmistry and

told me what such people usually tell. My whim is gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put

Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined further conversation. I watched her for

nearly halfanhour: during all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently darker, more

dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She had obviously not heard anything to her

advantage: and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself,

notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had been

Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not go alone; and yet they all wished

to go. A negotiation was opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and

fro, till, I think, the said Sam's calves must have ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great

difficulty, extorted from the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body.

Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram's had been: we heard hysterical giggling and little shrieks

proceeding from the library; and at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came

"I am sure she is something not right!" they cried, one and all. "She told us such things! She knows all about

us!" and they sank breathless into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them.

Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of things they had said and done when they

were mere children; described books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that

different relations had presented to them. They affirmed that she had even divined their thoughts, and had

whispered in the ear of each the name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of what

Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further enlightened on these two lastnamed

points; but they got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. The

matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of

their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger

In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully engaged in the scene before me, I heard a

"If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young single lady in the room who has not been

to her yet, and she swears she will not go till she has seen all. I thought it must be you: there is no one else for

"Oh, I will go by all means," I answered: and I was glad of the unexpected opportunity to gratify my

muchexcited curiosity. I slipped out of the room, unobserved by any eyefor the company were gathered

in one mass about the trembling trio just returnedand I closed the door quietly behind me.

"If you like, miss," said Sam, "I'll wait in the hall for you; and if she frightens you, just call and I'll come in."

"No, Sam, return to the kitchen: I am not in the least afraid." Nor was I; but I was a good deal interested and

The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl if Sibyl she werewas seated snugly

enough in an easychair at the chimneycorner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or rather, a

broadbrimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her chin. An extinguished candle

stood on the table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a

prayerbook, by the light of the blaze: she muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she

read; she did not desist immediately on my entrance: it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.

I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with sitting at a distance from the

drawingroom fire. I felt now as composed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the gipsy's

appearance to trouble one's calm. She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hatbrim partially shaded her

face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black: elflocks

bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather

"Well, and you want your fortune told?" she said, in a voice as decided as her glance, as harsh as her features.

"I don't care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I ought to warn you, I have no faith."

"It's like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold."

"I do; especially when I've customers like you to deal with. Why don't you tremble?"

The old crone "nichered" a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then drew out a short black pipe, and

lighting it began to smoke. Having indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent body, took the pipe

from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the fire, said very deliberately"You are cold; you are sick; and

"I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you.

You are sick; because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away from

you. You are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step

She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her smoking with vigour.

"You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a solitary dependent in a great house."

"Yes; just so, in YOUR circumstances: but find me another precisely placed as you are."

"You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly situated: very near happiness; yes, within

reach of it. The materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them. Chance laid them

I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stockingfoot which she took out of her pocket, and having tied it

round and returned it, she told me to hold out my hand. I did. She ached her face to the palm, and pored over

"It is too fine," said she. "I can make nothing of such a hand as that; almost without lines: besides, what is in

"No," she continued, "it is in the face: on the forehead, about the eyes, in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and

"Ah! now you are coming to reality," I said, as I obeyed her. "I shall begin to put some faith in you

I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the

glare, however, as she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine, it illumined.

"I wonder with what feelings you came to me tonight," she said, when she had examined me a while. "I

wonder what thoughts are busy in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people

flitting before you like shapes in a magiclantern: just as little sympathetic communion passing between you

and them as if they were really mere shadows of human forms, and not the actual substance."

"Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with whispers of the future?"

"Not I. The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my earnings to set up a school some day in a little

"A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that windowseat (you see I know your habits )"

"Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak truth, I have an acquaintance with one of them,

"You havehave you?" thought I; "there is diablerie in the business after all, then!"

"Don't be alarmed," continued the strange being; "she's a safe hand is Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one

may repose confidence in her. But, as I was saying: sitting in that windowseat, do you think of nothing but

your future school? Have you no present interest in any of the company who occupy the sofas and chairs

before you? Is there not one face you study? one figure whose movements you follow with at least curiosity?"

"I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling a tale: it amuses me to watch them."

"Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme courtship; and promise to end in the

"Nothing to you? When a lady, young and full of life and health, charming with beauty and endowed with the

"I don't know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged a syllable with one of them; and as to thinking

well of them, I consider some respectable, and stately, and middleaged, and others young, dashing,

handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at liberty to be the recipients of whose smiles they please,

"You don't know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a syllable with one of them? Will you say that

"A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote this morning, and will be back here

tonight or tomorrow: does that circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance blot him, as

"No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the theme you had introduced."

"I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of late so many smiles have been shed into Mr.

Rochester's eyes that they overflow like two cups filled above the brim: have you never remarked that?"

"No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of all the tales told here about matrimony,

"The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator." I said this rather to myself than to the gipsy,

whose strange talk, voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One unexpected sentence

came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen

spirit had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings and taking record of every pulse.

"Eagerness of a listener!" repeated she: "yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the

fascinating lips that took such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so willing to

receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; you have noticed this?"

"Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if not gratitude?"

"You have seen love: have you not?and, looking forward, you have seen him married, and beheld his bride

"Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known that Mr. Rochester is to be married?"

"Appearances would warrant that conclusion: and, no doubt (though, with an audacity that wants chastising

out of you, you seem to question it), they will be a superlatively happy pair. He must love such a handsome,

noble, witty, accomplished lady; and probably she loves him, or, if not his person, at least his purse. I know

she considers the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her something

on that point about an hour ago which made her look wondrous grave: the corners of her mouth fell half an

inch. I would advise her blackaviced suitor to look out: if another comes, with a longer or clearer

"But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester's fortune: I came to hear my own; and you have told me

"Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait contradicted another. Chance has meted

you a measure of happiness: that I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has laid it carefully

on one side for you. I saw her do it. It depends on yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but

I knelt. She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair. She began muttering,

"The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon:

it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases to smile, it is sad; an

unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness. It turns from me;

it will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries I have

already made,to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only confirm me in

"As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to impart all that the brain conceives; though I

daresay it would be silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it was never intended to be

compressed in the eternal silence of solitude: it is a mouth which should speak much and smile often, and

"I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say,'I can live alone, if

selfrespect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward

treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only

at a price I cannot afford to give.' The forehead declares, 'Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will

not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true

heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the

last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision. Strong wind, earthquakeshock, and fire

may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of

"Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have formed my plansright plans I deem

themand in them I have attended to the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I know how soon

youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of

remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolutionsuch is not my taste. I wish to

foster, not to blightto earn gratitude, not to wring tears of bloodno, nor of brine: my harvest must be in

smiles, in endearments, in sweet That will do. I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish

now to protract this moment ad infinitum; but I dare not. So far I have governed myself thoroughly. I have

acted as I inwardly swore I would act; but further might try me beyond my strength. Rise, Miss Eyre: leave

Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I dream still? The old woman's voice had

changed: her accent, her gesture, and all were familiar to me as my own face in a glassas the speech of my

own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred the fire, and I looked again: but she drew her bonnet

and her bandage closer about her face, and again beckoned me to depart. The flame illuminated her hand

stretched out: roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at once noticed that hand. It was no more the

withered limb of eld than my own; it was a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically

turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen

a hundred times before. Again I looked at the face; which was no longer turned from meon the contrary,

"No; some unaccountable one. In short, I believe you have been trying to draw me outor in; you have been

"I cannot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on reflection, I find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall

I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had. It was a comfort; but, indeed, I had been on my guard almost

from the beginning of the interview. Something of masquerade I suspected. I knew gipsies and

fortunetellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman had expressed herself; besides I had

noted her feigned voice, her anxiety to conceal her features. But my mind had been running on Grace

Poolethat living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I considered her. I had never thought of Mr.

"Well," said he, "what are you musing about? What does that grave smile signify?"

"Wonder and selfcongratulation, sir. I have your permission to retire now, I suppose?"

"No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawingroom yonder are doing."

"I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o'clock. Oh, are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a

"No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the liberty of installing himself here till you

"His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think."

Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if to lead me to a chair. As I spoke he gave

my wrist a convulsive grip; the smile on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his breath.

"Mason!the West Indies!" he said, in the tone one might fancy a speaking automaton to enounce its single

words; "Mason!the West Indies!" he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three times, growing, in the

intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes: he hardly seemed to know what he was doing.

He sat down, and made me sit beside him. Holding my hand in both his own, he chafed it; gazing on me, at

"My little friend!" said he, "I wish I were in a quiet island with only you; and trouble, and danger, and

"Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from the diningroom: they will be at supper there; and tell me if

I went. I found all the party in the diningroom at supper, as Mr. Rochester had said; they were not seated at

table,the supper was arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he chose, and they stood about here

and there in groups, their plates and glasses in their hands. Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and

conversation were general and animated. Mr. Mason stood near the fire, talking to Colonel and Mrs. Dent,

and appeared as merry as any of them. I filled a wineglass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me frowningly as I did

so: she thought I was taking a liberty, I daresay), and I returned to the library.

Mr. Rochester's extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more firm and stern. He took the glass

"Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!" he said. He swallowed the contents and returned it to me. "What

He half smiled. "But if I were to go to them, and they only looked at me coldly, and whispered sneeringly

amongst each other, and then dropped off and left me one by one, what then? Would you go with them?"

"I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I should care nothing about it."

"I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; as you, I am sure, do."

"Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in his ear that Mr. Rochester is come and

I did his behest. The company all stared at me as I passed straight among them. I sought Mr. Mason,

delivered the message, and preceded him from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went

At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors repair to their chambers: I distinguished

I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to let down my windowblind. The

consequence was, that when the moon, which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course

to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me through the unveiled panes, her glorious

gaze roused me. Awaking in the dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disksilverwhite and crystal clear.

It was beautiful, but too solemn; I half rose, and stretched my arm to draw the curtain.

The nightits silenceits rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to

My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed. The cry died, and was not renewed.

Indeed, whatever being uttered that fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the widestwinged condor on

the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell from the cloud shrouding his eyrie. The thing

It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And overheadyes, in the room just above my

chamberceilingI now heard a struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a halfsmothered

"Will no one come?" it cried; and then, while the staggering and stamping went on wildly, I distinguished

A chamberdoor opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery. Another step stamped on the flooring

I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued from my apartment. The sleepers were

all aroused: ejaculations, terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one looked out

and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and ladies alike had quitted their beds; and "Oh! what is

robbers?""Where shall we run?" was demanded confusedly on all hands. But for the moonlight they would

have been in complete darkness. They ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled:

"Where the devil is Rochester?" cried Colonel Dent. "I cannot find him in his bed."

And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced with a candle: he had just

descended from the upper storey. One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss

"What awful event has taken place?" said she. "Speak! let us know the worst at once!"

"But don't pull me down or strangle me," he replied: for the Misses Eshton were clinging about him now; and

the two dowagers, in vast white wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail.

"All's right!all's right!" he cried. "It's a mere rehearsal of Much Ado about Nothing. Ladies, keep off, or I

And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming himself by an effort, he added

"A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She's an excitable, nervous person: she construed her dream into

an apparition, or something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright. Now, then, I must see you

all back into your rooms; for, till the house is settled, she cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have the

goodness to set the ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in evincing superiority to idle

terrors. Amy and Louisa, return to your nests like a pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames" (to the dowagers),

"you will take cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in this chill gallery any longer."

And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived to get them all once more enclosed in

their separate dormitories. I did not wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated unnoticed, as unnoticed I

Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed myself carefully. The sounds I had heard

after the scream, and the words that had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for they had

proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me that it was not a servant's dream which had thus

struck horror through the house; and that the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely an invention

framed to pacify his guests. I dressed, then, to be ready for emergencies. When dressed, I sat a long time by

the window looking out over the silent grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew not what. It seemed

No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased gradually, and in about an hour Thornfield Hall

was again as hushed as a desert. It seemed that sleep and night had resumed their empire. Meantime the moon

declined: she was about to set. Not liking to sit in the cold and darkness, I thought I would lie down on my

bed, dressed as I was. I left the window, and moved with little noise across the carpet; as I stooped to take off

My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a cat. He glided up the gallery and up the

stairs, and stopped in the dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and stood at his side.

I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer, and once more retraced my steps. He

still waited; he held a key in his hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock; he

I put my fingers into his. "Warm and steady," was his remark: he turned the key and opened the door.

I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax showed me over the house: it was hung

with tapestry; but the tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had then

been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out of the room within: I heard thence a snarling,

snatching sound, almost like a dog quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, "Wait a

minute," and he went forward to the inner apartment. A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first,

and terminating in Grace Poole's own goblin ha! ha! SHE then was there. He made some sort of arrangement

without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him: he came out and closed the door behind him.

"Here, Jane!" he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large bed, which with its drawn curtains

concealed a considerable portion of the chamber. An easychair was near the bedhead: a man sat in it,

dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester

held the candle over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless facethe stranger, Mason: I saw too

"Hold the candle," said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched a basin of water from the washstand: "Hold

that," said he. I obeyed. He took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpselike face; he asked for

my smellingbottle, and applied it to the nostrils. Mr. Mason shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr.

Rochester opened the shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged away

"Pooh! Noa mere scratch. Don't be so overcome, man: bear up! I'll fetch a surgeon for you now, myself:

"I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an hour, or perhaps two hours: you will

sponge the blood as I do when it returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that stand to his

lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to him on any pretextandRichard, it will be at the

peril of your life if you speak to her: open your lipsagitate yourself and I'll not answer for the

Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move; fear, either of death or of something else,

appeared almost to paralyse him. Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded to

use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then saying, "Remember!No conversation," he left the

room. I experienced a strange feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating step ceased

Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic cells; night around me; a pale and bloody

spectacle under my eyes and hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yesthat was

appallingthe rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me.

I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly countenancethese blue, still lips forbidden to

unclosethese eyes now shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on me, and ever

glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand again and again in the basin of blood and water, and

wipe away the trickling gore. I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my employment; the

shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast

old bed, and quiver strangely over the doors of a great cabinet oppositewhose front, divided into twelve

panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in a

According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered here or glanced there, it was now the

bearded physician, Luke, that bent his brow; now St. John's long hair that waved; and anon the devilish face

of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed gathering life and threatening a revelation of the

Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for the movements of the wild beast or the fiend in

yonder side den. But since Mr. Rochester's visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I heard but three sounds at

three long intervals,a step creak, a momentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human

Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this that lived incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and

could neither be expelled nor subdued by the owner?what mystery, that broke out now in fire and now in

blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and

shape, uttered the voice, now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrionseeking bird of prey?

And this man I bent overthis commonplace, quiet strangerhow had he become involved in the web of

horror? and why had the Fury flown at him? What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely

season, when he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr. Rochester assign him an apartment

belowwhat brought him here! And why, now, was he so tame under the violence or treachery done him?

Why did he so quietly submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced? Why DID Mr. Rochester enforce

this concealment? His guest had been outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted

against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was

submissive to Mr. Rochester; that the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway over the inertness of

the former: the few words which had passed between them assured me of this. It was evident that in their

former intercourse, the passive disposition of the one had been habitually influenced by the active energy of

the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Rochester's dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason's arrival? Why had

the mere name of this unresisting individualwhom his word now sufficed to control like a childfallen on

Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered: "Jane, I have got a blowI have got a

blow, Jane." I could not forget how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no light

matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester.

"When will he come? When will he come?" I cried inwardly, as the night lingered and lingeredas my

bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened: and neither day nor aid arrived. I had, again and again, held the

water to Mason's white lips; again and again offered him the stimulating salts: my efforts seemed ineffectual:

either bodily or mental suffering, or loss of blood, or all three combined, were fast prostrating his strength.

He moaned so, and looked so weak, wild, and lost, I feared he was dying; ant I might not even speak to him.

The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived streaks of grey light edging the window

curtains: dawn was then approaching. Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his distant kennel in the

courtyard: hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted: in five minutes more the grating key, the yielding lock,

warned me my watch was relieved. It could not have lasted more than two hours: many a week has seemed

"Now, Carter, be on the alert," he said to this last: "I give you but halfanhour for dressing the wound,

"No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his spirits must be kept up. Come, set to work."

Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland blind, let in all the daylight he could; and I

was surprised and cheered to see how far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were beginning to brighten

"Not a whit!courage! This day fortnight you'll hardly be a pin the worse of it: you've lost a little blood;

"I can do that conscientiously," said Carter, who had now undone the bandages; "only I wish I could have got

here sooner: he would not have bled so muchbut how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well as

"She bit me," he murmured. "She worried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the knife from her."

"You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at once," said Mr. Rochester.

"But under such circumstances, what could one do?" returned Mason. "Oh, it was frightful!" he added,

"I warned you," was his friend's answer; "I saidbe on your guard when you go near her. Besides, you

might have waited till tomorrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the interview tonight,

"You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear you: but, however, you have suffered, and are

likely to suffer enough for not taking my advice; so I'll say no more. Carterhurry!hurry! The sun will

"Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to this other wound in the arm: she has had her teeth

I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust, horror, hatred, warped his

"You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to Spanish Town, you may think of her as

"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 reentrance), "take this key: go down into my

bedroom, and walk straight forward into my dressingroom: open the top drawer of the wardrobe and take

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

"Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?" inquired Mr. Rochester presently.

"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 waistcoat. 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

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 clodhopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You

must open the middle drawer of my toilettable and take out a little phial and a little glass you will find

"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 charlatana 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 waterbottle on the washstand.

I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it to Mason.

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;

"Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer, Richard; step outthat's it!"

"I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the backstairs; unbolt the sidepassage door, and tell

the driver of the postchaise you will see in the yardor just outside, for I told him not to drive his rattling

wheels over the pavementto be ready; we are coming: and, Jane, if any one is about, come to the foot of

It was by this time halfpast five, and the sun was on the point of rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and

silent. The sidepassage 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 postchaise, 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 blossomblanched orchard

trees, whose boughs drooped like white garlands over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the carriage

The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the surgeon, seemed to walk with

"Take care of him," said Mr. Rochester to the latter, "and keep him at your house till he is quite well: I shall

"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

"Yet would to God there was an end of all this!" added Mr. Rochester, as he closed and barred the heavy

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

"Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments," he said; "that house is a mere dungeon: don't you

"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

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 oldfashioned flowers, stocks, sweetwilliams, primroses, pansies,

mingled with southernwood, sweetbriar, 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

"Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light clouds which are sure to melt away as the day

"And it has made you look palewere you afraid when I left you alone with Mason?"

"But I had fastened the doorI had the key in my pocket: I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left

"I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a

"But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is evidently potent with him: he will never set

"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."

He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw it from him.

"If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be? Annihilated in a moment. Ever since I have known

Mason, I have only had to say to him 'Do that,' and the thing has been done. But I cannot give him orders in

this case: I cannot say 'Beware of harming me, Richard;' for it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant

that harm to me is possible. Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you further. You are my little friend, are

"Precisely: I see you do. I see genuine contentment in your gait and mien, your eye and face, when you are

helping me and pleasing meworking for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically say, 'ALL THAT IS

RIGHT:' for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, there would be no lightfooted running, no

neathanded alacrity, no lively glance and animated complexion. My friend would then turn to me, quiet and

pale, and would say, 'No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot do it, because it is wrong;' and would become

immutable as a fixed star. Well, you too have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare not show you

where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you are, you should transfix me at once."

"If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from me, sir, you are very safe."

The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a rustic seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving

"Sit," he said; "the bench is long enough for two. You don't hesitate to take a place at my side, do you? Is that

"Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dewwhile all the flowers in this old garden awake and

expand, and the birds fetch their young ones' breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do their first

spell of workI'll put a case to you, which you must endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look at me,

and tell me you are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you err in staying."

"Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy: suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a

wild boy indulged from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you

there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences

must follow you through life and taint all your existence. Mind, I don't say a CRIME; I am not speaking of

shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is

ERROR. The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you take measures

to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has

quitted you on the very confines of life: your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which you feel will not leave

it till the time of setting. Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory: you wander

here and there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasureI mean in heartless, sensual pleasuresuch as

dulls intellect and blights feeling. Heartweary and soulwithered, you come home after years of voluntary

banishment: you make a new acquaintancehow or where no matter: you find in this stranger much of the

good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are

all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives, regenerates: you feel better days come

backhigher wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you

of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an

obstacle of customa mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your

He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good spirit to suggest a judicious and

satisfactory response! Vain aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel

borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the treetops; but their song, however sweet,

"Is the wandering and sinful, but now restseeking and repentant, man justified in daring the world's opinion,

in order to attach to him for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own peace of

"Sir," I answered, "a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation should never depend on a fellowcreature.

Men and women die; philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has

suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend and solace to heal."

"But the instrumentthe instrument! God, who does the work, ordains the instrument. I have myselfI tell

it you without parablebeen a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument

He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling. I almost wondered they did not check their

songs and whispers to catch the suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many minutesso

long was the silence protracted. At last I looked up at the tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me.

"Little friend," said he, in quite a changed tonewhile his face changed too, losing all its softness and

gravity, and becoming harsh and sarcastic"you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: don't

He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and when he came back he was humming a tune.

"Jane, Jane," said he, stopping before me, "you are quite pale with your vigils: don't you curse me for

"Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers! They were warmer last night when I touched

them at the door of the mysterious chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?"

"For instance, the night before I am married! I am sure I shall not be able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up

with me to bear me company? To you I can talk of my lovely one: for now you have seen her and know her."

"A strappera real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom; with hair just such as the ladies of Carthage must

have had. Bless me! there's Dent and Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery, through that wicket."

As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard, saying cheerfully

"Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before sunrise: I rose at four to see him off."

Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one

mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life, because I

have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between fardistant,

longabsent, wholly estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source to

which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal comprehension. And signs, for aught we know,

When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had

been dreaming about a little child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of trouble, either to one's self

or one's kin. The saying might have worn out of my memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed

which served indelibly to fix it there. The next day Bessie was sent for home to the deathbed of her little

Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for during the past week scarcely a night had gone

over my couch that had not brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed in my arms,

sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing with daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its

hands in running water. It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it nestled close to

me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the apparition evinced, whatever aspect it wore, it failed not

for seven successive nights to meet me the moment I entered the land of slumber.

I did not like this iteration of one ideathis strange recurrence of one image, and I grew nervous as bedtime

approached and the hour of the vision drew near. It was from companionship with this babyphantom I had

been roused on that moonlight night when I heard the cry; and it was on the afternoon of the day following I

was summoned downstairs by a message that some one wanted me in Mrs. Fairfax's room. On repairing

thither, I found a man waiting for me, having the appearance of a gentleman's servant: he was dressed in deep

"I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss," he said, rising as I entered; "but my name is Leaven: I lived

coachman with Mrs. Reed when you were at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live there still."

"Oh, Robert! how do you do? I remember you very well: you used to give me a ride sometimes on Miss

"Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me another little one about two months

"I am sorry I can't give you better news of them, Miss: they are very badly at presentin great trouble."

"I hope no one is dead," I said, glancing at his black dress. He too looked down at the crape round his hat and

"Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life has been very wild: these last three years he

"Doing well! He could not do worse: he ruined his health and his estate amongst the worst men and the worst

women. He got into debt and into jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free he

returned to his old companions and habits. His head was not strong: the knaves he lived amongst fooled him

beyond anything I ever heard. He came down to Gateshead about three weeks ago and wanted missis to give

up all to him. Missis refused: her means have long been much reduced by his extravagance; so he went back

again, and the next news was that he was dead. How he died, God knows!they say he killed himself."

"Missis had been out of health herself for some time: she had got very stout, but was not strong with it; and

the loss of money and fear of poverty were quite breaking her down. The information about Mr. John's death

and the manner of it came too suddenly: it brought on a stroke. She was three days without speaking; but last

Tuesday she seemed rather better: she appeared as if she wanted to say something, and kept making signs to

my wife and mumbling. It was only yesterday morning, however, that Bessie understood she was

pronouncing your name; and at last she made out the words, 'Bring Janefetch Jane Eyre: I want to speak to

her.' Bessie is not sure whether she is in her right mind, or means anything by the words; but she told Miss

Reed and Miss Georgiana, and advised them to send for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but their

mother grew so restless, and said, 'Jane, Jane,' so many times, that at last they consented. I left Gateshead

yesterday: and if you can get ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with me early tomorrow morning."

"I think so too, Miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not refuse: but I suppose you will have to ask leave

"Yes; and I will do it now;" and having directed him to the servants' hall, and recommended him to the care

of John's wife, and the attentions of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester.

He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the stables, or the grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax

if she had seen him; yes: she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram. To the billiardroom I

hastened: the click of balls and the hum of voices resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two

Misses Eshton, and their admirers, were all busied in the game. It required some courage to disturb so

interesting a party; my errand, however, was one I could not defer, so I approached the master where he stood

at Miss Ingram's side. She turned as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily: her eyes seemed to demand,

"What can the creeping creature want now?" and when I said, in a low voice, "Mr. Rochester," she made a

movement as if tempted to order me away. I remember her appearance at the momentit was very graceful

and very striking: she wore a morning robe of skyblue crape; a gauzy azure scarf was twisted in her hair.

She had been all animation with the game, and irritated pride did not lower the expression of her haughty

"Does that person want you?" she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr. Rochester turned to see who the

"person" was. He made a curious grimaceone of his strange and equivocal demonstrationsthrew down

"Well, Jane?" he said, as he rested his back against the schoolroom door, which he had shut.

"shire? That is a hundred miles off! Who may she be that sends for people to see her that distance?"

"The deuce he was! You never told me that before: you always said you had no relations."

"But Reed left children?you must have cousins? Sir George Lynn was talking of a Reed of Gateshead

yesterday, who, he said, was one of the veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana

Reed of the same place, who was much admired for her beauty a season or two ago in London."

"John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and halfruined his family, and is supposed to have committed

suicide. The news so shocked his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack."

"And what good can you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never think of running a hundred miles to see an

old lady who will, perhaps, be dead before you reach her: besides, you say she cast you off."

"Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were very different: I could not be easy to neglect

"At all events you WILL come back: you will not be induced under any pretext to take up a permanent

"Well, you must have some money; you can't travel without money, and I daresay you have not much: I have

given you no salary yet. How much have you in the world, Jane?" he asked, smiling.

I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. "Five shillings, sir." He took the purse, poured the hoard into his

palm, and chuckled over it as if its scantiness amused him. Soon he produced his pocketbook: "Here," said

he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds, and he owed me but fifteen. I told him I had no change.

I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first; then, as if recollecting something, he said

"Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps, stay away three months if you had fifty

"Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to you while I have the opportunity."

"You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly to be married?"

"In that case, sir, Adele ought to go to school: I am sure you will perceive the necessity of it."

"To get her out of my bride's way, who might otherwise walk over her rather too emphatically? There's sense

in the suggestion; not a doubt of it. Adele, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course, must march

"In course!" he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous.

"And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be solicited by you to seek a place, I suppose?"

"No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify me in asking favours of thembut I shall

"You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!" he growled. "At your peril you advertise! I wish I had only

offered you a sovereign instead of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I've a use for it."

"And so have I, sir," I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind me. "I could not spare the money on

"Little niggard!" said he, "refusing me a pecuniary request! Give me five pounds, Jane."

"Not to advertise: and to trust this quest of a situation to me. I'll find you one in time."

"I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will promise that I and Adele shall be both safe out of the

"And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach me; I'm not quite up to it."

"It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I should like something else: a little addition to the

rite. If one shook hands, for instance; but nothat would not content me either. So you'll do no more than

"It is enough, sir: as much goodwill may be conveyed in one hearty word as in many."

"How long is he going to stand with his back against that door?" I asked myself; "I want to commence my

packing." The dinnerbell rang, and suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable: I saw him no more

I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o'clock in the afternoon of the first of May: I stepped in there

before going up to the hall. It was very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were hung with little white

curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and fireirons were burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear. Bessie

sat on the hearth, nursing her lastborn, and Robert and his sister played quietly in a corner.

"Yes, Bessie," said I, after I had kissed her; "and I trust I am not too late. How is Mrs. Reed?Alive still, I

"Yes, she is alive; and more sensible and collected than she was. The doctor says she may linger a week or

"She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would come, but she is sleeping now, or was ten

minutes ago, when I was up at the house. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the afternoon, and wakes

up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself here an hour, Miss, and then I will go up with you?"

Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the cradle and went to welcome him: afterwards she

insisted on my taking off my bonnet and having some tea; for she said I looked pale and tired. I was glad to

accept her hospitality; and I submitted to be relieved of my travelling garb just as passively as I used to let her

Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about setting out the teatray with her best

china, cutting bread and butter, toasting a teacake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert or Jane an

occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in former days. Bessie had retained her quick temper as

Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to sit still, quite in her old peremptory tones.

I must be served at the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with my cup and a

plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery

She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort of a person the mistress was; and when I

told her there was only a master, whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I told her he rather an

ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me kindly, and I was content. Then I went on to describe

to her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details Bessie listened with

In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me my bonnet, &c., and, accompanied by her,

I quitted the lodge for the hall. It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years ago, walked down

the path I was now ascending. On a dark, misty, raw morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a

desperate and embittered hearta sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation to seek the chilly

harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and unexplored. The same hostile roof now again rose before

me: my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the

earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression.

The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.

"You shall go into the breakfastroom first," said Bessie, as she preceded me through the hall; "the young

In another moment I was within that apartment. There was every article of furniture looking just as it did on

the morning I was first introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon still covered the

hearth. Glancing at the bookcases, I thought I could distinguish the two volumes of Bewick's British Birds

occupying their old place on the third shelf, and Gulliver's Travels and the Arabian Nights ranged just above.

The inanimate objects were not changed; but the living things had altered past recognition.

Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall, almost as tall as Miss Ingramvery thin too, with a

sallow face and severe mien. There was something ascetic in her look, which was augmented by the extreme

plainness of a straightskirted, black, stuff dress, a starched linen collar, hair combed away from the temples,

and the nunlike ornament of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix. This I felt sure was Eliza, though I could

trace little resemblance to her former self in that elongated and colourless visage.

The other was as certainly Georgiana: but not the Georgiana I rememberedthe slim and fairylike girl of

eleven. This was a fullblown, very plump damsel, fair as waxwork, with handsome and regular features,

languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair. The hue of her dress was black too; but its fashion was so

different from her sister'sso much more flowing and becomingit looked as stylish as the other's looked

In each of the sisters there was one trait of the motherand only one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had

her parent's Cairngorm eye: the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and

chinperhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable hardness to the countenance otherwise so

Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both addressed me by the name of "Miss Eyre." Eliza's

greeting was delivered in a short, abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she sat down again, fixed her eyes

on the fire, and seemed to forget me. Georgiana added to her "How d'ye do?" several commonplaces about

my journey, the weather, and so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone: and accompanied by sundry

sideglances that measured me from head to footnow traversing the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and

now lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young ladies have a remarkable way of letting

you know that they think you a "quiz" without actually saying the words. A certain superciliousness of look,

coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point, without committing

A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that power over me it once possessed: as I sat

between my cousins, I was surprised to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one and the

semisarcastic attentions of the otherEliza did not mortify, nor Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had

other things to think about; within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more potent

than any they could raisepains and pleasures so much more acute and exquisite had been excited than any

it was in their power to inflict or bestowthat their airs gave me no concern either for good or bad.

"How is Mrs. Reed?" I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana, who thought fit to bridle at the direct

"Mrs. Reed? Ah! mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt if you can see her tonight."

"If," said I, "you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come, I should be much obliged to you."

Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and wide. "I know she had a particular wish to

see me," I added, "and I would not defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely necessary."

"Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening," remarked Eliza. I soon rose, quietly took off my bonnet and

gloves, uninvited, and said I would just step out to Bessiewho was, I dared say, in the kitchenand ask

her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to receive me or not tonight. I went, and having found

Bessie and despatched her on my errand, I proceeded to take further measures. It had heretofore been my

habit always to shrink from arrogance: received as I had been today, I should, a year ago, have resolved to

quit Gateshead the very next morning; now, it was disclosed to me all at once that that would be a foolish

plan. I had taken a journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt, and I must stay with her till she was betteror

dead: as to her daughters' pride or folly, I must put it on one side, make myself independent of it. So I

addressed the housekeeper; asked her to show me a room, told her I should probably be a visitor here for a

week or two, had my trunk conveyed to my chamber, and followed it thither myself: I met Bessie on the

"Missis is awake," said she; "I have told her you are here: come and let us see if she will know you."

I did not need to be guided to the wellknown room, to which I had so often been summoned for

chastisement or reprimand in former days. I hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded light

stood on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the great fourpost bed with amber hangings as of

old; there the toilettable, the armchair, and the footstool, at which I had a hundred times been sentenced to

kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me uncommitted. I looked into a certain corner near, halfexpecting to

see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk there, waiting to leap out implike and lace

my quivering palm or shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened the curtains and leant over the

Well did I remember Mrs. Reed's face, and I eagerly sought the familiar image. It is a happy thing that time

quells the longings of vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had left this woman in

bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great

sufferings, and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuriesto be reconciled and clasp hands in

The wellknown face was there: stern, relentless as everthere was that peculiar eye which nothing could

melt, and the somewhat raised, imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace and

hate! and how the recollection of childhood's terrors and sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line now! And

I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now.

My fingers had fastened on her hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine kindly, I should at

that moment have experienced true pleasure. But unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are

natural antipathies so readily eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and, turning her face rather from me,

she remarked that the night was warm. Again she regarded me so icily, I felt at once that her opinion of

meher feeling towards mewas unchanged and unchangeable. I knew by her stony eyeopaque to

tenderness, indissoluble to tearsthat she was resolved to consider me bad to the last; because to believe me

I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination to subdue herto be her mistress in spite both of

her nature and her will. My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them back to their source. I brought

"You sent for me," I said, "and I am here; and it is my intention to stay till I see how you get on."

"Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some things over with you I have on my mind:

tonight it is too late, and I have a difficulty in recalling them. But there was something I wished to saylet

The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken place in her once vigorous frame.

Turning restlessly, she drew the bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the quilt, fixed it

"Sit up!" said she; "don't annoy me with holding the clothes fast. Are you Jane Eyre?"

"I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe. Such a burden to be left on my

handsand so much annoyance as she caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition,

and her sudden starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural watchings of one's movements! I declare she

talked to me once like something mad, or like a fiendno child ever spoke or looked as she did; I was glad

to get her away from the house. What did they do with her at Lowood? The fever broke out there, and many

of the pupils died. She, however, did not die: but I said she didI wish she had died!"

"I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband's only sister, and a great favourite with him: he

opposed the family's disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of her death, he

wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby; though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and

pay for its maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on ita sickly, whining, pining thing! It would

wail in its cradle all night longnot screaming heartily like any other child, but whimpering and moaning.

Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and notice it as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than he ever

noticed his own at that age. He would try to make my children friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could

not bear it, and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike. In his last illness, he had it brought

continually to his bedside; and but an hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep the creature. I would

as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a workhouse: but he was weak, naturally weak. John

does not at all resemble his father, and I am glad of it: John is like me and like my brothershe is quite a

Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease tormenting me with letters for money? I have no more money to give him:

we are getting poor. I must send away half the servants and shut up part of the house; or let it off. I can never

submit to do thatyet how are we to get on? Twothirds of my income goes in paying the interest of

mortgages. John gambles dreadfully, and always losespoor boy! He is beset by sharpers: John is sunk and

She was getting much excited. "I think I had better leave her now," said I to Bessie, who stood on the other

"Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards nightin the morning she is calmer."

I rose. "Stop!" exclaimed Mrs. Reed, "there is another thing I wished to say. He threatens mehe continually

threatens me with his own death, or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid out with a great wound

in his throat, or with a swollen and blackened face. I am come to a strange pass: I have heavy troubles. What

Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative draught: she succeeded with difficulty. Soon after,

More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with her. She continued either delirious or

lethargic; and the doctor forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I got on as well as I

could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very cold, indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing,

reading, or writing, and scarcely utter a word either to me or her sister. Georgiana would chatter nonsense to

her canary bird by the hour, and take no notice of me. But I was determined not to seem at a loss for

occupation or amusement: I had brought my drawing materials with me, and they served me for both.

Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to take a seat apart from them, near the

window, and busy myself in sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened momentarily to

shape itself in the evershifting kaleidoscope of imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising

moon, and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and waterflags, and a naiad's head, crowned with

lotusflowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedgesparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthornbloom

One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was to be, I did not care or know. I took a soft

black pencil, gave it a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and prominent

forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively

to fill it with features. Stronglymarked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that brow; then followed,

naturally, a welldefined nose, with a straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexiblelooking mouth, by no

means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided cleft down the middle of it: of course, some black whiskers

were wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above the forehead. Now for the eyes: I

had left them to the last, because they required the most careful working. I drew them large; I shaped them

well: the eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the irids lustrous and large. "Good! but not quite the thing," I

thought, as I surveyed the effect: "they want more force and spirit;" and I wrought the shades blacker, that the

lights might flash more brilliantlya happy touch or two secured success. There, I had a friend's face under

my gaze; and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs on me? I looked at it; I smiled at

"Is that a portrait of some one you know?" asked Eliza, who had approached me unnoticed. I responded that it

was merely a fancy head, and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied: it was, in fact, a very

faithful representation of Mr. Rochester. But what was that to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana also

advanced to look. The other drawings pleased her much, but she called that "an ugly man." They both seemed

surprised at my skill. I offered to sketch their portraits; and each, in turn, sat for a pencil outline. Then

Georgiana produced her album. I promised to contribute a watercolour drawing: this put her at once into

good humour. She proposed a walk in the grounds. Before we had been out two hours, we were deep in a

confidential conversation: she had favoured me with a description of the brilliant winter she had spent in

London two seasons agoof the admiration she had there excited the attention she had received; and I

even got hints of the titled conquest she had made. In the course of the afternoon and evening these hints

were enlarged on: various soft conversations were reported, and sentimental scenes represented; and, in short,

a volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my benefit. The communications

were renewed from day to day: they always ran on the same themeherself, her loves, and woes. It was

strange she never once adverted either to her mother's illness, or her brother's death, or the present gloomy

state of the family prospects. Her mind seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety, and

aspirations after dissipations to come. She passed about five minutes each day in her mother's sickroom, and

Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk. I never saw a busier person than she seemed to be;

yet it was difficult to say what she did: or rather, to discover any result of her diligence. She had an alarm to

call her up early. I know not how she occupied herself before breakfast, but after that meal she divided her

time into regular portions, and each hour had its allotted task. Three times a day she studied a little book,

which I found, on inspection, was a Common Prayer Book. I asked her once what was the great attraction of

that volume, and she said, "the Rubric." Three hours she gave to stitching, with gold thread, the border of a

square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a carpet. In answer to my inquiries after the use of this article,

she informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new church lately erected near Gateshead. Two hours she

devoted to her diary; two to working by herself in the kitchengarden; and one to the regulation of her

accounts. She seemed to want no company; no conversation. I believe she was happy in her way: this routine

sufficed for her; and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident which forced her to vary

She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative than usual, that John's conduct, and the

threatened ruin of the family, had been a source of profound affliction to her: but she had now, she said,

settled her mind, and formed her resolution. Her own fortune she had taken care to secure; and when her

mother diedand it was wholly improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should either recover or linger

longshe would execute a longcherished project: seek a retirement where punctual habits would be

permanently secured from disturbance, and place safe barriers between herself and a frivolous world. I asked

"Of course not. Georgiana and she had nothing in common: they never had had. She would not be burdened

with her society for any consideration. Georgiana should take her own course; and she, Eliza, would take

Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of her time in lying on the sofa, fretting about

the dulness of the house, and wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send her an invitation

up to town. "It would be so much better," she said, "if she could only get out of the way for a month or two,

till all was over." I did not ask what she meant by "all being over," but I suppose she referred to the expected

decease of her mother and the gloomy sequel of funeral rites. Eliza generally took no more notice of her

sister's indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring, lounging object had been before her. One day,

however, as she put away her accountbook and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up thus

"Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You

had no right to be born, for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a

reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength: if no one

can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you

are illtreated, neglected, miserable. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of continual change and

excitement, or else the world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be

flatteredyou must have music, dancing, and societyor you languish, you die away. Have you no sense to

devise a system which will make you independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one day;

share it into sections; to each section apportion its task: leave no stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten

minutes, five minutesinclude all; do each piece of business in its turn with method, with rigid regularity.

The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you

to get rid of one vacant moment: you have had to seek no one's company, conversation, sympathy,

forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do. Take this advice: the first and last

I shall offer you; then you will not want me or any one else, happen what may. Neglect itgo on as

heretofore, craving, whining, and idlingand suffer the results of your idiocy, however bad and insuperable

they may be. I tell you this plainly; and listen: for though I shall no more repeat what I am now about to say, I

shall steadily act on it. After my mother's death, I wash my hands of you: from the day her coffin is carried to

the vault in Gateshead Church, you and I will be as separate as if we had never known each other. You need

not think that because we chanced to be born of the same parents, I shall suffer you to fasten me down by

even the feeblest claim: I can tell you thisif the whole human race, ourselves excepted, were swept away,

and we two stood alone on the earth, I would leave you in the old world, and betake myself to the new."

"You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade," answered Georgiana. "Everybody

knows you are the most selfish, heartless creature in existence: and I know your spiteful hatred towards me: I

have had a specimen of it before in the trick you played me about Lord Edwin Vere: you could not bear me to

be raised above you, to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare not show your face, and so you

acted the spy and informer, and ruined my prospects for ever." Georgiana took out her handkerchief and blew

her nose for an hour afterwards; Eliza sat cold, impassable, and assiduously industrious.

True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here were two natures rendered, the one

intolerably acrid, the other despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment is a washy

draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.

It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on the sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza

was gone to attend a saint'sday service at the new churchfor in matters of religion she was a rigid

formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair

or foul, she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on weekdays as there were prayers.

I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped, who lay there almost unheeded: the

very servants paid her but a remittent attention: the hired nurse, being little looked after, would slip out of the

room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful; but she had her own family to mind, and could only come

occasionally to the hall. I found the sickroom unwatched, as I had expected: no nurse was there; the patient

lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid face sunk in the pillows: the fire was dying in the grate. I renewed

the fuel, rearranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could not now gaze on me, and then I moved

The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew tempestuously: "One lies there," I thought, "who will

soon be beyond the war of earthly elements. Whither will that spiritnow struggling to quit its material

In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns, recalled her dying wordsher faithher doctrine

of the equality of disembodied souls. I was still listening in thought to her wellremembered tonesstill

picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid deathbed,

and whispered her longing to be restored to her divine Father's bosom when a feeble voice murmured from

"WhoI?" was her answer. "Who are you?" looking at me with surprise and a sort of alarm, but still not

"Aunt," she repeated. "Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the Gibsons; and yet I know youthat face,

and the eyes and forehead, are quiet familiar to me: you are likewhy, you are like Jane Eyre!"

I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring my identity.

"Yet," said she, "I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts deceive me. I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a

likeness where none exists: besides, in eight years she must be so changed." I now gently assured her that I

was the person she supposed and desired me to be: and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were

quite collected, I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield.

"I am very ill, I know," she said ere long. "I was trying to turn myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot

move a limb. It is as well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in health, burdens us at

such an hour as the present is to me. Is the nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?"

"Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in breaking the promise which I gave my

husband to bring you up as my own child; the other" she stopped. "After all, it is of no great importance,

perhaps," she murmured to herself: "and then I may get better; and to humble myself so to her is painful."

She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face changed; she seemed to experience some inward

"Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me: I had better tell her.Go to my dressingcase, open it, and

"Madam,Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how

she is? It is my intention to write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence has blessed my

endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life,

and bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave.I am, Madam, &c., &c.,

"Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not

forget your conduct to me, Janethe fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you declared

you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed

that the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable cruelty. I could

not forget my own sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt fear as

if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man's

"Dear Mrs. Reed," said I, as I offered her the draught she required, "think no more of all this, let it pass away

from your mind. Forgive me for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight, nine years have passed

She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water and drawn breath, she went on thus

"I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge: for you to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a

state of ease and comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his

disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died of typhus fever at Lowood. Now act as you please:

write and contradict my assertionexpose my falsehood as soon as you like. You were born, I think, to be

my torment: my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been

"If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to regard me with kindness and forgiveness"

"You have a very bad disposition," said she, "and one to this day I feel it impossible to understand: how for

nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and

"My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but not vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I

should have been glad to love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to be reconciled to you now:

I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She said I oppressed her by leaning over the bed,

and again demanded water. As I laid her downfor I raised her and supported her on my arm while she

drankI covered her icecold and clammy hand with mine: the feeble fingers shrank from my touchthe

"Love me, then, or hate me, as you will," I said at last, "you have my full and free forgiveness: ask now for

Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the effort to change her habitual frame of mind:

The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered halfanhour longer, hoping to see some sign of

amity: but she gave none. She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally: at twelve o'clock

that night she died. I was not present to close her eyes, nor were either of her daughters. They came to tell us

the next morning that all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza and I went to look at her: Georgiana,

who had burst out into loud weeping, said she dared not go. There was stretched Sarah Reed's once robust

and active frame, rigid and still: her eye of flint was covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore

yet the impress of her inexorable soul. A strange and solemn object was that corpse to me. I gazed on it with

gloom and pain: nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or subduing did it inspire; only a

grating anguish for HER woesnot MY lossand a sombre tearless dismay at the fearfulness of death in

"With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her life was shortened by trouble." And then a

spasm constricted her mouth for an instant: as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so did I.

Mr. Rochester had given me but one week's leave of absence: yet a month elapsed before I quitted Gateshead.

I wished to leave immediately after the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off to

London, whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down to direct his

sister's interment and settle the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from

her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with

her feebleminded wailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and

packing her dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would idle; and I thought to myself, "If you and I were

destined to live always together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing. I should not

settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I should assign you your share of labour, and compel you

to accomplish it, or else it should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your keeping some of those

drawling, halfinsincere complaints hushed in your own breast. It is only because our connection happens to

be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and

At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza's turn to request me to stay another week. Her plans

required all her time and attention, she said; she was about to depart for some unknown bourne; and all day

long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers,

and holding no communication with any one. She wished me to look after the house, to see callers, and

One morning she told me I was at liberty. "And," she added, "I am obliged to you for your valuable services

and discreet conduct! There is some difference between living with such an one as you and with Georgiana:

you perform your own part in life and burden no one. Tomorrow," she continued, "I set out for the

Continent. I shall take up my abode in a religious house near Lislea nunnery you would call it; there I shall

be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas,

and to a careful study of the workings of their system: if I find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the one best

calculated to ensure the doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and

I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade her from it. "The vocation will fit you

When we parted, she said: "Goodbye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well: you have some sense."

I then returned: "You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have, I suppose, in another year will

be walled up alive in a French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don't much

"You are in the right," said she; and with these words we each went our separate way. As I shall not have

occasion to refer either to her or her sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana made an

advantageous match with a wealthy wornout man of fashion, and that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at

this day superior of the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and which she endowed with

How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not know: I had never

experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a long

walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was to come back from church to Lowood,

to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returnings was

very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the

My journey seemed tediousvery tedious: fifty miles one day, a night spent at an inn; fifty miles the next

day. During the first twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her disfigured and

discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered voice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the

black train of tenants and servantsfew was the number of relativesthe gaping vault, the silent church, the

solemn service. Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I beheld one the cynosure of a ballroom, the other

the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on and analysed their separate peculiarities of person and character.

The evening arrival at the great town ofscattered these thoughts; night gave them quite another turn: laid

I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there? Not long; of that I was sure. I had heard

from Mrs. Fairfax in the interim of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had left for

London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was

gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage: she said the idea

of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said, and from what she

had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the event would shortly take place. "You would be strangely

The question followed, "Where was I to go?" I dreamt of Miss Ingram all the night: in a vivid morning dream

I saw her closing the gates of Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. Rochester

looked on with his arms foldedsmiling sardonically, as it seemed, at both her and me.

I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return; for I did not wish either car or carriage to meet

me at Millcote. I proposed to walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly, after leaving my box in

the ostler's care, did I slip away from the George Inn, about six o'clock of a June evening, and take the old

road to Thornfield: a road which lay chiefly through fields, and was now little frequented.

It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft: the haymakers were at work all along

the road; and the sky, though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future: its bluewhere

blue was visiblewas mild and settled, and its cloud strata high and thin. The west, too, was warm: no

watery gleam chilled itit seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burning behind its screen of marbled

I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped once to ask myself what that joy meant: and

to remind reason that it was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent restingplace, or to a place where

fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival. "Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be

sure," said I; "and little Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know very well you are

But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience? These affirmed that it was pleasure

enough to have the privilege of again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and they

added"Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may: but a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are

parted from him for ever!" And then I strangled a newborn agonya deformed thing which I could not

They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the labourers are just quitting their work, and

returning home with their rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field or two to

traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates. How full the hedges are of roses! But I have no

time to gather any; I want to be at the house. I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across

the path; I see the narrow stile with stone steps; and I seeMr. Rochester sitting there, a book and a pencil in

Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What

does it mean? I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the power of

motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can stir: I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I

know another way to the house. It does not signify if I knew twenty ways; for he has seen me.

"Hillo!" he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. "There you are! Come on, if you please."

I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; being scarcely cognisant of my movements, and

solicitous only to appear calm; and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face which I feel rebel

insolently against my will, and struggle to express what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a veilit is

"And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot? Yesjust one of your tricks: not to

send for a carriage, and come clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to steal into the

vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you

"A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other worldfrom the abode of people

who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see

if you are substance or shadow, you elf!but I'd as soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a

marsh. Truant! truant!" he added, when he had paused an instant. "Absent from me a whole month, and

I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though broken by the fear that he was so

soon to cease to be my master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr.

Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of

the crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially. His last words were balm:

they seemed to imply that it imported something to him whether I forgot him or not. And he had spoken of

He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I inquired soon if he had not been to London.

"You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don't think it will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and

whether she won't look like Queen Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish, Jane, I were

a trifle better adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now, fairy as you arecan't you give me a

"It would be past the power of magic, sir;" and, in thought, I added, "A loving eye is all the charm needed: to

such you are handsome enough; or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty."

Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to me incomprehensible: in the

present instance he took no notice of my abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he

had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think it too good for common

"Pass, Janet," said he, making room for me to cross the stile: "go up home, and stay your weary little

All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to colloquise further. I got over the stile

without a word, and meant to leave him calmly. An impulse held me fasta force turned me round. I

"Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and

I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he tried. Little Adele was half wild with

delight when she saw me. Mrs. Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and even

Sophie bid me "bon soir" with glee. This was very pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by

your fellowcreatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.

I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my cars against the voice that kept

warning me of near separation and coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting,

and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adele, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a

sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we

might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking

at us, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicablewhen he said he supposed the old

lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter back again, and added that he saw Adele was

"prete e croquer sa petite maman Anglaise"I half ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage,

keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his

A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall. Nothing was said of the master's

marriage, and I saw no preparation going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she

had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the negative. Once she said she had actually put

the question to Mr. Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but he had answered her only

by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she could not tell what to make of him.

One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no journeyings backward and forward, no visits to

Ingram Park: to be sure it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; but what was that distance

to an ardent lover? To so practised and indefatigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but a

morning's ride. I began to cherish hopes I had no right to conceive: that the match was broken off; that

rumour had been mistaken; that one or both parties had changed their minds. I used to look at my master's

face to see if it were sad or fierce; but I could not remember the time when it had been so uniformly clear of

clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and my pupil spent with him, I lacked spirits and sank into

inevitable dejection, he became even gay. Never had he called me more frequently to his presence; never

A splendid Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so radiant as were then seen in long

succession, seldom favour even singly, our wavegirt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had come from

the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay

was all got in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in

their dark prime; hedge and wood, fullleaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the

On Midsummereve, Adele, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay Lane half the day, had gone to

bed with the sun. I watched her drop asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden.

It was now the sweetest hour of the twentyfour: "Day its fervid fires had wasted," and dew fell cool on

panting plain and scorched summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple statepure of the pomp of

cloudsspread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one

hillpeak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own charm or

fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a casino and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was

I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, wellknown scent that of a cigarstole from some

window; I saw the library casement open a handbreadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart

into the orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Edenlike; it was full of trees, it bloomed

with flowers: a very high wall shut it out from the court, on one side; on the other, a beech avenue screened it

from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence; its sole separation from lonely fields: a winding walk,

bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horsechestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the

fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such honeydew fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming

gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever; but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the

upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my

step is stayed not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a warning fragrance.

Sweetbriar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of

incense: this new scent is neither of shrub nor flower; it isI know it wellit is Mr. Rochester's cigar. I

look round and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a

mile off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must flee. I make

for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy recess; he

will not stay long: he will soon return whence he came, and if I sit still he will never see me.

But noeventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive; and he strolls on, now

lifting the gooseberrytree branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are laden; now taking

a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to

admire the dewbeads on their petals. A great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr.

"Now, he has his back towards me," thought I, "and he is occupied too; perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip

I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly gravel might not betray me: he was standing among

the beds at a yard or two distant from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged him. "I shall get by

very well," I meditated. As I crossed his shadow, thrown long over the garden by the moon, not yet risen

I had made no noise: he had not eyes behindcould his shadow feel? I started at first, and then I approached

"Look at his wings," said he, "he reminds me rather of a West Indian insect; one does not often see so large

The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also; but Mr. Rochester followed me, and when we

"Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house; and surely no one can wish to go to bed

It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at an answer, there are times when

it sadly fails me in framing an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or

plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this

hour alone with Mr. Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not find a reason to allege for leaving him.

I followed with lagging step, and thoughts busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself

looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any confusion: the evilif evil existent

or prospective there wasseemed to lie with me only; his mind was unconscious and quiet.

"Jane," he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly strayed down in the direction of the sunk

fence and the horsechestnut, "Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?"

"You must have become in some degree attached to the house,you, who have an eye for natural beauties,

"And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired a degree of regard for that foolish

"Pity!" he said, and sighed and paused. "It is always the way of events in this life," he continued presently:

"no sooner have you got settled in a pleasant restingplace, than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on,

"Exactlyprecisely: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the nail straight on the head."

"Very soon, mythat is, Miss Eyre: and you'll remember, Jane, the first time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated

to you that it was my intention to put my old bachelor's neck into the sacred noose, to enter into the holy

estate of matrimonyto take Miss Ingram to my bosom, in short (she's an extensive armful: but that's not to

the pointone can't have too much of such a very excellent thing as my beautiful Blanche): well, as I was

sayinglisten to me, Jane! You're not turning your head to look after more moths, are you? That was only a

ladyclock, child, 'flying away home.' I wish to remind you that it was you who first said to me, with that

discretion I respect in youwith that foresight, prudence, and humility which befit your responsible and

dependent positionthat in case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little Adele had better trot forthwith. I

pass over the sort of slur conveyed in this suggestion on the character of my beloved; indeed, when you are

far away, Janet, I'll try to forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom; which is such that I have made it my law of

"Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I suppose" I was going to say, "I suppose I may stay

here, till I find another shelter to betake myself to:" but I stopped, feeling it would not do to risk a long

"In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom," continued Mr. Rochester; "and in the interim, I shall myself

"Oh, no need to apologise! I consider that when a dependent does her duty as well as you have done yours,

she has a sort of claim upon her employer for any little assistance he can conveniently render her; indeed I

have already, through my future motherinlaw, heard of a place that I think will suit: it is to undertake the

education of the five daughters of Mrs. Dionysius O'Gall of Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland. You'll like

I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of free will, my tears gushed out. I did not cry so

as to be heard, however; I avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O'Gall and Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to

my heart; and colder the thought of all the brine and foam, destined, as it seemed, to rush between me and the

master at whose side I now walked, and coldest the remembrance of the wider oceanwealth, caste, custom

"It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland, I shall never see you again, Jane:

that's morally certain. I never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of a fancy for the country. We have

"And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the little time that remains to them close to

each other. Come! we'll talk over the voyage and the parting quietly halfanhour or so, while the stars enter

into their shining life up in heaven yonder: here is the chestnut tree: here is the bench at its old roots. Come,

we will sit there in peace tonight, though we should never more be destined to sit there together." He seated

"It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my little friend on such weary travels: but if I can't

do better, how is it to be helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"

"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to youespecially when you are near me,

as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar

string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two

hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and

then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,you'd forget me."

In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I endured no longer; I was obliged to yield, and I

was shaken from head to foot with acute distress. When I did speak, it was only to express an impetuous wish

The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full

sway, and asserting a right to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last: yes,and to speak.

"I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield: I love it, because I have lived in it a full and delightful

life,momentarily at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried

with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and

high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence, with what I delight in,with an original, a vigorous,

an expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I

absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the

"I tell you I must go!" I retorted, roused to something like passion. "Do you think I can stay to become

nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my

morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think,

because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!I have as much

soul as you,and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should

have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now

through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;it is my spirit that addresses

your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,as we are!"

"As we are!" repeated Mr. Rochester"so," he added, enclosing me in his arms. Gathering me to his breast,

"Yes, so, sir," I rejoined: "and yet not so; for you are a married manor as good as a married man, and wed

to one inferior to youto one with whom you have no sympathywhom I do not believe you truly love; for

I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union: therefore I am better than youlet me

"Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in its desperation."

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert

"And your will shall decide your destiny," he said: "I offer you my hand, my heart, and a share of all my

"I ask you to pass through life at my sideto be my second self, and best earthly companion."

A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurelwalk, and trembled through the boughs of the chestnut: it

wandered awayawayto an indefinite distanceit died. The nightingale's song was then the only voice

of the hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat quiet, looking at me gently and seriously. Some

"My bride is here," he said, again drawing me to him, "because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will

Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his grasp: for I was still incredulous.

"Am I a liar in your eyes?" he asked passionately. "Little sceptic, you SHALL be convinced. What love have

I for Miss Ingram? None: and that you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains to

prove: I caused a rumour to reach her that my fortune was not a third of what was supposed, and after that I

presented myself to see the result; it was coldness both from her and her mother. I would notI could

notmarry Miss Ingram. You you strange, you almost unearthly thing!I love as my own flesh.

Youpoor and obscure, and small and plain as you areI entreat to accept me as a husband."

"What, me!" I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestnessand especially in his incivilityto credit his

sincerity: "me who have not a friend in the world but you if you are my friend: not a shilling but what you

"You, Jane, I must have you for my ownentirely my own. Will you be mine? Say yes, quickly."

"There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled, scratched page. Read on: only make haste, for

His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there were strong workings in the features, and

"Oh, Jane, you torture me!" he exclaimed. "With that searching and yet faithful and generous look, you

"How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only feelings to you must be gratitude and

"Gratitude!" he ejaculated; and added wildly"Jane accept me quickly. Say, Edwardgive me my

"Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me to be your wife?"

"Come to mecome to me entirely now," said he; and added, in his deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his

"God pardon me!" he subjoined ere long; "and man meddle not with me: I have her, and will hold her."

"Nothat is the best of it," he said. And if I had loved him less I should have thought his accent and look of

exultation savage; but, sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of partingcalled to the paradise of

unionI thought only of the bliss given me to drink in so abundant a flow. Again and again he said, "Are

you happy, Jane?" And again and again I answered, "Yes." After which he murmured, "It will atoneit will

atone. Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace

her? Is there not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves? It will expiate at God's tribunal. I know my

Maker sanctions what I do. For the world's judgmentI wash my hands thereof. For man's opinionI defy

But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we were all in shadow: I could scarcely see

my master's face, near as I was. And what ailed the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned; while wind roared

"We must go in," said Mr. Rochester: "the weather changes. I could have sat with thee till morning, Jane."

"And so," thought I, "could I with you." I should have said so, perhaps, but a livid, vivid spark leapt out of a

cloud at which I was looking, and there was a crack, a crash, and a close rattling peal; and I thought only of

The rain rushed down. He hurried me up the walk, through the grounds, and into the house; but we were quite

wet before we could pass the threshold. He was taking off my shawl in the hall, and shaking the water out of

my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax emerged from her room. I did not observe her at first, nor did Mr.

"Hasten to take off your wet things," said he; "and before you go, goodnightgoodnight, my darling!"

He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked up, on leaving his arms, there stood the widow, pale, grave, and

amazed. I only smiled at her, and ran upstairs. "Explanation will do for another time," thought I. Still, when I

reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even temporarily misconstrue what she had seen.

But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder crashed,

fierce and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataractlike as the rain fell during a storm of two hours'

duration, I experienced no fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my door in the course of it, to ask

if I was safe and tranquil: and that was comfort, that was strength for anything.

Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adele came running in to tell me that the great horsechestnut at

the bottom of the orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away.

As I rose and dressed, I thought over what had happened, and wondered if it were a dream. I could not be

certain of the reality till I had seen Mr. Rochester again, and heard him renew his words of love and promise.

While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt it was no longer plain: there was hope in its

aspect and life in its colour; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of fruition, and borrowed

beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often been unwilling to look at my master, because I feared he could not

be pleased at my look; but I was sure I might lift my face to his now, and not cool his affection by its

expression. I took a plain but clean and light summer dress from my drawer and put it on: it seemed no attire

I was not surprised, when I ran down into the hall, to see that a brilliant June morning had succeeded to the

tempest of the night; and to feel, through the open glass door, the breathing of a fresh and fragrant breeze.

Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy. A beggarwoman and her little boypale, ragged objects

bothwere coming up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all the money I happened to have in my

pursesome three or four shillings: good or bad, they must partake of my jubilee. The rooks cawed, and

blither birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart.

Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out of the window with a sad countenance, and saying gravely"Miss

Eyre, will you come to breakfast?" During the meal she was quiet and cool: but I could not undeceive her

then. I must wait for my master to give explanations; and so must she. I ate what I could, and then I hastened

"In there," pointing to the apartment she had left; and I went in, and there he stood.

"Come and bid me goodmorning," said he. I gladly advanced; and it was not merely a cold word now, or

even a shake of the hand that I received, but an embrace and a kiss. It seemed natural: it seemed genial to be

"Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty," said he: "truly pretty this morning. Is this my pale, little

elf? Is this my mustardseed? This little sunnyfaced girl with the dimpled cheek and rosy lips; the

satinsmooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel eyes?" (I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the

"Soon to be Jane Rochester," he added: "in four weeks, Janet; not a day more. Do you hear that?"

I did, and I could not quite comprehend it: it made me giddy. The feeling, the announcement sent through me,

was something stronger than was consistent with joysomething that smote and stunned. It was, I think

"Yes, Mrs. Rochester," said he; "young Mrs. RochesterFairfax Rochester's girlbride."

"It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely. Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world. I

was not born for a different destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy

"Which I can and will realise. I shall begin today. This morning I wrote to my banker in London to send me

certain jewels he has in his keeping,heirlooms for the ladies of Thornfield. In a day or two I hope to pour

them into your lap: for every privilege, every attention shall be yours that I would accord a peer's daughter, if

"Oh, sir!never rain jewels! I don't like to hear them spoken of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and

"I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the circlet on your forehead,which it will

become: for nature, at least, has stamped her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I will clasp the

"No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things, and in another strain. Don't address me as if I

"You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of my heart,delicate and aerial."

"Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir,or you are sneering. For God's sake don't be

"I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too," he went on, while I really became uneasy at the

strain he had adopted, because I felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. "I will attire my

Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her hair; and I will cover the head I love best with a

"And then you won't know me, sir; and I shall not be your Jane Eyre any longer, but an ape in a harlequin's

jacketa jay in borrowed plumes. I would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in stagetrappings, as

myself clad in a courtlady's robe; and I don't call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too

He pursued his theme, however, without noticing my deprecation. "This very day I shall take you in the

carriage to Millcote, and you must choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we shall be married in four

weeks. The wedding is to take place quietly, in the church down below yonder; and then I shall waft you

away at once to town. After a brief stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions nearer the sun: to French

vineyards and Italian plains; and she shall see whatever is famous in old story and in modern record: she shall

taste, too, of the life of cities; and she shall learn to value herself by just comparison with others."

"You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice, and Vienna: all the ground I have

wandered over shall be retrodden by you: wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot shall step also. Ten

years since, I flew through Europe half mad; with disgust, hate, and rage as my companions: now I shall

I laughed at him as he said this. "I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die: I will be

myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of mefor you will not get it,

"For a little while you will perhaps be as you are now,a very little while; and then you will turn cool; and

then you will be capricious; and then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to please you: but when

you get well used to me, you will perhaps like me again,LIKE me, I say, not LOVE me. I suppose your

love will effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by men, that period assigned as

the farthest to which a husband's ardour extends. Yet, after all, as a friend and companion, I hope never to

"Distasteful! and like you again! I think I shall like you again, and yet again: and I will make you confess I do

"To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls

nor heartswhen they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness,

and illtemper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends

but does not breakat once supple and stable, tractable and consistent I am ever tender and true."

"Had you ever experience of such a character, sir? Did you ever love such an one?"

"But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your difficult standard?"

"I never met your likeness. Jane, you please me, and you master me you seem to submit, and I like the

sense of pliancy you impart; and while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up

my arm to my heart. I am influencedconquered; and the influence is sweeter than I can express; and the

conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile, Jane? What does that

"I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was involuntary), I was thinking of Hercules and Samson

"Hush, sir! You don't talk very wisely just now; any more than those gentlemen acted very wisely. However,

had they been married, they would no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for their softness as

suitors; and so will you, I fear. I wonder how you will answer me a year hence, should I ask a favour it does

"Speak! But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall swear concession before I know to what,

"Not at all, sir; I ask only this: don't send for the jewels, and don't crown me with roses: you might as well put

"I might as well 'gild refined gold.' I know it: you request is granted thenfor the time. I will remand the

order I despatched to my banker. But you have not yet asked for anything; you have prayed a gift to be

"Well then, sir, have the goodness to gratify my curiosity, which is much piqued on one point."

He looked disturbed. "What? what?" he said hastily. "Curiosity is a dangerous petition: it is well I have not

"Utter it, Jane: but I wish that instead of a mere inquiry into, perhaps, a secret, it was a wish for half my

"Now, King Ahasuerus! What do I want with half your estate? Do you think I am a Jewusurer, seeking good

investment in land? I would much rather have all your confidence. You will not exclude me from your

"You are welcome to all my confidence that is worth having, Jane; but for God's sake, don't desire a useless

"Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you liked to be conquered, and how pleasant

overpersuasion is to you. Don't you think I had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and coax

and entreateven cry and be sulky if necessaryfor the sake of a mere essay of my power?"

"Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern you look now! Your eyebrows have become as thick as my finger,

and your forehead resembles what, in some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled, 'a bluepiled

"If that will be YOUR married look, I, as a Christian, will soon give up the notion of consorting with a mere

"There, you are less than civil now; and I like rudeness a great deal better than flattery. I had rather be a

THING than an angel. This is what I have to ask,Why did you take such pains to make me believe you

"Is that all? Thank God it is no worse!" And now he unknit his black brows; looked down, smiling at me, and

stroked my hair, as if well pleased at seeing a danger averted. "I think I may confess," he continued, "even

although I should make you a little indignant, Janeand I have seen what a firespirit you can be when you

are indignant. You glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you mutinied against fate, and claimed your

"Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to render you as madly in love with me as I was

with you; and I knew jealousy would be the best ally I could call in for the furtherance of that end."

"Excellent! Now you are smallnot one whit bigger than the end of my little finger. It was a burning shame

and a scandalous disgrace to act in that way. Did you think nothing of Miss Ingram's feelings, sir?"

"Her feelings are concentrated in onepride; and that needs humbling. Were you jealous, Jane?"

"Never mind, Mr. Rochester: it is in no way interesting to you to know that. Answer me truly once more. Do

you think Miss Ingram will not suffer from your dishonest coquetry? Won't she feel forsaken and deserted?"

"Impossible!when I told you how she, on the contrary, deserted me: the idea of my insolvency cooled, or

"You have a curious, designing mind, Mr. Rochester. I am afraid your principles on some points are

"My principles were never trained, Jane: they may have grown a little awry for want of attention."

"Once again, seriously; may I enjoy the great good that has been vouchsafed to me, without fearing that any

"That you may, my good little girl: there is not another being in the world has the same pure love for me as

yourselffor I lay that pleasant unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in your affection."

I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my shoulder. I loved him very muchmore than I could trust myself

"Ask something more," he said presently; "it is my delight to be entreated, and to yield."

I was again ready with my request. "Communicate your intentions to Mrs. Fairfax, sir: she saw me with you

last night in the hall, and she was shocked. Give her some explanation before I see her again. It pains me to

"Go to your room, and put on your bonnet," he replied. "I mean you to accompany me to Millcote this

morning; and while you prepare for the drive, I will enlighten the old lady's understanding. Did she think,

"Station! station!your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you, now or

I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs. Fairfax's parlour, I hurried down to it. The old

lady, had been reading her morning portion of Scripturethe Lesson for the day; her Bible lay open before

her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her occupation, suspended by Mr. Rochester's announcement, seemed

now forgotten: her eyes, fixed on the blank wall opposite, expressed the surprise of a quiet mind stirred by

unwonted tidings. Seeing me, she roused herself: she made a sort of effort to smile, and framed a few words

of congratulation; but the smile expired, and the sentence was abandoned unfinished. She put up her

"I feel so astonished," she began, "I hardly know what to say to you, Miss Eyre. I have surely not been

dreaming, have I? Sometimes I half fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that have never

happened. It has seemed to me more than once when I have been in a doze, that my dear husband, who died

fifteen years since, has come in and sat down beside me; and that I have even heard him call me by my name,

Alice, as he used to do. Now, can you tell me whether it is actually true that Mr. Rochester has asked you to

marry him? Don't laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here five minutes ago, and said that in a month

She looked at me bewildered. "I could never have thought it. He is a proud man: all the Rochesters were

proud: and his father, at least, liked money. He, too, has always been called careful. He means to marry you?"

She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had there found no charm powerful enough to

"It passes me!" she continued; "but no doubt, it is true since you say so. How it will answer, I cannot tell: I

really don't know. Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and there are twenty years

"No, indeed, Mrs. Fairfax!" exclaimed I, nettled; "he is nothing like my father! No one, who saw us together,

would suppose it for an instant. Mr. Rochester looks as young, and is as young, as some men at

"I am sorry to grieve you," pursued the widow; "but you are so young, and so little acquainted with men, I

wished to put you on your guard. It is an old saying that 'all is not gold that glitters;' and in this case I do fear

"Why?am I a monster?" I said: "is it impossible that Mr. Rochester should have a sincere affection for

"No: you are very well; and much improved of late; and Mr. Rochester, I daresay, is fond of you. I have

always noticed that you were a sort of pet of his. There are times when, for your sake, I have been a little

uneasy at his marked preference, and have wished to put you on your guard: but I did not like to suggest even

the possibility of wrong. I knew such an idea would shock, perhaps offend you; and you were so discreet, and

so thoroughly modest and sensible, I hoped you might be trusted to protect yourself. Last night I cannot tell

you what I suffered when I sought all over the house, and could find you nowhere, nor the master either; and

"Well, never mind that now," I interrupted impatiently; "it is enough that all was right."

"I hope all will be right in the end," she said: "but believe me, you cannot be too careful. Try and keep Mr.

Rochester at a distance: distrust yourself as well as him. Gentlemen in his station are not accustomed to marry

"Let me go,let me go to Millcote too!" she cried. "Mr. Rochester won't: though there is so much room in

"That I will, Adele;" and I hastened away with her, glad to quit my gloomy monitress. The carriage was

ready: they were bringing it round to the front, and my master was the pavement, Pilot following him

He was quite peremptory, both in look and voice. The chill of Mrs. Fairfax's warnings, and the damp of her

doubts were upon me: something of unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes. I half lost the sense

of power over him. I was about mechanically to obey him, without further remonstrance; but as he helped me

"What is the matter?" he asked; "all the sunshine is gone. Do you really wish the bairn to go? Will it annoy

"Then off for your bonnet, and back like a flash of lightning!" cried he to Adele.

"After all, a single morning's interruption will not matter much," said he, "when I mean shortly to claim

Adele, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing her gratitude for my intercession: she

was instantly stowed away into a corner on the other side of him. She then peeped round to where I sat; so

stern a neighbour was too restrictive to him, in his present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations,

"Let her come to me," I entreated: "she will, perhaps, trouble you, sir: there is plenty of room on this side."

He handed her over as if she had been a lapdog. "I'll send her to school yet," he said, but now he was smiling.

"Yes," he replied, "absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I

shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among the volcanotops, and mademoiselle shall live with me

"I shall gather manna for her morning and night: the plains and hillsides in the moon are bleached with

"Fire rises out of the lunar mountains: when she is cold, I'll carry her up to a peak, and lay her down on the

"Oh, qu' elle y sera malpeu comfortable! And her clothes, they will wear out: how can she get new ones?"

Mr. Rochester professed to be puzzled. "Hem!" said he. "What would you do, Adele? Cudgel your brains for

an expedient. How would a white or a pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could cut a

"She is far better as she is," concluded Adele, after musing some time: "besides, she would get tired of living

with only you in the moon. If I were mademoiselle, I would never consent to go with you."

"But you can't get her there; there is no road to the moon: it is all air; and neither you nor she can fly."

"Adele, look at that field." We were now outside Thornfield gates, and bowling lightly along the smooth road

to Millcote, where the dust was well laid by the thunderstorm, and, where the low hedges and lofty timber

"In that field, Adele, I was walking late one evening about a fortnight sincethe evening of the day you

helped me to make hay in the orchard meadows; and, as I was tired with raking swaths, I sat down to rest me

on a stile; and there I took out a little book and a pencil, and began to write about a misfortune that befell me

long ago, and a wish I had for happy days to come: I was writing away very fast, though daylight was fading

from the leaf, when something came up the path and stopped two yards off me. I looked at it. It was a little

thing with a veil of gossamer on its head. I beckoned it to come near me; it stood soon at my knee. I never

spoke to it, and it never spoke to me, in words; but I read its eyes, and it read mine; and our speechless

"It was a fairy, and come from Elfland, it said; and its errand was to make me happy: I must go with it out of

the common world to a lonely placesuch as the moon, for instanceand it nodded its head towards her

horn, rising over Hayhill: it told me of the alabaster cave and silver vale where we might live. I said I should

"'Oh,' returned the fairy, 'that does not signify! Here is a talisman will remove all difficulties;' and she held

out a pretty gold ring. 'Put it,' she said, 'on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I am yours, and you are

mine; and we shall leave earth, and make our own heaven yonder.' She nodded again at the moon. The ring,

Adele, is in my breechespocket, under the disguise of a sovereign: but I mean soon to change it to a ring

"But what has mademoiselle to do with it? I don't care for the fairy: you said it was mademoiselle you would

"Mademoiselle is a fairy," he said, whispering mysteriously. Whereupon I told her not to mind his badinage;

and she, on her part, evinced a fund of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr. Rochester "un vrai

menteur," and assuring him that she made no account whatever of his "contes de fee," and that "du reste, il

n'y avait pas de fees, et quand meme il y en avait:" she was sure they would never appear to him, nor ever

The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me. Mr. Rochester obliged me to go to a certain

silk warehouse: there I was ordered to choose halfadozen dresses. I hated the business, I begged leave to

defer it: noit should be gone through with now. By dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I

reduced the halfdozen to two: these however, he vowed he would select himself. With anxiety I watched his

eye rove over the gay stores: he fixed on a rich silk of the most brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink

satin. I told him in a new series of whispers, that he might as well buy me a gold gown and a silver bonnet at

once: I should certainly never venture to wear his choice. With infinite difficulty, for he was stubborn as a

stone, I persuaded him to make an exchange in favour of a sober black satin and pearlgrey silk. "It might

pass for the present," he said; "but he would yet see me glittering like a parterre."

Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of a jewellers shop: the more he bought me, the

more my cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation. As we reentered the carriage, and I sat

back feverish and fagged, I remembered what, in the hurry of events, dark and bright, I had wholly

forgottenthe letter of my uncle, John Eyre, to Mrs. Reed: his intention to adopt me and make me his

legatee. "It would, indeed, be a relief," I thought, "if I had ever so small an independency; I never can bear

being dressed like a doll by Mr. Rochester, or sitting like a second Danae with the golden shower falling daily

round me. I will write to Madeira the moment I get home, and tell my uncle John I am going to be married,

and to whom: if I had but a prospect of one day bringing Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I could better

endure to be kept by him now." And somewhat relieved by this idea (which I failed not to execute that day), I

ventured once more to meet my master's and lover's eye, which most pertinaciously sought mine, though I

averted both face and gaze. He smiled; and I thought his smile was such as a sultan might, in a blissful and

fond moment, bestow on a slave his gold and gems had enriched: I crushed his hand, which was ever hunting

"You need not look in that way," I said; "if you do, I'll wear nothing but my old Lowood frocks to the end of

the chapter. I'll be married in this lilac gingham: you may make a dressinggown for yourself out of the

He chuckled; he rubbed his hands. "Oh, it is rich to see and hear her?" he exclaimed. "Is she original? Is she

piquant? I would not exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk's whole seraglio, gazelleeyes,

The Eastern allusion bit me again. "I'll not stand you an inch in the stead of a seraglio," I said; "so don't

consider me an equivalent for one. If you have a fancy for anything in that line, away with you, sir, to the

bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and lay out in extensive slavepurchases some of that spare cash you

"And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many tons of flesh and such an assortment of

"I'll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach liberty to them that are enslavedyour harem

inmates amongst the rest. I'll get admitted there, and I'll stir up mutiny; and you, threetailed bashaw as you

are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered amongst our hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your bonds

till you have signed a charter, the most liberal that despot ever yet conferred."

"I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if you supplicated for it with an eye like that. While you looked so, I

should be certain that whatever charter you might grant under coercion, your first act, when released, would

"Why, Jane, what would you have? I fear you will compel me to go through a private marriage ceremony,

besides that performed at the altar. You will stipulate, I see, for peculiar termswhat will they be?"

"I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations. Do you remember what you said of

Celine Varens?of the diamonds, the cashmeres you gave her? I will not be your English Celine Varens. I

shall continue to act as Adele's governess; by that I shall earn my board and lodging, and thirty pounds a year

besides. I'll furnish my own wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give me nothing but"

"Well, for cool native impudence and pure innate pride, you haven't your equal," said he. We were now

approaching Thornfield. "Will it please you to dine with me today?" he asked, as we reentered the gates.

"Do you suppose I eat like an ogre or a ghoul, that you dread being the companion of my repast?"

"I have formed no supposition on the subject, sir; but I want to go on as usual for another month."

"Indeed, begging your pardon, sir, I shall not. I shall just go on with it as usual. I shall keep out of your way

all day, as I have been accustomed to do: you may send for me in the evening, when you feel disposed to see

"I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff, to comfort me under all this, 'pour me donner une contenance,' as

Adele would say; and unfortunately I have neither my cigarcase, nor my snuffbox. But listenwhisper. It

is your time now, little tyrant, but it will be mine presently; and when once I have fairly seized you, to have

and to hold, I'll justfiguratively speakingattach you to a chain like this" (touching his watchguard).

He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage, and while he afterwards lifted out Adele, I entered

He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had prepared an occupation for him; for I was

determined not to spend the whole time in a teteetete conversation. I remembered his fine voice; I knew he

liked to singgood singers generally do. I was no vocalist myself, and, in his fastidious judgment, no

musician, either; but I delighted in listening when the performance was good. No sooner had twilight, that

hour of romance, began to lower her blue and starry banner over the lattice, than I rose, opened the piano, and

entreated him, for the love of heaven, to give me a song. He said I was a capricious witch, and that he would

"Very much." I was not fond of pampering that susceptible vanity of his; but for once, and from motives of

I did try, but was presently swept off the stool and denominated "a little bungler." Being pushed

unceremoniously to one sidewhich was precisely what I wishedhe usurped my place, and proceeded to

accompany himself: for he could play as well as sing. I hied me to the windowrecess. And while I sat there

and looked out on the still trees and dim lawn, to a sweet air was sung in mellow tones the following strain:

He rose and came towards me, and I saw his face all kindled, and his full falconeye flashing, and tenderness

and passion in every lineament. I quailed momentarilythen I rallied. Soft scene, daring demonstration, I

would not have; and I stood in peril of both: a weapon of defence must be preparedI whetted my tongue: as

"Indeed! I considered it a very natural and necessary one: he had talked of his future wife dying with him.

What did he mean by such a pagan idea? I had no intention of dying with himhe might depend on that."

"Oh, all he longed, all he prayed for, was that I might live with him! Death was not for such as I."

"Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as he had: but I should bide that time, and not

"Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a reconciling kiss?"

Here I heard myself apostrophised as a "hard little thing;" and it was added, "any other woman would have

I assured him I was naturally hardvery flinty, and that he would often find me so; and that, moreover, I

was determined to show him divers rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks elapsed: he

should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made, while there was yet time to rescind it.

"I would be quiet if he liked, and as to talking rationally, I flattered myself I was doing that now."

He fretted, pished, and pshawed. "Very good," I thought; "you may fume and fidget as you please: but this is

the best plan to pursue with you, I am certain. I like you more than I can say; but I'll not sink into a bathos of

sentiment: and with this needle of repartee I'll keep you from the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover,

maintain by its pungent aid that distance between you and myself most conducive to our real mutual

From less to more, I worked him up to considerable irritation; then, after he had retired, in dudgeon, quite to

the other end of the room, I got up, and saying, "I wish you goodnight, sir," in my natural and wonted

The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of probation; and with the best success. He

was kept, to be sure, rather cross and crusty; but on the whole I could see he was excellently entertained, and

that a lamblike submission and turtledove sensibility, while fostering his despotism more, would have

pleased his judgment, satisfied his commonsense, and even suited his taste less.

In other people's presence I was, as formerly, deferential and quiet; any other line of conduct being uncalled

for: it was only in the evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him. He continued to send for me

punctually the moment the clock struck seven; though when I appeared before him now, he had no such

honeyed terms as "love" and "darling" on his lips: the best words at my service were "provoking puppet,"

"malicious elf," "sprite," "changeling," &c. For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand,

a pinch on the arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the ear. It was all right: at present I decidedly

preferred these fierce favours to anything more tender. Mrs. Fairfax, I saw, approved me: her anxiety on my

account vanished; therefore I was certain I did well. Meantime, Mr. Rochester affirmed I was wearing him to

skin and bone, and threatened awful vengeance for my present conduct at some period fast coming. I laughed

in my sleeve at his menaces. "I can keep you in reasonable check now," I reflected; "and I don't doubt to be

able to do it hereafter: if one expedient loses its virtue, another must be devised."

Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather have pleased than teased him. My future

husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He

stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I

The month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being numbered. There was no putting off the

day that advancedthe bridal day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. I, at least, had nothing

more to do: there were my trunks, packed, locked, corded, ranged in a row along the wall of my little

chamber; tomorrow, at this time, they would be far on their road to London: and so should I (D.V.),or

rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a person whom as yet I knew not. The cards of address alone remained

to nail on: they lay, four little squares, in the drawer. Mr. Rochester had himself written the direction, "Mrs.

Rochester, Hotel, London," on each: I could not persuade myself to affix them, or to have them affixed.

Mrs. Rochester! She did not exist: she would not be born till tomorrow, some time after eight o'clock a.m.;

and I would wait to be assured she had come into the world alive before I assigned to her all that property. It

was enough that in yonder closet, opposite my dressingtable, garments said to be hers had already displaced

my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the

pearlcoloured robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped portmanteau. I shut the closet to conceal the

strange, wraithlike apparel it contained; which, at this evening hournine o'clock gave out certainly a

most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment. "I will leave you by yourself, white dream," I

said. "I am feverish: I hear the wind blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it."

It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not only the anticipation of the great

changethe new life which was to commence tomorrow: both these circumstances had their share,

doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me forth at this late hour into the darkening

I had at heart a strange and anxious thought. Something had happened which I could not comprehend; no one

knew of or had seen the event but myself: it had taken place the preceding night. Mr. Rochester that night

was absent from home; nor was he yet returned: business had called him to a small estate of two or three

farms he possessed thirty miles offbusiness it was requisite he should settle in person, previous to his

meditated departure from England. I waited now his return; eager to disburthen my mind, and to seek of him

the solution of the enigma that perplexed me. Stay till he comes, reader; and, when I disclose my secret to

I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which all day had blown strong and full from the south,

without, however, bringing a speck of rain. Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it seemed to augment its

rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew steadfastly one way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back

their boughs once in an hour; so continuous was the strain bending their branchy heads northwardthe

clouds drifted from pole to pole, fast following, mass on mass: no glimpse of blue sky had been visible that

It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of mind to the

measureless airtorrent thundering through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of the

chestnuttree; it stood up black and riven: the trunk, split down the centre, gasped ghastly. The cloven halves

were not broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; though

community of vitality was destroyedthe sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were

dead, and next winter's tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth: as yet, however, they might be

"You did right to hold fast to each other," I said: as if the monstersplinters were living things, and could

hear me. "I think, scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life in you

yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots: you will never have green leaves more never

more see birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you:

but you are not desolate: each of you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay." As I looked up at

them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure; her disk was bloodred

and half overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again

instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and

water, poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again.

Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathered up the apples with which the grass round the tree roots

was thickly strewn; then I employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe; I carried them into the house

and put them away in the storeroom. Then I repaired to the library to ascertain whether the fire was lit, for,

though summer, I knew on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would like to see a cheerful hearth when he

came in: yes, the fire had been kindled some time, and burnt well. I placed his armchair by the

chimneycorner: I wheeled the table near it: I let down the curtain, and had the candles brought in ready for

lighting. More restless than ever, when I had completed these arrangements I could not sit still, nor even

remain in the house: a little timepiece in the room and the old clock in the hall simultaneously struck ten.

"How late it grows!" I said. "I will run down to the gates: it is moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on

the road. He may be coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense."

The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the gates; but the road as far as I could see, to the

right hand and the left, was all still and solitary: save for the shadows of clouds crossing it at intervals as the

A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I lookeda tear of disappointment and impatience; ashamed of it, I

wiped it away. I lingered; the moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of

"I wish he would come! I wish he would come!" I exclaimed, seized with hypochondriac foreboding. I had

expected his arrival before tea; now it was dark: what could keep him? Had an accident happened? The event

of last night again recurred to me. I interpreted it as a warning of disaster. I feared my hopes were too bright

to be realised; and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its meridian, and

"Well, I cannot return to the house," I thought; "I cannot sit by the fireside, while he is abroad in inclement

weather: better tire my limbs than strain my heart; I will go forward and meet him."

I set out; I walked fast, but not far: ere I had measured a quarter of a mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs; a

horseman came on, full gallop; a dog ran by his side. Away with evil presentiment! It was he: here he was,

mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot. He saw me; for the moon had opened a blue field in the sky, and

rode in it watery bright: he took his hat off, and waved it round his head. I now ran to meet him.

"There!" he exclaimed, as he stretched out his hand and bent from the saddle: "You can't do without me, that

I obeyed: joy made me agile: I sprang up before him. A hearty kissing I got for a welcome, and some boastful

triumph, which I swallowed as well as I could. He checked himself in his exultation to demand, "But is there

anything the matter, Janet, that you come to meet me at such an hour? Is there anything wrong?"

"No, but I thought you would never come. I could not bear to wait in the house for you, especially with this

"Rain and wind, indeed! Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid; pull my cloak round you: but I think you are

feverish, Jane: both your cheek and hand are burning hot. I ask again, is there anything the matter?

"Rather: but I'll tell you all about it byandbye, sir; and I daresay you will only laugh at me for my pains."

"I'll laugh at you heartily when tomorrow is past; till then I dare not: my prize is not certain. This is you,

who have been as slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briarrose? I could not lay a finger

anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms. You wandered out

"I wanted you: but don't boast. Here we are at Thornfield: now let me get down."

He landed me on the pavement. As John took his horse, and he followed me into the hall, he told me to make

haste and put something dry on, and then return to him in the library; and he stopped me, as I made for the

staircase, to extort a promise that I would not be long: nor was I long; in five minutes I rejoined him. I found

"Take a seat and bear me company, Jane: please God, it is the last meal but one you will eat at Thornfield

I sat down near him, but told him I could not eat. "Is it because you have the prospect of a journey before

you, Jane? Is it the thoughts of going to London that takes away your appetite?"

"I cannot see my prospects clearly tonight, sir; and I hardly know what thoughts I have in my head.

He held out his hand, laughing. "Is that a dream?" said he, placing it close to my eyes. He had a rounded,

"Yes; though I touch it, it is a dream," said I, as I put it down from before my face. "Sir, have you finished

I rang the bell and ordered away the tray. When we were again alone, I stirred the fire, and then took a low

"Yes: but remember, Jane, you promised to wake with me the night before my wedding."

"I did; and I will keep my promise, for an hour or two at least: I have no wish to go to bed."

"And on my part likewise," he returned, "I have settled everything; and we shall leave Thornfield tomorrow,

"With what an extraordinary smile you uttered that word'very well,' Jane! What a bright spot of colour you

"I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this present hour would never end: who knows

I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was ardent and flushed.

"Give me your confidence, Jane," he said: "relieve your mind of any weight that oppresses it, by imparting it

"Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?of the new life into which you are

"You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity perplex and pain me. I want an explanation."

"I was: I know that; and you hinted a while ago at something which had happened in my absence: nothing,

probably, of consequence; but, in short, it has disturbed you. Let me hear it. Mrs. Fairfax has said something,

perhaps? or you have overheard the servants talk? your sensitive selfrespect has been wounded?"

"No, sir." It struck twelveI waited till the timepiece had concluded its silver chime, and the clock its

"All day yesterday I was very busy, and very happy in my ceaseless bustle; for I am not, as you seem to

think, troubled by any haunting fears about the new sphere, et cetera: I think it a glorious thing to have the

hope of living with you, because I love you. No, sir, don't caress me nowlet me talk undisturbed.

Yesterday I trusted well in Providence, and believed that events were working together for your good and

mine: it was a fine day, if you recollectthe calmness of the air and sky forbade apprehensions respecting

your safety or comfort on your journey. I walked a little while on the pavement after tea, thinking of you; and

I beheld you in imagination so near me, I scarcely missed your actual presence. I thought of the life that lay

before meYOUR life, siran existence more expansive and stirring than my own: as much more so as the

depths of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows of its own strait channel. I wondered why

moralists call this world a dreary wilderness: for me it blossomed like a rose. Just at sunset, the air turned

cold and the sky cloudy: I went in, Sophie called me upstairs to look at my weddingdress, which they had

just brought; and under it in the box I found your presentthe veil which, in your princely extravagance, you

sent for from London: resolved, I suppose, since I would not have jewels, to cheat me into accepting

something as costly. I smiled as I unfolded it, and devised how I would tease you about your aristocratic

tastes, and your efforts to masque your plebeian bride in the attributes of a peeress. I though how I would

carry down to you the square of unembroidered blond I had myself prepared as a covering for my lowborn

head, and ask if that was not good enough for a woman who could bring her husband neither fortune, beauty,

nor connections. I saw plainly how you would look; and heard your impetuous republican answers, and your

haughty disavowal of any necessity on your part to augment your wealth, or elevate your standing, by

"How well you read me, you witch!" interposed Mr. Rochester: "but what did you find in the veil besides its

"No, no, sir; besides the delicacy and richness of the fabric, I found nothing save Fairfax Rochester's pride;

and that did not scare me, because I am used to the sight of the demon. But, sir, as it grew dark, the wind

rose: it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows nowwild and highbut 'with a sullen, moaning sound' far

more eerie. I wished you were at home. I came into this room, and the sight of the empty chair and fireless

hearth chilled me. For some time after I went to bed, I could not sleepa sense of anxious excitement

distressed me. The gale still rising, seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful undersound; whether in the

house or abroad I could not at first tell, but it recurred, doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made out it

must be some dog howling at a distance. I was glad when it ceased. On sleeping, I continued in dreams the

idea of a dark and gusty night. I continued also the wish to be with you, and experienced a strange, regretful

consciousness of some barrier dividing us. During all my first sleep, I was following the windings of an

unknown road; total obscurity environed me; rain pelted me; I was burdened with the charge of a little child:

a very small creature, too young and feeble to walk, and which shivered in my cold arms, and wailed

piteously in my ear. I thought, sir, that you were on the road a long way before me; and I strained every nerve

to overtake you, and made effort on effort to utter your name and entreat you to stop but my movements

were fettered, and my voice still died away inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew farther and farther every

"And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am close to you? Little nervous subject! Forget

visionary woe, and think only of real happiness! You say you love me, Janet: yesI will not forget that; and

you cannot deny it. THOSE words did not die inarticulate on your lips. I heard them clear and soft: a thought

too solemn perhaps, but sweet as music'I think it is a glorious thing to have the hope of living with you,

"Well," he said, after some minutes' silence, "it is strange; but that sentence has penetrated by breast

painfully. Why? I think because you said it with such an earnest, religious energy, and because your upward

gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and devotion: it is too much as if some spirit were near me.

Look wicked, Jane: as you know well how to look: coin one of your wild, shy, provoking smiles; tell me you

hate metease me, vex me; do anything but move me: I would rather be incensed than saddened."

"I will tease you and vex you to your heart's content, when I have finished my tale: but hear me to the end."

"I thought, Jane, you had told me all. I thought I had found the source of your melancholy in a dream."

I shook my head. "What! is there more? But I will not believe it to be anything important. I warn you of

The disquietude of his air, the somewhat apprehensive impatience of his manner, surprised me: but I

"I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, the retreat of bats and owls. I thought

that of all the stately front nothing remained but a shelllike wall, very high and very fragilelooking. I

wandered, on a moonlight night, through the grassgrown enclosure within: here I stumbled over a marble

hearth, and there over a fallen fragment of cornice. Wrapped up in a shawl, I still carried the unknown little

child: I might not lay it down anywhere, however tired were my armshowever much its weight impeded

my progress, I must retain it. I heard the gallop of a horse at a distance on the road; I was sure it was you; and

you were departing for many years and for a distant country. I climbed the thin wall with frantic perilous

haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top: the stones rolled from under my feet, the ivy branches I

grasped gave way, the child clung round my neck in terror, and almost strangled me; at last I gained the

summit. I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening every moment. The blast blew so strong I could

not stand. I sat down on the narrow ledge; I hushed the scared infant in my lap: you turned an angle of the

road: I bent forward to take a last look; the wall crumbled; I was shaken; the child rolled from my knee, I lost

"All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come. On waking, a gleam dazzled my eyes; I thoughtOh, it is

daylight! But I was mistaken; it was only candlelight. Sophie, I supposed, had come in. There was a light in

the dressingtable, and the door of the closet, where, before going to bed, I had hung my weddingdress and

veil, stood open; I heard a rustling there. I asked, 'Sophie, what are you doing?' No one answered; but a form

emerged from the closet; it took the light, held it aloft, and surveyed the garments pendent from the

portmanteau. 'Sophie! Sophie!' I again cried: and still it was silent. I had risen up in bed, I bent forward: first

surprise, then bewilderment, came over me; and then my blood crept cold through my veins. Mr. Rochester,

this was not Sophie, it was not Leah, it was not Mrs. Fairfax: it was notno, I was sure of it, and am stillit

"No, sir, I solemnly assure you to the contrary. The shape standing before me had never crossed my eyes

within the precincts of Thornfield Hall before; the height, the contour were new to me."

"It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back. I know not

what dress she had on: it was white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell."

"Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw

it over her own head, and turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage and features

"Fearful and ghastly to meoh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was a discoloured faceit was a savage

face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!"

"This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised

"Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on

"It drew aside the windowcurtain and looked out; perhaps it saw dawn approaching, for, taking the candle, it

retreated to the door. Just at my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon meshe thrust up her

candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my eyes. I was aware her lurid visage flamed over mine,

and I lost consciousness: for the second time in my lifeonly the second timeI became insensible from

"No one, sir, but the broad day. I rose, bathed my head and face in water, drank a long draught; felt that

though enfeebled I was not ill, and determined that to none but you would I impart this vision. Now, sir, tell

"The creature of an overstimulated brain; that is certain. I must be careful of you, my treasure: nerves like

"Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in fault; the thing was real: the transaction actually took place."

"And your previous dreams, were they real too? Is Thornfield Hall a ruin? Am I severed from you by

insuperable obstacles? Am I leaving you without a tearwithout a kisswithout a word?"

"Am I about to do it? Why, the day is already commenced which is to bind us indissolubly; and when we are

once united, there shall be no recurrence of these mental terrors: I guarantee that."

"Mental terrors, sir! I wish I could believe them to be only such: I wish it more now than ever; since even you

"But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and when I looked round the room to gather

courage and comfort from the cheerful aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, thereon the carpetI

saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis,the veil, torn from top to bottom in two halves!"

I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder; he hastily flung his arms round me. "Thank God!" he exclaimed, "that

if anything malignant did come near you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed. Oh, to think what

He drew his breath short, and strained me so close to him, I could scarcely pant. After some minutes' silence,

"Now, Janet, I'll explain to you all about it. It was half dream, half reality. A woman did, I doubt not, enter

your room: and that woman wasmust have beenGrace Poole. You call her a strange being yourself:

from all you know, you have reason so to call her what did she do to me? what to Mason? In a state

between sleeping and waking, you noticed her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious as you

were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own: the long dishevelled hair, the swelled

black face, the exaggerated stature, were figments of imagination; results of nightmare: the spiteful tearing of

the veil was real: and it is like her. I see you would ask why I keep such a woman in my house: when we have

been married a year and a day, I will tell you; but not now. Are you satisfied, Jane? Do you accept my

I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me the only possible one: satisfied I was not, but to please him I

endeavoured to appear so relieved, I certainly did feel; so I answered him with a contented smile. And

"Does not Sophie sleep with Adele in the nursery?" he asked, as I lit my candle.

"And there is room enough in Adele's little bed for you. You must share it with her tonight, Jane: it is no

wonder that the incident you have related should make you nervous, and I would rather you did not sleep

"And fasten the door securely on the inside. Wake Sophie when you go upstairs, under pretence of requesting

her to rouse you in good time tomorrow; for you must be dressed and have finished breakfast before eight.

And now, no more sombre thoughts: chase dull care away, Janet. Don't you hear to what soft whispers the

wind has fallen? and there is no more beating of rain against the windowpanes: look here" (he lifted up the

It was. Half heaven was pure and stainless: the clouds, now trooping before the wind, which had shifted to

the west, were filing off eastward in long, silvered columns. The moon shone peacefully.

"Well," said Mr. Rochester, gazing inquiringly into my eyes, "how is my Janet now?"

"And you will not dream of separation and sorrow tonight; but of happy love and blissful union."

This prediction was but half fulfilled: I did not indeed dream of sorrow, but as little did I dream of joy; for I

never slept at all. With little Adele in my arms, I watched the slumber of childhoodso tranquil, so

passionless, so innocentand waited for the coming day: all my life was awake and astir in my frame: and as

soon as the sun rose I rose too. I remember Adele clung to me as I left her: I remember I kissed her as I

loosened her little hands from my neck; and I cried over her with strange emotion, and quitted her because I

feared my sobs would break her still sound repose. She seemed the emblem of my past life; and he I was now

Sophie came at seven to dress me: she was very long indeed in accomplishing her task; so long that Mr.

Rochester, grown, I suppose, impatient of my delay, sent up to ask why I did not come. She was just

fastening my veil (the plain square of blond after all) to my hair with a brooch; I hurried from under her

"Stop!" she cried in French. "Look at yourself in the mirror: you have not taken one peep."

So I turned at the door: I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike my usual self that it seemed almost the

image of a stranger. "Jane!" called a voice, and I hastened down. I was received at the foot of the stairs by

"Lingerer!" he said, "my brain is on fire with impatience, and you tarry so long!"

He took me into the diningroom, surveyed me keenly all over, pronounced me "fair as a lily, and not only

the pride of his life, but the desire of his eyes," and then telling me he would give me but ten minutes to eat

some breakfast, he rang the bell. One of his lately hired servants, a footman, answered it.

"Go you to the church: see if Mr. Wood (the clergyman) and the clerk are there: return and tell me."

The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates; the footman soon returned.

"We shall not want it to go to church; but it must be ready the moment we return: all the boxes and luggage

I rose. There were no groomsmen, no bridesmaids, no relatives to wait for or marshal: none but Mr.

Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax stood in the hall as we passed. I would fain have spoken to her, but my hand

was held by a grasp of iron: I was hurried along by a stride I could hardly follow; and to look at Mr.

Rochester's face was to feel that not a second of delay would be tolerated for any purpose. I wonder what

other bridegroom ever looked as he didso bent up to a purpose, so grimly resolute: or who, under such

I know not whether the day was fair or foul; in descending the drive, I gazed neither on sky nor earth: my

heart was with my eyes; and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester's frame. I wanted to see the invisible

thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts

At the churchyard wicket he stopped: he discovered I was quite out of breath. "Am I cruel in my love?" he

And now I can recall the picture of the grey old house of God rising calm before me, of a rook wheeling

round the steeple, of a ruddy morning sky beyond. I remember something, too, of the green gravemounds;

and I have not forgotten, either, two figures of strangers straying amongst the low hillocks and reading the

mementoes graven on the few mossy headstones. I noticed them, because, as they saw us, they passed round

to the back of the church; and I doubted not they were going to enter by the sideaisle door and witness the

ceremony. By Mr. Rochester they were not observed; he was earnestly looking at my face from which the

blood had, I daresay, momentarily fled: for I felt my forehead dewy, and my cheeks and lips cold. When I

We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his white surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk

beside him. All was still: two shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had been correct: the

strangers had slipped in before us, and they now stood by the vault of the Rochesters, their backs towards us,

viewing through the rails the old timestained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the remains of

Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the civil wars, and of Elizabeth, his wife.

Our place was taken at the communion rails. Hearing a cautious step behind me, I glanced over my shoulder:

one of the strangersa gentleman, evidentlywas advancing up the chancel. The service began. The

explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then the clergyman came a step further

"I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all

hearts shall be disclosed), that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined

together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well assured that so many as are coupled together

otherwise than God's Word doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful."

He paused, as the custom is. When is the pause after that sentence ever broken by reply? Not, perhaps, once

in a hundred years. And the clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his book, and had held his breath but

for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was already stretched towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to

ask, "Wilt thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?"when a distinct and near voice said

The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did the same; Mr. Rochester moved

slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his head or

Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep but low intonation. Presently Mr. Wood said

"I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been asserted, and evidence of its truth or

"The ceremony is quite broken off," subjoined the voice behind us. "I am in a condition to prove my

Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid, making no movement but to possess

himself of my hand. What a hot and strong grasp he had! and how like quarried marble was his pale, firm,

massive front at this moment! How his eye shone, still watchful, and yet wild beneath!

Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. "What is the nature of the impediment?" he asked. "Perhaps it may be got

"Hardly," was the answer. "I have called it insuperable, and I speak advisedly."

The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued, uttering each word distinctly, calmly,

"It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr. Rochester has a wife now living."

My nerves vibrated to those lowspoken words as they had never vibrated to thundermy blood felt their

subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning. I looked at

Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His whole face was colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint.

He disavowed nothing: he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without speaking, without smiling, without

seeming to recognise in me a human being, he only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side.

"I would remind you of your lady's existence, sir, which the law recognises, if you do not."

"Favour me with an account of herwith her name, her parentage, her place of abode."

"Certainly." Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read out in a sort of official, nasal voice:

"'I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October A.D.(a date of fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax

Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in the county of , and of Ferndean Manor, in shire, England, was married to

my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a

Creole, atchurch, Spanish Town, Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be found in the register of that

"Thatif a genuine documentmay prove I have been married, but it does not prove that the woman

"I have a witness to the fact, whose testimony even you, sir, will scarcely controvert."

"I will produce him firsthe is on the spot. Mr. Mason, have the goodness to step forward."

Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced, too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver;

near to him as I was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through his frame. The second

stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the background, now drew near; a pale face looked over the solicitor's

shoulderyes, it was Mason himself. Mr. Rochester turned and glared at him. His eye, as I have often said,

was a black eye: it had now a tawny, nay, a bloody light in its gloom; and his face flushedolive cheek and

hueless forehead received a glow as from spreading, ascending heartfire: and he stirred, lifted his strong

armhe could have struck Mason, dashed him on the churchfloor, shocked by ruthless blow the breath

from his bodybut Mason shrank away, and cried faintly, "Good God!" Contempt fell cool on Mr.

Rochesterhis passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he only asked"What have YOU to say?"

"The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again demand, what have you to say?"

"Sirsir," interrupted the clergyman, "do not forget you are in a sacred place." Then addressing Mason, he

inquired gently, "Are you aware, sir, whether or not this gentleman's wife is still living?"

"She is now living at Thornfield Hall," said Mason, in more articulate tones: "I saw her there last April. I am

"At Thornfield Hall!" ejaculated the clergyman. "Impossible! I am an old resident in this neighbourhood, sir,

"No, by God! I took care that none should hear of itor of her under that name." He musedfor ten

"Enough! all shall bolt out at once, like the bullet from the barrel. Wood, close your book and take off your

surplice; John Green (to the clerk), leave the church: there will be no wedding today." The man obeyed.

Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: "Bigamy is an ugly word!I meant, however, to be a

bigamist; but fate has outmanoeuvred me, or Providence has checked me,perhaps the last. I am little better

than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell me, deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of

God, even to the quenchless fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen, my plan is broken up: what this lawyer

and his client say is true: I have been married, and the woman to whom I was married lives! You say you

never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood; but I daresay you have many a time inclined

your ear to gossip about the mysterious lunatic kept there under watch and ward. Some have whispered to

you that she is my bastard halfsister: some, my castoff mistress. I now inform you that she is my wife,

whom I married fifteen years ago,Bertha Mason by name; sister of this resolute personage, who is now,

with his quivering limbs and white cheeks, showing you what a stout heart men may bear. Cheer up,

Dick!never fear me!I'd almost as soon strike a woman as you. Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a

mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations? Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman

and a drunkard!as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before.

Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points. I had a charming partnerpure, wise, modest:

you can fancy I was a happy man. I went through rich scenes! Oh! my experience has been heavenly, if you

only knew it! But I owe you no further explanation. Briggs, Wood, Mason, I invite you all to come up to the

house and visit Mrs. Poole's patient, and MY WIFE! You shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into

espousing, and judge whether or not I had a right to break the compact, and seek sympathy with something at

least human. This girl," he continued, looking at me, "knew no more than you, Wood, of the disgusting

secret: she thought all was fair and legal and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union

with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and embruted partner! Come all of youfollow!"

Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came after. At the front door of the hall we found

"Take it back to the coachhouse, John," said Mr. Rochester coolly; "it will not be wanted today."

At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adele, Sophie, Leah, advanced to meet and greet us.

"To the rightaboutevery soul!" cried the master; "away with your congratulations! Who wants them? Not

He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, and still beckoning the gentlemen to follow him,

which they did. We mounted the first staircase, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the third storey: the low,

black door, opened by Mr. Rochester's masterkey, admitted us to the tapestried room, with its great bed and

He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door: this, too, he opened. In a room without a

window, there burnt a fire guarded by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a

chain. Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently cooking something in a saucepan. In the deep shade, at the

farther end of the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether beast or human being,

one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some

strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane,

"Goodmorrow, Mrs. Poole!" said Mr. Rochester. "How are you? and how is your charge today?"

"We're tolerable, sir, I thank you," replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob: "rather

A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report: the clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its

The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and gazed wildly at her visitors. I

"Keep out of the way," said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside: "she has no knife now, I suppose, and I'm on

"One never knows what she has, sir: she is so cunning: it is not in mortal discretion to fathom her craft."

"'Ware!" cried Grace. The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously. Mr. Rochester flung me behind him: the

lunatic sprang and grappled his throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled. She was a big

woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the

contestmore than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her with a

wellplanted blow; but he would not strike: he would only wrestle. At last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole

gave him a cord, and he pinioned them behind her: with more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a

chair. The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester

then turned to the spectators: he looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate.

"That is MY WIFE," said he. "Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am ever to knowsuch are the

endearments which are to solace my leisure hours! And THIS is what I wished to have" (laying his hand on

my shoulder): "this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the

gambols of a demon, I wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs, look at the

difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonderthis face with that maskthis form with

that bulk; then judge me, priest of the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge

We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a moment behind us, to give some further order to Grace Poole. The

"You, madam," said he, "are cleared from all blame: your uncle will be glad to hear itif, indeed, he should

"Mr. Mason does. Mr. Eyre has been the Funchal correspondent of his house for some years. When your

uncle received your letter intimating the contemplated union between yourself and Mr. Rochester, Mr.

Mason, who was staying at Madeira to recruit his health, on his way back to Jamaica, happened to be with

him. Mr. Eyre mentioned the intelligence; for he knew that my client here was acquainted with a gentleman

of the name of Rochester. Mr. Mason, astonished and distressed as you may suppose, revealed the real state

of matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to say, is now on a sick bed; from which, considering the nature of his

diseasedeclineand the stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will ever rise. He could not then hasten to

England himself, to extricate you from the snare into which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason to

lose no time in taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He referred him to me for assistance. I used all

despatch, and am thankful I was not too late: as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I not morally certain that

your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would advise you to accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it

is, I think you had better remain in England till you can hear further, either from or of Mr. Eyre. Have we

"No, nolet us be gone," was the anxious reply; and without waiting to take leave of Mr. Rochester, they

made their exit at the hall door. The clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of admonition or

I heard him go as I stood at the halfopen door of my own room, to which I had now withdrawn. The house

cleared, I shut myself in, fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceedednot to weep, not to

mourn, I was yet too calm for that, butmechanically to take off the wedding dress, and replace it by the

stuff gown I had worn yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt weak and tired. I leaned

my arms on a table, and my head dropped on them. And now I thought: till now I had only heard, seen,

movedfollowed up and down where I was led or dragged watched event rush on event, disclosure open

The morning had been a quiet morning enoughall except the brief scene with the lunatic: the transaction in

the church had not been noisy; there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no dispute, no defiance

or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words had been spoken, a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage

made; some stern, short questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers, explanations given, evidence adduced; an

open admission of the truth had been uttered by my master; then the living proof had been seen; the intruders

I was in my own room as usualjust myself, without obvious change: nothing had smitten me, or scathed

me, or maimed me. And yet where was the Jane Eyre of yesterday?where was her life?where were her

Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant womanalmost a bride, was a cold, solitary girl again: her life

was pale; her prospects were desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm

had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield

lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, today were pathless with untrodden snow;

and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and flagrant as groves between the tropics, now spread,

waste, wild, and white as pineforests in wintry Norway. My hopes were all deadstruck with a subtle

doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. I looked on my cherished wishes,

yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive. I looked at my

love: that feeling which was my master'swhich he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering

child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr. Rochester's armsit could

not derive warmth from his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blightedconfidence

destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been; for he was not what I had thought him. I would

not ascribe vice to him; I would not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless truth was gone from

his idea, and from his presence I must go: THAT I perceived well. Whenhowwhither, I could not yet

discern; but he himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real affection, it seemed, he could

not have for me; it had been only fitful passion: that was balked; he would want me no more. I should fear

even to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him. Oh, how blind had been my eyes! How weak my

My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round me, and reflection came in as

black and confused a flow. Selfabandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the

driedup bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise

I had no will, to flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only still throbbed lifelike

within mea remembrance of God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down

in my rayless mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was found to express them

It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent

my knees, nor moved my lipsit came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole

consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith deathstruck, swayed full and

mighty above me in one sullen mass. That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, "the waters came into my

soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me."

Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the western sun gilding the sign

But the answer my mind gave"Leave Thornfield at once"was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my

ears. I said I could not bear such words now. "That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part of my

woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a

horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot

But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own

resolution: I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for

me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her

dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths

"No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself

cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it."

I rose up suddenly, terrorstruck at the solitude which so ruthless a judge haunted,at the silence which so

awful a voice filled. My head swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from excitement and

inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a

strange pang, I now reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had been sent to ask how I

was, or to invite me to come down: not even little Adele had tapped at the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had

sought me. "Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes," I murmured, as I undrew the bolt and

passed out. I stumbled over an obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs were

feeble. I could not soon recover myself. I fell, but not on to the ground: an outstretched arm caught me. I

looked upI was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber threshold.

"You come out at last," he said. "Well, I have been waiting for you long, and listening: yet not one movement

have I heard, nor one sob: five minutes more of that deathlike hush, and I should have forced the lock like a

burglar. So you shun me?you shut yourself up and grieve alone! I would rather you had come and

upbraided me with vehemence. You are passionate. I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the

hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or

your drenched handkerchief. But I err: you have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but no

"Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitternothing poignant? Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a

passion? You sit quietly where I have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look."

"Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a

daughter, that ate of his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake slaughtered it

at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive

Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity

in his tone, such manly energy in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole look

and mienI forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only at my heart's core.

"You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?" ere long he inquired wistfully wondering, I suppose, at my continued

"I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water." He heaved a sort of shuddering sigh, and taking me in his

arms, carried me downstairs. At first I did not know to what room he had borne me; all was cloudy to my

glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving warmth of a fire; for, summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my

chamber. He put wine to my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate something he offered me, and was soon

myself. I was in the librarysitting in his chairhe was quite near. "If I could go out of life now, without

too sharp a pang, it would be well for me," I thought; "then I should not have to make the effort of cracking

my heartstrings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester's. I must leave him, it appears. I do not want to

I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before me, and looked at me attentively. Suddenly he

turned away, with an inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind; he walked fast

through the room and came back; he stooped towards me as if to kiss me; but I remembered caresses were

"What!How is this?" he exclaimed hastily. "Oh, I know! you won't kiss the husband of Bertha Mason?

"Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will answer for youBecause I have a wife

"If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must regard me as a plotting profligatea base

and low rake who has been simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare deliberately laid,

and strip you of honour and rob you of selfrespect. What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing in the

first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet

accustom yourself to accuse and revile me, and besides, the floodgates of tears are opened, and they would

rush out if you spoke much; and you have no desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene: you are

thinking how TO ACTTALKING you consider is of no use. I know you I am on my guard."

"Sir, I do not wish to act against you," I said; and my unsteady voice warned me to curtail my sentence.

"Not in your sense of the word, but in mine you are scheming to destroy me. You have as good as said that I

am a married manas a married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have refused to

kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to me: to live under this roof only as Adele's

governess; if ever I say a friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to me, you will

say,'That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must be ice and rock to him;' and ice and rock you will

I cleared and steadied my voice to reply: "All is changed about me, sir; I must change toothere is no doubt

of that; and to avoid fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections and associations, there

"Oh, Adele will go to schoolI have settled that already; nor do I mean to torment you with the hideous

associations and recollections of Thornfield Hallthis accursed placethis tent of Achanthis insolent

vault, offering the ghastliness of living death to the light of the open skythis narrow stone hell, with its one

real fiend, worse than a legion of such as we imagine. Jane, you shall not stay here, nor will I. I was wrong

ever to bring you to Thornfield Hall, knowing as I did how it was haunted. I charged them to conceal from

you, before I ever saw you, all knowledge of the curse of the place; merely because I feared Adele never

would have a governess to stay if she knew with what inmate she was housed, and my plans would not permit

me to remove the maniac elsewherethough I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even more retired and

hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of

the situation, in the heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement. Probably those damp

walls would soon have eased me of her charge: but to each villain his own vice; and mine is not a tendency to

"Concealing the madwoman's neighbourhood from you, however, was something like covering a child with

a cloak and laying it down near a upastree: that demon's vicinage is poisoned, and always was. But I'll shut

up Thornfield Hall: I'll nail up the front door and board the lower windows: I'll give Mrs. Poole two hundred

a year to live here with MY WIFE, as you term that fearful hag: Grace will do much for money, and she shall

have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to bear her company and be at hand to give her aid in the

paroxysms, when MY WIFE is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at night, to stab them, to

"Sir," I interrupted him, "you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady: you speak of her with hatewith

"Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don't know what you are talking about; you

misjudge me again: it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?"

"Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am

capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.

Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should

confine you, and not a strait waistcoatyour grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at

me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would

be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should

have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave

me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of

recognition for me.But why do I follow that train of ideas? I was talking of removing you from Thornfield.

All, you know, is prepared for prompt departure: tomorrow you shall go. I only ask you to endure one more

night under this roof, Jane; and then, farewell to its miseries and terrors for ever! I have a place to repair to,

which will be a secure sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from unwelcome intrusioneven from

"And take Adele with you, sir," I interrupted; "she will be a companion for you."

"What do you mean, Jane? I told you I would send Adele to school; and what do I want with a child for a

companion, and not my own child,a French dancer's bastard? Why do you importune me about her! I say,

"You spoke of a retirement, sir; and retirement and solitude are dull: too dull for you."

"Solitude! solitude!" he reiterated with irritation. "I see I must come to an explanation. I don't know what

sphynxlike expression is forming in your countenance. You are to share my solitude. Do you understand?"

I shook my head: it required a degree of courage, excited as he was becoming, even to risk that mute sign of

dissent. He had been walking fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly rooted to one spot. He

looked at me long and hard: I turned my eyes from him, fixed them on the fire, and tried to assume and

"Now for the hitch in Jane's character," he said at last, speaking more calmly than from his look I had

expected him to speak. "The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come

a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, and endless trouble! By God! I long to

"Jane! will you hear reason?" (he stooped and approached his lips to my ear); "because, if you won't, I'll try

violence." His voice was hoarse; his look that of a man who is just about to burst an insufferable bond and

plunge headlong into wild license. I saw that in another moment, and with one impetus of frenzy more, I

should be able to do nothing with him. The presentthe passing second of timewas all I had in which to

control and restrain hima movement of repulsion, flight, fear would have sealed my doom,and his. But I

was not afraid: not in the least. I felt an inward power; a sense of influence, which supported me. The crisis

was perilous; but not without its charm: such as the Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips over the rapid in his

canoe. I took hold of his clenched hand, loosened the contorted fingers, and said to him, soothingly

"Sit down; I'll talk to you as long as you like, and hear all you have to say, whether reasonable or

He sat down: but he did not get leave to speak directly. I had been struggling with tears for some time: I had

taken great pains to repress them, because I knew he would not like to see me weep. Now, however, I

considered it well to let them flow as freely and as long as they liked. If the flood annoyed him, so much the

Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed. I said I could not while he was in such a passion.

"But I am not angry, Jane: I only love you too well; and you had steeled your little pale face with such a

His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so I, in my turn, became calm. Now he made an effort to

rest his head on my shoulder, but I would not permit it. Then he would draw me to him: no.

"Jane! Jane!" he said, in such an accent of bitter sadness it thrilled along every nerve I had; "you don't love

me, then? It was only my station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued? Now that you think me

disqualified to become your husband, you recoil from my touch as if I were some toad or ape."

These words cut me: yet what could I do or I say? I ought probably to have done or said nothing; but I was so

tortured by a sense of remorse at thus hurting his feelings, I could not control the wish to drop balm where I

"I DO love you," I said, "more than ever: but I must not show or indulge the feeling: and this is the last time I

"The last time, Jane! What! do you think you can live with me, and see me daily, and yet, if you still love me,

"No, sir; that I am certain I could not; and therefore I see there is but one way: but you will be furious if I

"For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair which is somewhat dishevelled; and

"I must leave Adele and Thornfield. I must part with you for my whole life: I must begin a new existence

"Of course: I told you you should. I pass over the madness about parting from me. You mean you must

become a part of me. As to the new existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not married. You

shall be Mrs. Rochesterboth virtually and nominally. I shall keep only to you so long as you and I live.

You shall go to a place I have in the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the shores of the Mediterranean.

There you shall live a happy, and guarded, and most innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you into

errorto make you my mistress. Why did you shake your head? Jane, you must be reasonable, or in truth I

His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye blazed: still I dared to speak.

"Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you

desire, I should then be your mistress: to say otherwise is sophisticalis false."

"Jane, I am not a gentletempered manyou forget that: I am not longenduring; I am not cool and

dispassionate. Out of pity to me and yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and

He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking his cheek and lips, they were growing livid;

I was distressed on all hands. To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was cruel: to yield

was out of the question. I did what human beings do instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity

looked for aid to one higher than man: the words "God help me!" burst involuntarily from my lips.

"I am a fool!" cried Mr. Rochester suddenly. "I keep telling her I am not married, and do not explain to her

why. I forget she knows nothing of the character of that woman, or of the circumstances attending my

infernal union with her. Oh, I am certain Jane will agree with me in opinion, when she knows all that I know!

Just put your hand in mine, Janetthat I may have the evidence of touch as well as sight, to prove you are

near meand I will in a few words show you the real state of the case. Can you listen to me

"I ask only minutes. Jane, did you ever hear or know at I was not the eldest son of my house: that I had once a

"Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to keep the property together; he could not bear the idea of

dividing his estate and leaving me a fair portion: all, he resolved, should go to my brother, Rowland. Yet as

little could he endure that a son of his should be a poor man. I must be provided for by a wealthy marriage.

He sought me a partner betimes. Mr. Mason, a West India planter and merchant, was his old acquaintance. He

was certain his possessions were real and vast: he made inquiries. Mr. Mason, he found, had a son and

daughter; and he learned from him that he could and would give the latter a fortune of thirty thousand

pounds: that sufficed. When I left college, I was sent out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride already courted for

me. My father said nothing about her money; but he told me Miss Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for

her beauty: and this was no lie. I found her a fine woman, in the style of Blanche Ingram: tall, dark, and

majestic. Her family wished to secure me because I was of a good race; and so did she. They showed her to

me in parties, splendidly dressed. I seldom saw her alone, and had very little private conversation with her.

She flattered me, and lavishly displayed for my pleasure her charms and accomplishments. All the men in her

circle seemed to admire her and envy me. I was dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited; and being

ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries

of society, the prurience, the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission. Her

relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she allured me: a marriage was achieved almost before I

knew where I was. Oh, I have no respect for myself when I think of that act!an agony of inward contempt

masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not even know her. I was not sure of the existence of one

virtue in her nature: I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candour, nor refinement in her mind

or mannersand, I married her: gross, grovelling, moleeyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might

"My bride's mother I had never seen: I understood she was dead. The honeymoon over, I learned my mistake;

she was only mad, and shut up in a lunatic asylum. There was a younger brother, tooa complete dumb

idiot. The elder one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot hate, whilst I abhor all his kindred, because he

has some grains of affection in his feeble mind, shown in the continued interest he takes in his wretched

sister, and also in a doglike attachment he once bore me), will probably be in the same state one day. My

father and my brother Rowland knew all this; but they thought only of the thirty thousand pounds, and joined

"These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of concealment, I should have made them no

subject of reproach to my wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to

me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of being led to anything higher,

expanded to anything largerwhen I found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of

the day with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because whatever

topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecilewhen I

perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant would bear the continued

outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting

orderseven then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my

"Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details: some strong words shall express what I have to say. I

lived with that woman upstairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed: her character ripened

and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices sprang up fast and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty

could check them, and I would not use cruelty. What a pigmy intellect she had, and what giant propensities!

How fearful were the curses those propensities entailed on me! Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an

infamous mother, dragged me through all the hideous and degrading agonies which must attend a man bound

"My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four years my father died too. I was rich enough

nowyet poor to hideous indigence: a nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was associated

with mine, and called by the law and by society a part of me. And I could not rid myself of it by any legal

proceedings: for the doctors now discovered that MY WIFE was mad her excesses had prematurely

developed the germs of insanity. Jane, you don't like my narrative; you look almost sickshall I defer the

"Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of tribute, which one is justified in hurling back

in the teeth of those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous, selfish hearts; it is a hybrid,

egotistical pain at hearing of woes, crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But

that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole face is full at this momentwith which

your eyes are now almost overflowingwith which your heart is heavingwith which your hand is

trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of love: its anguish is the very natal pang of

the divine passion. I accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free adventmy arms wait to receive her."

"Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of selfrespect was all that intervened between me and

the gulf. In the eyes of the world, I was doubtless covered with grimy dishonour; but I resolved to be clean in

my own sightand to the last I repudiated the contamination of her crimes, and wrenched myself from

connection with her mental defects. Still, society associated my name and person with hers; I yet saw her and

heard her daily: something of her breath (faugh!) mixed with the air I breathed; and besides, I remembered I

had once been her husbandthat recollection was then, and is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover, I

knew that while she lived I could never be the husband of another and better wife; and, though five years my

senior (her family and her father had lied to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live as

long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind. Thus, at the age of twentysix, I was hopeless.

"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

sulphursteams 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 earthquakeblack clouds

were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannonballshe 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 demonhate, with such language!no professed harlot

ever had a fouler vocabulary than she: though two rooms off, I heard every wordthe thin partitions of the

"'This life,' said I at last, 'is hell: this is the airthose 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

"I said this whilst I knelt down at, and unlocked a trunk which contained a brace of loaded pistols: I mean 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 selfdestruction, 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 orangetrees of my wet garden, and amongst its drenched pomegranates and pineapples,

and while the refulgent dawn of the tropics kindled round meI reasoned thus, Janeand 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

bloodmy being longed for renewalmy soul thirsted for a pure draught. I saw hope reviveand felt

regeneration possible. From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the seabluer than the

"'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 longsuffering, 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

"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 unionhaving already begun to

experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the family character and constitution, seeing a

hideous future opening to meI 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

daughterinlaw. 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 thirdstorey room, of whose secret inner

cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast's dena 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 dayssometimes

weekswhich 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 nighttime. 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 willo'thewisp. Where did I go? I pursued wanderings as

wild as those of the Marchspirit. 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

"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

"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

"Whether you found any one you liked: whether you asked her to marry you; and what she said."

"I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I asked her to marry me: but what she said is yet

to be recorded in the book of Fate. For ten long years I roved about, living first in one capital, then another:

sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in Paris; occasionally in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with

plenty of money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own society: no circles were closed

against me. I sought my ideal of a woman amongst English ladies, French countesses, Italian signoras, and

German grafinnen. I could not find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, I thought I caught a glance, heard

a tone, beheld a form, which announced the realisation of my dream: but I was presently undeserved. You are

not to suppose that I desired perfection, either of mind or person. I longed only for what suited mefor the

antipodes of the Creole: and I longed vainly. Amongst them all I found not one whom, had I been ever so

free, Iwarned as I was of the risks, the horrors, the loathings of incongruous unionswould have asked to

marry me. Disappointment made me reckless. I tried dissipationnever debauchery: that I hated, and hate.

That was my Indian Messalina's attribute: rooted disgust at it and her restrained me much, even in pleasure.

Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it.

"Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of mistresses. The first I chose was Celine

Varensanother of those steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them. You already know

what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a

German, Clara; both considered singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks? Giacinta

was unprincipled and violent: I tired of her in three months. Clara was honest and quiet; but heavy, mindless,

and unimpressible: not one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to set her up in a good

line of business, and so get decently rid of her. But, Jane, I see by your face you are not forming a very

favourable opinion of me just now. You think me an unfeeling, looseprincipled rake: don't you?"

"I don't like you so well as I have done sometimes, indeed, sir. Did it not seem to you in the least wrong to

live in that way, first with one mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of course."

"It was with me; and I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion of existence: I should never like to return to

it. Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by

position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I

I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain inference, that if I were so far to forget

myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me, asunder any pretextwith any

justificationthrough any temptationto become the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard

me with the same feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not give utterance to this

conviction: it was enough to feel it. I impressed it on my heart, that it might remain there to serve me as aid in

"Now, Jane, why don't you say 'Well, sir?' I have not done. You are looking grave. You disapprove of me

still, I see. But let me come to the point. Last January, rid of all mistressesin a harsh, bitter frame of mind,

the result of a useless, roving, lonely life corroded with disappointment, sourly disposed against all men,

and especially against all womankind (for I began to regard the notion of an intellectual, faithful, loving

"On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield Hall. Abhorred spot! I expected no peaceno

pleasure there. On a stile in Hay Lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I passed it as negligently as I

did the pollard willow opposite to it: I had no presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning that

the arbitress of my lifemy genius for good or evilwaited there in humble guise. I did not know it, even

when, on the occasion of Mesrour's accident, it came up and gravely offered me help. Childish and slender

creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed to bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly;

but the thing would not go: it stood by me with strange perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort of

"When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something newa fresh sap and sensestole into my frame. It

was well I had learnt that this elf must return to methat it belonged to my house down below or I could

not have felt it pass away from under my hand, and seen it vanish behind the dim hedge, without singular

regret. I heard you come home that night, Jane, though probably you were not aware that I thought of you or

watched for you. The next day I observed youmyself unseenfor halfanhour, while you played with

Adele in the gallery. It was a snowy day, I recollect, and you could not go out of doors. I was in my room; the

door was ajar: I could both listen and watch. Adele claimed your outward attention for a while; yet I fancied

your thoughts were elsewhere: but you were very patient with her, my little Jane; you talked to her and

amused her a long time. When at last she left you, you lapsed at once into deep reverie: you betook yourself

slowly to pace the gallery. Now and then, in passing a casement, you glanced out at the thickfalling snow;

you listened to the sobbing wind, and again you paced gently on and dreamed. I think those day visions were

not dark: there was a pleasurable illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft excitement in your aspect,

which told of no bitter, bilious, hypochondriac brooding: your look revealed rather the sweet musings of

youth when its spirit follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up and on to an ideal heaven. The voice of

Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the hall, wakened you: and how curiously you smiled to and at yourself,

Janet! There was much sense in your smile: it was very shrewd, and seemed to make light of your own

abstraction. It seemed to say'My fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are absolutely

unreal. I have a rosy sky and a green flowery Eden in my brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my

feet a rough tract to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter.' You ran downstairs and

demanded of Mrs. Fairfax some occupation: the weekly house accounts to make up, or something of that sort,

"Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my presence. An unusualto mea

perfectly new character I suspected was yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better. You entered

the room with a look and air at once shy and independent: you were quaintly dressedmuch as you are now.

I made you talk: ere long I found you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were restricted by rule;

your air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and

a good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or blunder; yet when

addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing eye to your interlocutor's face: there was penetration and

power in each glance you gave; when plied by close questions, you found ready and round answers. Very

soon you seemed to get used to me: I believe you felt the existence of sympathy between you and your grim

and cross master, Jane; for it was astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquillised your

manner: snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear, annoyance, or displeasure at my moroseness; you

watched me, and now and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot describe. I was at

once content and stimulated with what I saw: I liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long

time, I treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely. I was an intellectual epicure, and wished to

prolong the gratification of making this novel and piquant acquaintance: besides, I was for a while troubled

with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its bloom would fadethe sweet charm of freshness

would leave it. I did not then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the radiant resemblance of

one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover, I wished to see whether you would seek me if I shunned

youbut you did not; you kept in the schoolroom as still as your own desk and easel; if by chance I met you,

you passed me as soon, and with as little token of recognition, as was consistent with respect. Your habitual

expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not despondent, for you were not sickly; but not

buoyant, for you had little hope, and no actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of me, or if you ever

"I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your glance, and genial in your manner, when you

conversed: I saw you had a social heart; it was the silent schoolroomit was the tedium of your lifethat

made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of being kind to you; kindness stirred emotion soon: your

face became soft in expression, your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a grateful

happy accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting with you, Jane, at this time: there was a curious hesitation in

your manner: you glanced at me with a slight trouble a hovering doubt: you did not know what my caprice

might be whether I was going to play the master and be stern, or the friend and be benignant. I was now

too fond of you often to simulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my hand out cordially, such bloom and

light and bliss rose to your young, wistful features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and there

"Don't talk any more of those days, sir," I interrupted, furtively dashing away some tears from my eyes; his

language was torture to me; for I knew what I must doand do soonand all these reminiscences, and these

"No, Jane," he returned: "what necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surerthe

"You see now how the case standsdo you not?" he continued. "After a youth and manhood passed half in

unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly loveI have

found you. You are my sympathymy better selfmy good angel. I am bound to you with a strong

attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to

you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure,

"It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you. To tell me that I had already a wife is

empty mockery: you know now that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you; but I

feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared early instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe

before hazarding confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to your nobleness and

magnanimity at first, as I do nowopened to you plainly my life of agonydescribed to you my hunger and

thirst after a higher and worthier existenceshown to you, not my RESOLUTION (that word is weak), but

my resistless BENT to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should

have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours. Janegive it me now."

I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals. Terrible moment: full of struggle,

blackness, burning! Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and

him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce love and idol. One drear word

"Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise'I will be yours, Mr. Rochester.'"

"Jane!" recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with grief, and turned me stonecold with

ominous terrorfor this still voice was the pant of a lion rising"Jane, do you mean to go one way in the

"Oh, Jane, this is bitter! Thisthis is wicked. It would not be wicked to love me."

A wild look raised his browscrossed his features: he rose; but he forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back

"One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are gone. All happiness will be torn away

with you. What then is left? For a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer me to some

corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do, Jane? Where turn for a companion and for some hope?"

"Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope to meet again there."

"Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on lust for a passionvice for an

"Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born to strive and

"You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I declared I could not change: you tell me to

my face I shall change soon. And what a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in your ideas, is

proved by your conduct! Is it better to drive a fellowcreature to despair than to transgress a mere human

law, no man being injured by the breach? for you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need

This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me

with crime in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. "Oh, comply!"

it said. "Think of his misery; think of his dangerlook at his state when left alone; remember his headlong

nature; consider the recklessness following on despairsoothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love

him and will be his. Who in the world cares for YOU? or who will be injured by what you do?"

Still indomitable was the reply"I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more

unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will

hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not madas I am now. Laws and principles are

not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in

mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might

break them, what would be their worth? They have a worthso I have always believed; and if I cannot

believe it now, it is because I am insanequite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating

faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour

I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so. His fury was wrought to the highest: he

must yield to it for a moment, whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and grasped my

waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance: physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as

stubble exposed to the draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it the

certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an interpreteroften an unconscious, but still a

truthful interpreterin the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I gave an involuntary

"Never," said he, as he ground his teeth, "never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed

she feels in my hand!" (And he shook me with the force of his hold.) "I could bend her with my finger and

thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the

resolute, wild, free thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than couragewith a stern triumph.

Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at itthe savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight

prison, my outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but the inmate would

escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay dwellingplace. And it is you, spiritwith

will and energy, and virtue and puritythat I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of yourself you could come

with soft flight and nestle against my heart, if you would: seized against your will, you will elude the grasp

like an essenceyou will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come!"

As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at me. The look was far worse to resist than

the frantic strain: only an idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled his fury; I

"You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep love, my wild woe, my frantic

What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to reiterate firmly, "I am going."

"Withdraw, then,I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish. Go up to your own room; think

He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. "Oh, Jane! my hopemy lovemy life!" broke in

I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked backwalked back as determinedly as I had retreated. I

knelt down by him; I turned his face from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; I smoothed his hair with my

"God bless you, my dear master!" I said. "God keep you from harm and wrongdirect you, solace

"Little Jane's love would have been my best reward," he answered; "without it, my heart is broken. But Jane

Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his eyes; erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but

"Farewell!" was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added, "Farewell for ever!"

That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me as soon as I lay down in bed. I was transported

in thought to the scenes of childhood: I dreamt I lay in the redroom at Gateshead; that the night was dark,

and my mind impressed with strange fears. The light that long ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in

this vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause in the centre of the obscured

ceiling. I lifted up my head to look: the roof resolved to clouds, high and dim; the gleam was such as the

moon imparts to vapours she is about to sever. I watched her come watched with the strangest anticipation;

as though some word of doom were to be written on her disk. She broke forth as never moon yet burst from

cloud: a hand first penetrated the sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a white human

form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit:

So I answered after I had waked from the trancelike dream. It was yet night, but July nights are short: soon

after midnight, dawn comes. "It cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfil," thought I. I rose: I

was dressed; for I had taken off nothing but my shoes. I knew where to find in my drawers some linen, a

locket, a ring. In seeking these articles, I encountered the beads of a pearl necklace Mr. Rochester had forced

me to accept a few days ago. I left that; it was not mine: it was the visionary bride's who had melted in air.

The other articles I made up in a parcel; my purse, containing twenty shillings (it was all I had), I put in my

pocket: I tied on my straw bonnet, pinned my shawl, took the parcel and my slippers, which I would not put

"Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!" I whispered, as I glided past her door. "Farewell, my darling Adele!" I said, as

I glanced towards the nursery. No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I had to deceive a

I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without a pause; but my heart momentarily stopping its beat

at that threshold, my foot was forced to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate was walking restlessly from

wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I listened. There was a heavena temporary heavenin

"Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till death," and a fount of rapture would spring

That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with impatience for day. He would send for me in

the morning; I should be gone. He would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself forsaken; his

love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow desperate. I thought of this too. My hand moved towards the

Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and I did it mechanically. I sought the key of

the sidedoor in the kitchen; I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the key and the lock. I got some

water, I got some bread: for perhaps I should have to walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late, must

not break down. All this I did without one sound. I opened the door, passed out, shut it softly. Dim dawn

glimmered in the yard. The great gates were closed and locked; but a wicket in one of them was only latched.

A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the contrary direction to Millcote; a road I had

never travelled, but often noticed, and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps. No reflection was to be

allowed now: not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given

either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet so deadly sadthat to read one line

of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank: something like the

I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes till after sunrise. I believe it was a lovely summer morning: I know my

shoes, which I had put on when I left the house, were soon wet with dew. But I looked neither to rising sun,

nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature. He who is taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks

not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and axeedge; of the disseverment of bone and

vein; of the grave gaping at the end: and I thought of drear flight and homeless wanderingand oh! with

agony I thought of what I left. I could not help it. I thought of him nowin his roomwatching the sunrise;

hoping I should soon come to say I would stay with him and be his. I longed to be his; I panted to return: it

was not too late; I could yet spare him the bitter pang of bereavement. As yet my flight, I was sure, was

undiscovered. I could go back and be his comforterhis pride; his redeemer from misery, perhaps from ruin.

Oh, that fear of his selfabandonmentfar worse than my abandonmenthow it goaded me! It was a

barbed arrowhead in my breast; it tore me when I tried to extract it; it sickened me when remembrance

thrust it farther in. Birds began singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful to their mates; birds were

emblems of love. What was I? In the midst of my pain of heart and frantic effort of principle, I abhorred

myself. I had no solace from selfapprobation: none even from selfrespect. I had injuredwounded left

my master. I was hateful in my own eyes. Still I could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must have led me

on. As to my own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one and stifled the other. I was weeping

wildly as I walked along my solitary way: fast, fast I went like one delirious. A weakness, beginning

inwardly, extending to the limbs, seized me, and I fell: I lay on the ground some minutes, pressing my face to

the wet turf. I had some fearor hopethat here I should die: but I was soon up; crawling forwards on my

hands and knees, and then again raised to my feetas eager and as determined as ever to reach the road.

When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge; and while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a

coach come on. I stood up and lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going: the driver named a

place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had no connections. I asked for what sum he would

take me there; he said thirty shillings; I answered I had but twenty; well, he would try to make it do. He

further gave me leave to get into the inside, as the vehicle was empty: I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on

Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding,

heartwrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so

agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what

Two days are passed. It is a summer evening; the coachman has set me down at a place called Whitcross; he

could take me no farther for the sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in the world.

The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone. At this moment I discover that I forgot to take my parcel out

of the pocket of the coach, where I had placed it for safety; there it remains, there it must remain; and now, I

Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar set up where four roads meet: whitewashed, I

suppose, to be more obvious at a distance and in darkness. Four arms spring from its summit: the nearest

town to which these point is, according to the inscription, distant ten miles; the farthest, above twenty. From

the wellknown names of these towns I learn in what county I have lighted; a northmidland shire, dusk with

moorland, ridged with mountain: this I see. There are great moors behind and on each hand of me; there are

waves of mountains far beyond that deep valley at my feet. The population here must be thin, and I see no

passengers on these roads: they stretch out east, west, north, and southwhite, broad, lonely; they are all cut

in the moor, and the heather grows deep and wild to their very verge. Yet a chance traveller might pass by;

and I wish no eye to see me now: strangers would wonder what I am doing, lingering here at the signpost,

evidently objectless and lost. I might be questioned: I could give no answer but what would sound incredible

and excite suspicion. Not a tie holds me to human society at this momentnot a charm or hope calls me

where my fellowcreatures arenone that saw me would have a kind thought or a good wish for me. I have

no relative but the universal mother, Nature: I will seek her breast and ask repose.

I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I waded

kneedeep in its dark growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a mossblackened granite crag in a

hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of moor were about me; the crag protected my head: the sky

Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague dread that wild cattle might be near, or that

some sportsman or poacher might discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it was

the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I imagined it a man. Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however,

and calmed by the deep silence that reigned as evening declined at nightfall, I took confidence. As yet I had

not thought; I had only listened, watched, dreaded; now I regained the faculty of reflection.

What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I could do nothing and go nowhere!when

a long way must yet be measured by my weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human

habitationwhen cold charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging: reluctant sympathy

importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before my tale could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved!

I touched the heath, it was dry, and yet warm with the beat of the summer day. I looked at the sky; it was

pure: a kindly star twinkled just above the chasm ridge. The dew fell, but with propitious softness; no breeze

whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from

man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. Tonight, at least, I

would be her guest, as I was her child: my mother would lodge me without money and without price. I had

one morsel of bread yet: the remnant of a roll I had bought in a town we passed through at noon with a stray

pennymy last coin. I saw ripe bilberries gleaming here and there, like jet beads in the heath: I gathered a

handful and ate them with the bread. My hunger, sharp before, was, if not satisfied, appeased by this hermit's

Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet were buried in it; rising high on each side,

it left only a narrow space for the nightair to invade. I folded my shawl double, and spread it over me for a

coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow. Thus lodged, I was not, at leastat the commencement of the

My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it. It plained of its gaping wounds, its inward

bleeding, its riven chords. It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter pity; it

demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird with both wings broken, it still quivered its

Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night was come, and her planets were risen: a safe,

still night: too serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel

His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded

nightsky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence,

His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with teardimmed eyes,

saw the mighty Milkyway. Remembering what it waswhat countless systems there swept space like a soft

trace of lightI felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made:

convinced I grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned my prayer to

thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe; he was God's, and

by God would he be guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long in sleep forgot sorrow.

But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the little birds had left their nests; long after bees

had come in the sweet prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried when the long

morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth and skyI got up, and I looked round me.

What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I

could live in it and on it. I saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet bilberries. I

would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent

shelter here. But I was a human being, and had a human being's wants: I must not linger where there was

nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked back at the bed I had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished but

thisthat my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary

frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace

with the soil of this wilderness. Life, however, was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and pains,

and responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the

Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now fervent and high. By no other

circumstance had I will to decide my choice. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done

enough, and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost overpowered memight relax this forced

action, and, sitting down on a stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged heart and

I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the romantic hills, whose changes and aspect I had

ceased to note an hour ago, I saw a hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right hand was full of

pasturefields, and cornfields, and wood; and a glittering stream ran zigzag through the varied shades of

green, the mellowing grain, the sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea. Recalled by the rumbling of

wheels to the road before me, I saw a heavilyladen waggon labouring up the hill, and not far beyond were

two cows and their drover. Human life and human labour were near. I must struggle on: strive to live and

About two o'clock p.m. I entered the village. At the bottom of its one street there was a little shop with some

cakes of bread in the window. I coveted a cake of bread. With that refreshment I could perhaps regain a

degree of energy: without it, it would be difficult to proceed. The wish to have some strength and some

vigour returned to me as soon as I was amongst my fellowbeings. I felt it would be degrading to faint with

hunger on the causeway of a hamlet. Had I nothing about me I could offer in exchange for one of these rolls?

I considered. I had a small silk handkerchief tied round my throat; I had my gloves. I could hardly tell how

men and women in extremities of destitution proceeded. I did not know whether either of these articles would

I entered the shop: a woman was there. Seeing a respectablydressed person, a lady as she supposed, she came

forward with civility. How could she serve me? I was seized with shame: my tongue would not utter the

request I had prepared. I dared not offer her the halfworn gloves, the creased handkerchief: besides, I felt it

would be absurd. I only begged permission to sit down a moment, as I was tired. Disappointed in the

expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to my request. She pointed to a seat; I sank into it. I felt sorely

urged to weep; but conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation would be, I restrained it. Soon I asked

I reflected. I was driven to the point now. I was brought face to face with Necessity. I stood in the position of

one without a resource, without a friend, without a coin. I must do something. What? I must apply

"Some were farm labourers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver's needlefactory, and at the foundry."

"I knawn't," was the answer. "Some does one thing, and some another. Poor folk mun get on as they can."

She seemed to be tired of my questions: and, indeed, what claim had I to importune her? A neighbour or two

I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to the right hand and to the left; but I could discover

no pretext, nor see an inducement to enter any. I rambled round the hamlet, going sometimes to a little

distance and returning again, for an hour or more. Much exhausted, and suffering greatly now for want of

food, I turned aside into a lane and sat down under the hedge. Ere many minutes had elapsed, I was again on

my feet, however, and again searching somethinga resource, or at least an informant. A pretty little house

stood at the top of the lane, with a garden before it, exquisitely neat and brilliantly blooming. I stopped at it.

What business had I to approach the white door or touch the glittering knocker? In what way could it possibly

be the interest of the inhabitants of that dwelling to serve me? Yet I drew near and knocked. A mildlooking,

cleanlyattired young woman opened the door. In such a voice as might be expected from a hopeless heart

and fainting framea voice wretchedly low and falteringI asked if a servant was wanted here?

"Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind?" I continued. "I am a stranger, without

But it was not her business to think for me, or to seek a place for me: besides, in her eyes, how doubtful must

have appeared my character, position, tale. She shook her head, she "was sorry she could give me no

information," and the white door closed, quite gently and civilly: but it shut me out. If she had held it open a

little longer, I believe I should have begged a piece of bread; for I was now brought low.

I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides, no prospect of aid was visible. I should have

longed rather to deviate to a wood I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick shade to offer inviting shelter;

but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with nature's cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where

there was a chance of food. Solitude would be no solituderest no rest while the vulture, hunger, thus

I drew near houses; I left them, and came back again, and again I wandered away: always repelled by the

consciousness of having no claim to askno right to expect interest in my isolated lot. Meantime, the

afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a lost and starving dog. In crossing a field, I saw the

church spire before me: I hastened towards it. Near the churchyard, and in the middle of a garden, stood a

wellbuilt though small house, which I had no doubt was the parsonage. I remembered that strangers who

arrive at a place where they have no friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply to the clergyman

for introduction and aid. It is the clergyman's function to helpat least with advice those who wished to

help themselves. I seemed to have something like a right to seek counsel here. Renewing then my courage,

and gathering my feeble remains of strength, I pushed on. I reached the house, and knocked at the

"Not so farhappen three mile. He had been called away by the sudden death of his father: he was at Marsh

"Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper;" and of her, reader, I could not bear to ask the

relief for want of which I was sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away.

Once more I took off my handkerchiefonce more I thought of the cakes of bread in the little shop. Oh, for

but a crust! for but one mouthful to allay the pang of famine! Instinctively I turned my face again to the

village; I found the shop again, and I went in; and though others were there besides the woman I ventured the

She looked at me with evident suspicion: "Nay, she never sold stuff i' that way."

Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused. "How could she tell where I had got the

Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say there is enjoyment in looking back to painful

experience past; but at this day I can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral

degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt

on. I blamed none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not be

helped: an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a welldressed beggar inevitably so. To be

sure, what I begged was employment; but whose business was it to provide me with employment? Not,

certainly, that of persons who saw me then for the first time, and who knew nothing about my character. And

as to the woman who would not take my handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the

offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let me condense now. I am sick of the subject.

A little before dark I passed a farmhouse, at the open door of which the farmer was sitting, eating his supper

"Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry." He cast on me a glance of surprise; but without

answering, he cut a thick slice from his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think I was a beggar, but

only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a fancy to his brown loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his

I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in the wood I have before alluded to. But my

night was wretched, my rest broken: the ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders passed near me

more than once, and I had again and again to change my quarters; no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended

me. Towards morning it rained; the whole of the following day was wet. Do not ask me, reader, to give a

minute account of that day; as before, I sought work; as before, I was repulsed; as before, I starved; but once

did food pass my lips. At the door of a cottage I saw a little girl about to throw a mess of cold porridge into a

She stared at me. "Mother!" she exclaimed, "there is a woman wants me to give her these porridge."

"Well lass," replied a voice within, "give it her if she's a beggar. T pig doesn't want it."

The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hand, and I devoured it ravenously.

As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridlepath, which I had been pursuing an hour or more.

"My strength is quite failing me," I said in a soliloquy. "I feel I cannot go much farther. Shall I be an outcast

again this night? While the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched ground? I fear I cannot

do otherwise: for who will receive me? But it will be very dreadful, with this feeling of hunger, faintness,

chill, and this sense of desolationthis total prostration of hope. In all likelihood, though, I should die before

morning. And why cannot I reconcile myself to the prospect of death? Why do I struggle to retain a valueless

life? Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester is living: and then, to die of want and cold is a fate to which

nature cannot submit passively. Oh, Providence! sustain me a little longer! Aid!direct me!"

My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape. I saw I had strayed far from the village: it was

quite out of sight. The very cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I had, by crossways and bypaths,

once more drawn near the tract of moorland; and now, only a few fields, almost as wild and unproductive as

the heath from which they were scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and the dusky hill.

"Well, I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a frequented road," I reflected. "And far better that

crows and ravensif any ravens there be in these regionsshould pick my flesh from my bones, than that

To the hill, then, I turned. I reached it. It remained now only to find a hollow where I could lie down, and feel

at least hidden, if not secure. But all the surface of the waste looked level. It showed no variation but of tint:

green, where rush and moss overgrew the marshes; black, where the dry soil bore only heath. Dark as it was

getting, I could still see these changes, though but as mere alternations of light and shade; for colour had

My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the mooredge, vanishing amidst the wildest scenery,

when at one dim point, far in among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up. "That is an ignis fatuus,"

was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish. It burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither

receding nor advancing. "Is it, then, a bonfire just kindled?" I questioned. I watched to see whether it would

spread: but no; as it did not diminish, so it did not enlarge. "It may be a candle in a house," I then

conjectured; "but if so, I can never reach it. It is much too far away: and were it within a yard of me, what

And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the ground. I lay still a while: the nightwind swept

over the hill and over me, and died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting me afresh to the skin.

Could I but have stiffened to the still frost the friendly numbness of deathit might have pelted on; I

should not have felt it; but my yet living flesh shuddered at its chilling influence. I rose ere long.

The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain. I tried to walk again: I dragged my

exhausted limbs slowly towards it. It led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would have been

impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even now, in the height of summer. Here I fell twice; but

as often I rose and rallied my faculties. This light was my forlorn hope: I must gain it.

Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor. I approached it; it was a road or a track: it led

straight up to the light, which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a clump of treesfirs, apparently,

from what I could distinguish of the character of their forms and foliage through the gloom. My star vanished

as I drew near: some obstacle had intervened between me and it. I put out my hand to feel the dark mass

before me: I discriminated the rough stones of a low wallabove it, something like palisades, and within, a

high and prickly hedge. I groped on. Again a whitish object gleamed before me: it was a gatea wicket; it

moved on its hinges as I touched it. On each side stood a sable bushholly or yew.

Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house rose to view, black, low, and rather long;

but the guiding light shone nowhere. All was obscurity. Were the inmates retired to rest? I feared it must be

so. In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot out the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of

a very small latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller by the growth of ivy or some

other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered thick over the portion of the house wall in which it was set. The

aperture was so screened and narrow, that curtain or shutter had been deemed unnecessary; and when I

stooped down and put aside the spray of foliage shooting over it, I could see all within. I could see clearly a

room with a sanded floor, clean scoured; a dresser of walnut, with pewter plates ranged in rows, reflecting the

redness and radiance of a glowing peatfire. I could see a clock, a white deal table, some chairs. The candle,

whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on the table; and by its light an elderly woman, somewhat

roughlooking, but scrupulously clean, like all about her, was knitting a stocking.

I noticed these objects cursorily onlyin them there was nothing extraordinary. A group of more interest

appeared near the hearth, sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it. Two young, graceful

womenladies in every pointsat, one in a low rockingchair, the other on a lower stool; both wore deep

mourning of crape and bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair necks and faces: a large old

pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of one girlin the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat.

A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who were they? They could not be the

daughters of the elderly person at the table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy and

cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet, as I gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every

lineament. I cannot call them handsomethey were too pale and grave for the word: as they each bent over a

book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A stand between them supported a second candle and two

great volumes, to which they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the smaller books they

held in their hands, like people consulting a dictionary to aid them in the task of translation. This scene was

as silent as if all the figures had been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture: so hushed was it, I could

hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock tick in its obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish

the clickclick of the woman's knittingneedles. When, therefore, a voice broke the strange stillness at last, it

"Listen, Diana," said one of the absorbed students; "Franz and old Daniel are together in the nighttime, and

Franz is telling a dream from which he has awakened in terrorlisten!" And in a low voice she read

something, of which not one word was intelligible to me; for it was in an unknown tongueneither French

"That is strong," she said, when she had finished: "I relish it." The other girl, who had lifted her head to listen

to her sister, repeated, while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read. At a later day, I knew the

language and the book; therefore, I will here quote the line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a

"'Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.' Good! good!" she exclaimed, while her dark and

deep eye sparkled. "There you have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line is worth a

hundred pages of fustian. 'Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem

"Is there ony country where they talk i' that way?" asked the old woman, looking up from her knitting.

"Yes, Hannaha far larger country than England, where they talk in no other way."

"Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t' one t'other: and if either o' ye went there, ye could

"We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all for we are not as clever as you think us,

Hannah. We don't speak German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us."

"We mean to teach it some timeor at least the elements, as they say; and then we shall get more money

"Mortally: after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language with no master but a lexicon."

"It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come

"Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a little gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains

The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage: soon I heard her stir a fire in an

"Ah, childer!" said she, "it fair troubles me to go into yond' room now: it looks so lonesome wi' the chair

"But he is in a better place," continued Hannah: "we shouldn't wish him here again. And then, nobody need to

"He hadn't time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father. He had been a bit ailing like the day before,

but naught to signify; and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o' ye to be sent for, he fair laughed

at him. He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his head the next daythat is, a fortnight sin'and he

went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a'most stark when your brother went into t' chamber and fand him.

Ah, childer! that's t' last o' t' old stockfor ye and Mr. St. John is like of different soart to them 'at's gone; for

all your mother wor mich i' your way, and a'most as booklearned. She wor the pictur' o' ye, Mary: Diana is

I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for such I now concluded her to be) saw the

difference. Both were fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of distinction and

intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker than the other, and there was a difference in their style

of wearing it; Mary's pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana's duskier tresses covered her

"Ye'll want your supper, I am sure," observed Hannah; "and so will Mr. St. John when he comes in."

And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed about to withdraw to the parlour. Till

this moment, I had been so intent on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited in me so

keen an interest, I had halfforgotten my own wretched position: now it recurred to me. More desolate, more

desperate than ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible did it appear to touch the inmates of this

house with concern on my behalf; to make them believe in the truth of my wants and woesto induce them

to vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As I groped out the door, and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last

"What do you want?" she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she surveyed me by the light of the candle she

"I want a night's shelter in an outhouse or anywhere, and a morsel of bread to eat."

Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face. "I'll give you a piece of bread," she said, after

"No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about now; it looks very ill."

"Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you don't do wrong, that's all. Here is a penny;

"A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther. Don't shut the door: oh, don't, for God's

"Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn't make such a noise. Move off."

"Not you. I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring you about folk's houses at this time o' night. If

you've any followers housebreakers or such likeanywhere near, you may tell them we are not by

ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and guns." Here the honest but inflexible servant

This was the climax. A pang of exquisite sufferinga throe of true despairrent and heaved my heart.

Worn out, indeed, I was; not another step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned I wrung my

handsI wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death! Oh, this last hour, approaching in such horror!

Alas, this isolationthis banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude

"I can but die," I said, "and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His will in silence."

These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my misery into my heart, I made an effort

"All men must die," said a voice quite close at hand; "but all are not condemned to meet a lingering and

"Who or what speaks?" I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and incapable now of deriving from any

occurrence a hope of aid. A form was nearwhat form, the pitchdark night and my enfeebled vision

prevented me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock, the newcomer appealed to the door.

"Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is! Come inyour sisters are quite uneasy

about you, and I believe there are bad folks about. There has been a beggarwomanI declare she is not

"Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done your duty in excluding, now let me do

mine in admitting her. I was near, and listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar caseI must at

With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that clean, bright kitchenon the very

hearthtrembling, sickening; conscious of an aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weatherbeaten.

The two ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were all gazing at me.

And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I still possessed my senses, though just now I

"Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some. But she is worn to nothing. How very thin, and

Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me and the fire as she bent over me) broke

some bread, dipped it in milk, and put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in it, and I

felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In her simple words, too, the same balmlike emotion spoke: "Try to

"Yestry," repeated Mary gently; and Mary's hand removed my sodden bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted

"Not too much at firstrestrain her," said the brother; "she has had enough." And he withdrew the cup of

I felt I could speak, and I answered"My name is Jane Elliott." Anxious as ever to avoid discovery, I had

Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and once was brought face to face with its

owners, I felt no longer outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put off the

mendicantto resume my natural manner and character. I began once more to know myself; and when Mr.

St. John demanded an accountwhich at present I was far too weak to renderI said after a brief pause

"Nothing," I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers. Diana took the word

"Do you mean," she asked, "that we have now given you what aid you require? and that we may dismiss you

I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance, instinct both with power and goodness. I took

sudden courage. Answering her compassionate gate with a smile, I said"I will trust you. If I were a

masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not turn me from your hearth tonight: as it is, I really have

no fear. Do with me and for me as you like; but excuse me from much discoursemy breath is shortI feel

"Hannah," said Mr. St. John, at last, "let her sit there at present, and ask her no questions; in ten minutes

more, give her the remainder of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into the parlour and talk the

They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returnedI could not tell which. A kind of pleasant stupor was

stealing over me as I sat by the genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah. Ere long,

with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry

bed received me. I thanked Godexperienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful joyand

The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is very dim in my mind. I can recall some

sensations felt in that interval; but few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew I was in a small

room and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to have grown; I lay on it motionless as a stone; and to have

torn me from it would have been almost to kill me. I took no note of the lapse of timeof the change from

morning to noon, from noon to evening. I observed when any one entered or left the apartment: I could even

tell who they were; I could understand what was said when the speaker stood near to me; but I could not

answer; to open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible. Hannah, the servant, was my most

frequent visitor. Her coming disturbed me. I had a feeling that she wished me away: that she did not

understand me or my circumstances; that she was prejudiced against me. Diana and Mary appeared in the

chamber once or twice a day. They would whisper sentences of this sort at my bedside

"Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the morning had she been left out all night. I

"She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of speaking; her accent was quite pure; and

"She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like it; and when in good health and animated,

Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the hospitality they had extended to me, or of

Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of lethargy was the result of reaction from

excessive and protracted fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he was sure, would

manage best, left to herself. He said every nerve had been overstrained in some way, and the whole system

must sleep torpid a while. There was no disease. He imagined my recovery would be rapid enough when once

commenced. These opinions he delivered in a few words, in a quiet, low voice; and added, after a pause, in

the tone of a man little accustomed to expansive comment, "Rather an unusual physiognomy; certainly, not

"Far otherwise," responded Diana. "To speak truth, St. John, my heart rather warms to the poor little soul. I

"That is hardly likely," was the reply. "You will find she is some young lady who has had a misunderstanding

with her friends, and has probably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in restoring her to them,

if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines of force in her face which make me sceptical of her tractability." He

stood considering me some minutes; then added, "She looks sensible, but not at all handsome."

"Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of beauty are quite wanting in those

On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move, rise in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought

me some gruel and dry toast, about, as I supposed, the dinnerhour. I had eaten with relish: the food was

goodvoid of the feverish flavour which had hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed. When she left me, I

felt comparatively strong and revived: ere long satiety of repose and desire for action stirred me. I wished to

rise; but what could I put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept on the ground and

fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed to appear before my benefactors so clad. I was spared the humiliation.

On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My black silk frock hung against the wall.

The traces of the bog were removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was quite decent. My

very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered presentable. There were the means of washing in the

room, and a comb and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and resting every five minutes, I

succeeded in dressing myself. My clothes hung loose on me; for I was much wasted, but I covered

deficiencies with a shawl, and once more, clean and respectable lookingno speck of the dirt, no trace of the

disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to degrade me, leftI crept down a stone staircase with the aid of

the banisters, to a narrow low passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen.

It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a generous fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it

is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised

by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the

first: latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in tidy and welldressed, she even

"What, you have got up!" she said. "You are better, then. You may sit you down in my chair on the

She pointed to the rockingchair: I took it. She bustled about, examining me every now and then with the

corner of her eye. Turning to me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly

I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of the question, and that I had indeed

appeared as a beggar to her, I answered quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness

"You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar. I am no beggar; any more than yourself or your young ladies."

After a pause she said, "I dunnut understand that: you've like no house, nor no brass, I guess?"

"The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money) does not make a beggar in your sense of

"I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again. What are you going to do with these gooseberries?"

She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over my dress, "lest," as she said, "I should

"Ye've not been used to sarvant's wark, I see by your hands," she remarked. "Happen ye've been a

"No, you are wrong. And now, never mind what I have been: don't trouble your head further about me; but

"Nay; he doesn't live here: he is only staying a while. When he is at home, he is in his own parish at Morton."

I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage, when I had asked to see the clergyman.

"Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather, and gurt (great) grandfather afore him."

"That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I will say so much for you, though you have

She again regarded me with a surprised stare. "I believe," she said, "I was quite mista'en in my thoughts of

"And though," I continued, rather severely, "you wished to turn me from the door, on a night when you

"Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o' th' childer nor of mysel: poor things! They've

"But I do think hardly of you," I said; "and I'll tell you whynot so much because you refused to give me

shelter, or regarded me as an impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I had no

'brass' and no house. Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a

"No more I ought," said she: "Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I see I wor wrangbut I've clear a different

She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier smile illumined her rough face, and from

Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit, and she made the paste for the pies, she

proceeded to give me sundry details about her deceased master and mistress, and "the childer," as she called

Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a gentleman, and of as ancient a family as could be

found. Marsh End had belonged to the Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she affirmed, "aboon two

hundred year oldfor all it looked but a small, humble place, naught to compare wi' Mr. Oliver's grand hall

down i' Morton Vale. But she could remember Bill Oliver's father a journeyman needlemaker; and th' Rivers

wor gentry i' th' owd days o' th' Henrys, as onybody might see by looking into th' registers i' Morton Church

vestry." Still, she allowed, "the owd maister was like other folknaught mich out o' t' common way: stark

mad o' shooting, and farming, and sich like." The mistress was different. She was a great reader, and studied

a deal; and the "bairns" had taken after her. There was nothing like them in these parts, nor ever had been;

they had liked learning, all three, almost from the time they could speak; and they had always been "of a mak'

of their own." Mr. St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a parson; and the girls, as soon as

they left school, would seek places as governesses: for they had told her their father had some years ago lost a

great deal of money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt; and as he was now not rich enough to give

them fortunes, they must provide for themselves. They had lived very little at home for a long while, and

were only come now to stay a few weeks on account of their father's death; but they did so like Marsh End

and Morton, and all these moors and hills about. They had been in London, and many other grand towns; but

they always said there was no place like home; and then they were so agreeable with each other never fell

out nor "threaped." She did not know where there was such a family for being united.

Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two ladies and their brother were now.

They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they entered by the kitchen door. Mr. St. John,

when he saw me, merely bowed and passed through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few words, kindly

and calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be able to come down; Diana took my

"You should have waited for my leave to descend," she said. "You still look very paleand so thin! Poor

Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove. She possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to

encounter. Her whole face seemed to me fill of charm. Mary's countenance was equally intelligenther

features equally pretty; but her expression was more reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant.

Diana looked and spoke with a certain authority: she had a will, evidently. It was my nature to feel pleasure

in yielding to an authority supported like hers, and to bend, where my conscience and selfrespect permitted,

"And what business have you here?" she continued. "It is not your place. Mary and I sit in the kitchen

sometimes, because at home we like to be free, even to licensebut you are a visitor, and must go into the

"To be sure," added her sister. "Come, you must be obedient." And still holding my hand she made me rise,

"Sit there," she said, placing me on the sofa, "while we take our things off and get the tea ready; it is another

privilege we exercise in our little moorland hometo prepare our own meals when we are so inclined, or

She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I

The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet comfortable, because clean and neat. The

oldfashioned chairs were very bright, and the walnutwood table was like a lookingglass. A few strange,

antique portraits of the men and women of other days decorated the stained walls; a cupboard with glass

doors contained some books and an ancient set of china. There was no superfluous ornament in the

roomnot one modern piece of furniture, save a brace of workboxes and a lady's desk in rosewood, which

stood on a sidetable: everythingincluding the carpet and curtainslooked at once well worn and well

Mr. St. Johnsitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on the walls, keeping his eyes fixed on the page he

perused, and his lips mutely sealedwas easy enough to examine. Had he been a statue instead of a man, he

could not have been easier. He was young perhaps from twentyeight to thirtytall, slender; his face

riveted the eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight, classic nose; quite an Athenian

mouth and chin. It is seldom, indeed, an English face comes so near the antique models as did his. He might

well be a little shocked at the irregularity of my lineaments, his own being so harmonious. His eyes were

large and blue, with brown lashes; his high forehead, colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by

This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it describes scarcely impressed one with the idea

of a gentle, a yielding, an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as he now sat, there was

something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either

restless, or hard, or eager. He did not speak to me one word, nor even direct to me one glance, till his sisters

returned. Diana, as she passed in and out, in the course of preparing tea, brought me a little cake, baked on

"Eat that now," she said: "you must be hungry. Hannah says you have had nothing but some gruel since

I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr. Rivers now closed his book, approached the

table, and, as he took a seat, fixed his blue pictoriallooking eyes full on me. There was an unceremonious

directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his gaze now, which told that intention, and not diffidence,

"I am, sir." It is my wayit always was my way, by instinctever to meet the brief with brevity, the direct

"It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for the last three days: there would have been

danger in yielding to the cravings of your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though still not immoderately."

"I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir," was my very clumsilycontrived, unpolished answer.

"No," he said coolly: "when you have indicated to us the residence of your friends, we can write to them, and

"That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being absolutely without home and friends."

The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was no suspicion in their glances: there was more of

curiosity. I speak particularly of the young ladies. St. John's eyes, though clear enough in a literal sense, in a

figurative one were difficult to fathom. He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people's

thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of keenness and reserve was considerably

"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you are completely isolated from every connection?"

"I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I possess to admittance under any roof in

Here I saw his glance directed to my hands, which were folded on the table before me. I wondered what he

Diana laughed. "Why, she can't he above seventeen or eighteen years old, St. John," said she.

I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating recollections were awakened by the allusion to

marriage. They all saw the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me by turning their

eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but the colder and sterner brother continued to gaze, till the

"You are too inquisitive, St. John," murmured Mary in a low voice; but he leaned over the table and required

"The name of the place where, and of the person with whom I lived, is my secret," I replied concisely.

"Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both from St. John and every other questioner,"

"Yet if I know nothing about you or your history, I cannot help you," he said. "And you need help, do you

"I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true philanthropist will put me in the way of getting work which I

can do, and the remuneration for which will keep me, if but in the barest necessaries of life."

"I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to aid you to the utmost of my power in a

purpose so honest. First, then, tell me what you have been accustomed to do, and what you CAN do."

I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the beverage; as much so as a giant with wine: it

gave new tone to my unstrung nerves, and enabled me to address this penetrating young judge steadily.

"Mr. Rivers," I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he looked at me, openly and without diffidence,

"you and your sisters have done me a great servicethe greatest man can do his fellowbeing; you have

rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from death. This benefit conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my

gratitude, and a claim, to a certain extent, on my confidence. I will tell you as much of the history of the

wanderer you have harboured, as I can tell without compromising my own peace of mindmy own security,

"I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman. My parents died before I could know them. I was brought up a

dependant; educated in a charitable institution. I will even tell you the name of the establishment, where I

passed six years as a pupil, and two as a teacherLowood Orphan Asylum, shire: you will have heard of it,

"I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess. I obtained a good situation, and was happy.

This place I was obliged to leave four days before I came here. The reason of my departure I cannot and

ought not to explain: it would be useless, dangerous, and would sound incredible. No blame attached to me: I

am as free from culpability as any one of you three. Miserable I am, and must be for a time; for the

catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a paradise was of a strange and direful nature. I

observed but two points in planning my departurespeed, secrecy: to secure these, I had to leave behind me

everything I possessed except a small parcel; which, in my hurry and trouble of mind, I forgot to take out of

the coach that brought me to Whitcross. To this neighbourhood, then, I came, quite destitute. I slept two

nights in the open air, and wandered about two days without crossing a threshold: but twice in that space of

time did I taste food; and it was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and despair almost to the last gasp, that

you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to perish of want at your door, and took me under the shelter of your roof. I

know all your sisters have done for me sincefor I have not been insensible during my seeming torporand

I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt as to your evangelical charity."

"Don't make her talk any more now, St. John," said Diana, as I paused; "she is evidently not yet fit for

I gave an involuntary half start at hearing the alias: I had forgotten my new name. Mr. Rivers, whom nothing

"I did say so; and it is the name by which I think it expedient to be called at present, but it is not my real

"No: I fear discovery above all things; and whatever disclosure would lead to it, I avoid."

"You are quite right, I am sure," said Diana. "Now do, brother, let her be at peace a while."

But when St. John had mused a few moments he recommenced as imperturbably and with as much acumen as

"You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitalityyou would wish, I see, to dispense as soon as

may be with my sisters' compassion, and, above all, with my CHARITY (I am quite sensible of the

distinction drawn, nor do I resent itit is just): you desire to be independent of us?"

"I do: I have already said so. Show me how to work, or how to seek work: that is all I now ask; then let me

go, if it be but to the meanest cottage; but till then, allow me to stay here: I dread another essay of the horrors

"Indeed you SHALL stay here," said Diana, putting her white hand on my head. "You SHALL," repeated

"My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you," said Mr. St. John, "as they would have a pleasure in

keeping and cherishing a halffrozen bird, some wintry wind might have driven through their casement. I feel

more inclination to put you in the way of keeping yourself, and shall endeavour to do so; but observe, my

sphere is narrow. I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must be of the humblest sort. And

if you are inclined to despise the day of small things, seek some more efficient succour than such as I can

"She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she can do," answered Diana for me; "and you

know, St. John, she has no choice of helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people as you."

"I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plainworkwoman; I will be a servant, a nursegirl, if I can be no better,"

"Right," said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. "If such is your spirit, I promise to aid you, in my own time and

He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea. I soon withdrew, for I had talked as

The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them. In a few days I had so far recovered

my health that I could sit up all day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana and Mary in all their

occupations; converse with them as much as they wished, and aid them when and where they would allow

me. There was a reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first timethe

pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles.

I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced.

They loved their sequestered home. I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its latticed

casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firsall grown aslant under the stress of mountain

winds; its garden, dark with yew and hollyand where no flowers but of the hardiest species would

bloomfound a charm both potent and permanent. They clung to the purple moors behind and around their

dwellingto the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridlepath leading from their gate descended, and

which wound between fernbanks first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasturefields that ever

bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little

mossyfaced lambs: they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment. I could

comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth. I saw the fascination of the locality. I felt the

consecration of its loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweepon the wild colouring

communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by heathbell, by flowersprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and

mellow granite crag. These details were just to me what they were to themso many pure and sweet sources

of pleasure. The strong blast and the soft breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and

sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in these regions, the same attraction as for

Indoors we agreed equally well. They were both more accomplished and better read than I was; but with

eagerness I followed in the path of knowledge they had trodden before me. I devoured the books they lent

me: then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening what I had perused during the day.

If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana. Physically, she far excelled me: she was

handsome; she was vigorous. In her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty of flow, such as

excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension. I could talk a while when the evening commenced,

but the first gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana's feet, to rest my head on

her knee, and listen alternately to her and Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but

touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I liked to learn of her: I saw the part of instructress pleased and

suited her; that of scholar pleased and suited me no less. Our natures dovetailed: mutual affectionof the

strongest kindwas the result. They discovered I could draw: their pencils and colourboxes were

immediately at my service. My skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised and charmed them. Mary

would sit and watch me by the hour together: then she would take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous

pupil she made. Thus occupied, and mutually entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks like days.

As to Mr. St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and rapidly between me and his sisters did not

extend to him. One reason of the distance yet observed between us was, that he was comparatively seldom at

home: a large proportion of his time appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the scattered

No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions: rain or fair, he would, when his hours of

morning study were over, take his hat, and, followed by his father's old pointer, Carlo, go out on his mission

of love or dutyI scarcely know in which light he regarded it. Sometimes, when the day was very

unfavourable, his sisters would expostulate. He would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than

"And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks, what preparation

Diana and Mary's general answer to this question was a sigh, and some minutes of apparently mournful

But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved,

an abstracted, and even of a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his life and

habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content, which should bet he reward of

every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist. Often, of an evening, when he sat at the window, his desk

and papers before him, he would cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and deliver himself up to

I know not what course of thought; but that it was perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent flash

I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight it was to his sisters. He expressed once,

and but once in my hearing, a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affection for the

dark roof and hoary walls he called his home; but there was more of gloom than pleasure in the tone and

words in which the sentiment was manifested; and never did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their

soothing silencenever seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights they could yield.

Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an opportunity of gauging his mind. I first got an

idea of its calibre when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton. I wish I could describe that sermon:

but it is past my power. I cannot even render faithfully the effect it produced on me.

It began calmand indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, it was calm to the end: an earnestly

felt, yet strictly restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous language. This

grew to forcecompressed, condensed, controlled. The heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power

of the preacher: neither were softened. Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory

gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrineselection, predestination, reprobationwere frequent;

and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom. When he had done, instead

of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it

seemed to meI know not whether equally so to othersthat the eloquence to which I had been listening

had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of disappointmentwhere moved troubling impulses of

insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John Rivers purelived, conscientious,

zealous as he washad not yet found that peace of God which passeth all understanding: he had no more

found it, I thought, than had I with my concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost

elysiumregrets to which I have latterly avoided referring, but which possessed me and tyrannised over me

Meantime a month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor House, and return to the far different

life and scene which awaited them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, southofEngland city, where

each held a situation in families by whose wealthy and haughty members they were regarded only as humble

dependants, and who neither knew nor sought out their innate excellences, and appreciated only their

acquired accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of their cook or the taste of their waitingwoman. Mr.

St. John had said nothing to me yet about the employment he had promised to obtain for me; yet it became

urgent that I should have a vocation of some kind. One morning, being left alone with him a few minutes in

the parlour, I ventured to approach the windowrecess which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a

kind of studyand I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what words to frame my

inquiryfor it is at all times difficult to break the ice of reserve glassing over such natures as hiswhen he

"Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer myself to undertake?"

"I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you seemed both useful and happy hereas

my sisters had evidently become attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure I deemed it

inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their approaching departure from Marsh End should

"Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton: Hannah will accompany me; and this old

I waited a few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject first broached: but he seemed to have

entered another train of reflection: his look denoted abstraction from me and my business. I was obliged to

recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious interest to me.

"What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers? I hope this delay will not have increased the difficulty

"Oh, no; since it is in employment which depends only on me to give, and you to accept."

He again paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue. I grew impatient: a restless movement or two, and an

eager and exacting glance fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as words could

"You need be in no hurry to hear," he said: "let me frankly tell you, I have nothing eligible or profitable to

suggest. Before I explain, recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped you, it must be as the

blind man would help the lame. I am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father's debts, all the

patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind, and the patch of

moorish soil, with the yewtrees and hollybushes in front. I am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of the

three sole descendants of the race, two earn the dependant's crust among strangers, and the third considers

himself an alien from his native countrynot only for life, but in death. Yes, and deems, and is bound to

deem, himself honoured by the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation from fleshly ties

shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the Head of that churchmilitant of whose humblest members he is

St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a quiet, deep voice; with an unflushed cheek,

"And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service of poverty and obscurity. YOU may

even think it degrading for I see now your habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes lean

to the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst the educated; but I consider that no service degrades

which can better our race. I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian labourer's

task of tillage is appointed himthe scantier the meed his toil bringsthe higher the honour. His, under

such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of the Gospel were the

He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to read my face, as if its features and lines

were characters on a page. The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his succeeding

"I believe you will accept the post I offer you," said he, "and hold it for a while: not permanently, though: any

more than I could permanently keep the narrow and narrowingthe tranquil, hidden office of English

country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a

"I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,how trivial how cramping. I shall not stay long at

Morton, now that my father is dead, and that I am my own master. I shall leave the place probably in the

course of a twelvemonth; but while I do stay, I will exert myself to the utmost for its improvement. Morton,

when I came to it two years ago, had no school: the children of the poor were excluded from every hope of

progress. I established one for boys: I mean now to open a second school for girls. I have hired a building for

the purpose, with a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress's house. Her salary will be thirty

pounds a year: her house is already furnished, very simply, but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss

Oliver; the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parishMr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needlefactory

and ironfoundry in the valley. The same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the

workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own house

and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in person. Will you be

He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection

of the offer: not knowing all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell in what light

the lot would appear to me. In truth it was humblebut then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it

was ploddingbut then, compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent; and the fear

of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron: it was not ignoblenot unworthynot mentally

"But you comprehend me?" he said. "It is a village school: your scholars will be only poor girlscottagers'

childrenat the best, farmers' daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will be all you will

have to teach. What will you do with your accomplishments? What, with the largest portion of your mind

He now smiled: and not a bitter or a sad smile, but one well pleased and deeply gratified.

He rose and walked through the room. Standing still, he again looked at me. He shook his head.

"I read it in your eye; it is not of that description which promises the maintenance of an even tenor in life."

He started at the word "ambitious." He repeated, "No. What made you think of ambition? Who is ambitious?

"I was going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have misunderstood the word, and been displeased.

I mean, that human affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I am sure you cannot long

be content to pass your leisure in solitude, and to devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly

void of stimulus: any more than I can be content," he added, with emphasis, "to live here buried in morass,

pent in with mountainsmy nature, that God gave me, contravened; my faculties, heavenbestowed,

paralysedmade useless. You hear now how I contradict myself. I, who preached contentment with a

humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers of water in God's serviceI, His

ordained minister, almost rave in my restlessness. Well, propensities and principles must be reconciled by

He left the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than in the whole previous month: yet still he

Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached for leaving their brother and their

home. They both tried to appear as usual; bat the sorrow they had to struggle against was one that could not

be entirely conquered or concealed. Diana intimated that this would be a different parting from any they had

ever yet known. It would probably, as far as St. John was concerned, be a parting for years: it might be a

"He will sacrifice all to his longframed resolves," she said: "natural affection and feelings more potent still.

St. John looks quiet, Jane; but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would think him gentle, yet in some things

he is inexorable as death; and the worst of it is, my conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him from

his severe decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment blame him for it. It is right, noble, Christian: yet it

breaks my heart!" And the tears gushed to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head low over her work.

"We are now without father: we shall soon be without home and brother," she murmured,

At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by fate purposely to prove the truth of the

adage, that "misfortunes never come singly," and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip between

Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the tidings appeared in their eyes rather momentous

She riveted a searching gaze on her brother's face. "And what then?" she demanded, in a low voice.

"What then, Die?" he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of feature. "What then? Whynothing.

He threw the letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed it to Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and

returned it to her brother. All three looked at each other, and all three smileda dreary, pensive smile

"Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what MIGHT HAVE BEEN," said Mr. Rivers, "and

"Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries," she said, "and think us hardhearted beings not to be more

moved at the death of so near a relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him. He was my

mother's brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago. It was by his advice that my father risked most of his

property in the speculation that ruined him. Mutual recrimination passed between them: they parted in anger,

and were never reconciled. My uncle engaged afterwards in more prosperous undertakings: it appears he

realised a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He was never married, and had no near kindred but ourselves

and one other person, not more closely related than we. My father always cherished the idea that he would

atone for his error by leaving his possessions to us; that letter informs us that he has bequeathed every penny

to the other relation, with the exception of thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary

Rivers, for the purchase of three mourning rings. He had a right, of course, to do as he pleased: and yet a

momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the receipt of such news. Mary and I would have esteemed

ourselves rich with a thousand pounds each; and to St. John such a sum would have been valuable, for the

This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further reference made to it by either Mr. Rivers or

his sisters. The next day I left Marsh End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it for distant B.

In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage: and so the old grange was abandoned.

My home, then, when I at last find a home,is a cottage; a little room with whitewashed walls and a sanded

floor, containing four painted chairs and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three plates and dishes, and

a set of teathings in delf. Above, a chamber of the same dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead and

chest of drawers; small, yet too large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe: though the kindness of my gentle

and generous friends has increased that, by a modest stock of such things as are necessary.

It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am

sitting alone on the hearth. This morning, the village school opened. I had twenty scholars. But three of the

number can read: none write or cipher. Several knit, and a few sew a little. They speak with the broadest

accent of the district. At present, they and I have a difficulty in understanding each other's language. Some of

them are unmannered, rough, intractable, as well as ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to learn, and

evince a disposition that pleases me. I must not forget that these coarselyclad little peasants are of flesh and

blood as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement,

intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the bestborn. My duty will be to

develop these germs: surely I shall find some happiness in discharging that office. Much enjoyment I do not

expect in the life opening before me: yet it will, doubtless, if I regulate my mind, and exert my powers as I

Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this

morning and afternoon? Not to deceive myself, I must replyNo: I felt desolate to a degree. I feltyes,

idiot that I amI felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step which sank instead of raising me in the scale of

social existence. I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of all I heard and saw

round me. But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong

that is a great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them. Tomorrow, I trust, I shall get the better of them

partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, they will be quite subdued. In a few months, it is possible, the

happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the better in my scholars may substitute gratification for

Meantime, let me ask myself one questionWhich is better?To have surrendered to temptation; listened

to passion; made no painful effortno struggle;but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on

the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been

now living in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my timefor he wouldoh, yes,

he would have loved me well for a while. He DID love meno one will ever love me so again. I shall never

more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and gracefor never to any one else shall I seem to

possess these charms. He was fond and proud of meit is what no man besides will ever be.But where am

I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's

paradise at Marseillesfevered with delusive bliss one hour suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse

and shame the next or to be a villageschoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the

Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane

promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the

Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my door, and looked at the sunset of the

harvestday, and at the quiet fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a mile from

While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself ere long weepingand why? For

the doom which had reft me from adhesion to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate

grief and fatal furyconsequences of my departurewhich might now, perhaps, be dragging him from the

path of right, too far to leave hope of ultimate restoration thither. At this thought, I turned my face aside from

the lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of MortonI say LONELY, for in that bend of it visible to me there

was no building apparent save the church and the parsonage, halfhid in trees, and, quite at the extremity, the

roof of Vale Hall, where the rich Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived. I hid my eyes, and leant my head against

the stone frame of my door; but soon a slight noise near the wicket which shut in my tiny garden from the

meadow beyond it made me look up. A dogold Carlo, Mr. Rivers' pointer, as I saw in a momentwas

pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John himself leant upon it with folded arms; his brow knit, his gaze,

"No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters left for you. I think it contains a

I approached to take it: a welcome gift it was. He examined my face, I thought, with austerity, as I came near:

"Oh, no! On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my scholars very well."

"But perhaps your accommodationsyour cottageyour furniturehave disappointed your expectations?

"My cottage is clean and weatherproof; my furniture sufficient and commodious. All I see has made me

thankful, not despondent. I am not absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a carpet, a

sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had nothingI was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I

have acquaintance, a home, a business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of my friends; the

"But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind you is dark and empty."

"I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less to grow impatient under one of

"Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate, your good sense will tell you that it is too

soon yet to yield to the vacillating fears of Lot's wife. What you had left before I saw you, of course I do not

know; but I counsel you to resist firmly every temptation which would incline you to look back: pursue your

"It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I

know from experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our

energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot getwhen our will strains after a path we may not

followwe need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another

nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to tasteand perhaps purer; and to hew

out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if

"A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had made a mistake in entering the

ministry: its uniform duties wearied me to death. I burnt for the more active life of the world for the more

exciting toils of a literary careerfor the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a

priest: yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power,

beat under my curate's surplice. I considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die.

After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped existence all at once spread

out to a plain without boundsmy powers heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread

their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and

strength, courage and eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, were all needed: for

"A missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind changed; the fetters dissolved and

dropped from every faculty, leaving nothing of bondage but its galling sorenesswhich time only can heal.

My father, indeed, imposed the determination, but since his death, I have not a legitimate obstacle to contend

with; some affairs settled, a successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of the feelings broken

through or cut asundera last conflict with human weakness, in which I know I shall overcome, because I

He said this, in his peculiar, subdued, yet emphatic voice; looking, when he had ceased speaking, not at me,

but at the setting sun, at which I looked too. Both he and I had our backs towards the path leading up the field

to the wicket. We had heard no step on that grassgrown track; the water running in the vale was the one

lulling sound of the hour and scene; we might well then start when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell,

"Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is quicker to recognise his friends than

you are, sir; he pricked his ears and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have your

It was true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those musical accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a

cloud over his head, he stood yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in which the speaker had

surprised himhis arm resting on the gate, his face directed towards the west. He turned at last, with

measured deliberation. A vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side. There appeared, within three feet of

him, a form clad in pure whitea youthful, graceful form: full, yet fine in contour; and when, after bending

to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and threw back a long veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of

perfect beauty. Perfect beauty is a strong expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as sweet features as

ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as ever her humid gales and

vapoury skies generated and screened, justified, in this instance, the term. No charm was wanting, no defect

was perceptible; the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and coloured as we see them

in lovely pictures, large, and dark, and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so

soft a fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the white smooth forehead, which adds

such repose to the livelier beauties of tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh too,

ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth without flaw; the small dimpled chin; the

ornament of rich, plenteous tressesall advantages, in short, which, combined, realise the ideal of beauty,

were fully hers. I wondered, as I looked at this fair creature: I admired her with my whole heart. Nature had

surely formed her in a partial mood; and, forgetting her usual stinted stepmother dole of gifts, had endowed

What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally asked myself that question as I saw him turn

to her and look at her; and, as naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance. He had already

withdrawn his eye from the Peri, and was looking at a humble tuft of daisies which grew by the wicket.

"A lovely evening, but late for you to be out alone," he said, as he crushed the snowy heads of the closed

"Oh, I only came home from S" (she mentioned the name of a large town some twenty miles distant) "this

afternoon. Papa told me you had opened your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my

bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her: this is she?" pointing to me.

"Do you think you shall like Morton?" she asked of me, with a direct and naive simplicity of tone and

"You have indeed. She is teachable and handy." (This then, I thought, is Miss Oliver, the heiress; favoured, it

seems, in the gifts of fortune, as well as in those of nature! What happy combination of the planets presided

"I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes," she added. "It will be a change for me to visit you now

and then; and I like a change. Mr. Rivers, I have been SO gay during my stay at S. Last night, or rather this

morning, I was dancing till two o'clock. The th regiment are stationed there since the riots; and the officers

are the most agreeable men in the world: they put all our young knifegrinders and scissor merchants to

It seemed to me that Mr. St. John's under lip protruded, and his upper lip curled a moment. His mouth

certainly looked a good deal compressed, and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the

laughing girl gave him this information. He lifted his gaze, too, from the daisies, and turned it on her. An

unsmiling, a searching, a meaning gaze it was. She answered it with a second laugh, and laughter well

As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo. "Poor Carlo loves me," said she. "HE is not

stern and distant to his friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent."

As she patted the dog's head, bending with native grace before his young and austere master, I saw a glow

rise to that master's face. I saw his solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless emotion.

Flushed and kindled thus, he looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she for a woman. His chest heaved once,

as if his large heart, weary of despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and made a vigorous

bound for the attainment of liberty. But he curbed it, I think, as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed. He

"Papa says you never come to see us now," continued Miss Oliver, looking up. "You are quite a stranger at

Vale Hall. He is alone this evening, and not very well: will you return with me and visit him?"

"Not a seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour when papa most wants company: when the

works are closed and he has no business to occupy him. Now, Mr. Rivers, DO come. Why are you so very

shy, and so very sombre?" She filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of her own.

"I forgot!" she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if shocked at herself. "I am so giddy and

thoughtless! DO excuse me. It had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for

joining in my chatter. Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor House is shut up, and you are so lonely. I am

Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew the effort it cost him thus to refuse.

"Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay any longer: the dew begins to fall. Good

She held out her hand. He just touched it. "Good evening!" he repeated, in a voice low and hollow as an echo.

"Are you well?" she asked. Well might she put the question: his face was blanched as her gown.

"Quite well," he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She went one way; he another. She turned

twice to gaze after him as she tripped fairylike down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, never turned at

This spectacle of another's suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts from exclusive meditation on my own.

Diana Rivers had designated her brother "inexorable as death." She had not exaggerated.

I continued the labours of the villageschool as actively and faithfully as I could. It was truly hard work at

first. Some time elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature. Wholly

untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they seemed to me hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike: but I

soon found I was mistaken. There was a difference amongst them as amongst the educated; and when I got to

know them, and they me, this difference rapidly developed itself. Their amazement at me, my language, my

rules, and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavylooking, gaping rustics wake up into

sharpwitted girls enough. Many showed themselves obliging, and amiable too; and I discovered amongst

them not a few examples of natural politeness, and innate selfrespect, as well as of excellent capacity, that

won both my goodwill and my admiration. These soon took a pleasure in doing their work well, in keeping

their persons neat, in learning their tasks regularly, in acquiring quiet and orderly manners. The rapidity of

their progress, in some instances, was even surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it: besides, I

began personally to like some of the best girls; and they liked me. I had amongst my scholars several farmers'

daughters: young women grown, almost. These could already read, write, and sew; and to them I taught the

elements of grammar, geography, history, and the finer kinds of needlework. I found estimable characters

amongst themcharacters desirous of information and disposed for improvementwith whom I passed

many a pleasant evening hour in their own homes. Their parents then (the farmer and his wife) loaded me

with attentions. There was an enjoyment in accepting their simple kindness, and in repaying it by a

considerationa scrupulous regard to their feelingsto which they were not, perhaps, at all times

accustomed, and which both charmed and benefited them; because, while it elevated them in their own eyes,

I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went out, I heard on all sides cordial salutations,

and was welcomed with friendly smiles. To live amidst general regard, though it be but the regard of working

people, is like "sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet;" serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At

this period of my life, my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than sank with dejection: and yet,

reader, to tell you all, in the midst of this calm, this useful existenceafter a day passed in honourable

exertion amongst my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading contentedly aloneI used to rush into

strange dreams at night: dreams manycoloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormydreams

where, amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again

and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of being in his arms, hearing

his voice, meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by himthe hope of

passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled

where I was, and how situated. Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and then the

still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the burst of passion. By nine o'clock the next

morning I was punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady duties of the day.

Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call at the school was generally made in the

course of her morning ride. She would canter up to the door on her pony, followed by a mounted livery

servant. Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her purple habit, with her Amazon's cap of black

velvet placed gracefully above the long curls that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders, can scarcely

be imagined: and it was thus she would enter the rustic building, and glide through the dazzled ranks of the

village children. She generally came at the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving his daily catechising

lesson. Keenly, I fear, did the eye of the visitress pierce the young pastor's heart. A sort of instinct seemed to

warn him of her entrance, even when he did not see it; and when he was looking quite away from the door, if

she appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marbleseeming features, though they refused to relax,

changed indescribably, and in their very quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervour, stronger than

Of course, she knew her power: indeed, he did not, because he could not, conceal it from her. In spite of his

Christian stoicism, when she went up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even fondly in his

face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn. He seemed to say, with his sad and resolute look, if he did not

say it with his lips, "I love you, and I know you prefer me. It is not despair of success that keeps me dumb. If

I offered my heart, I believe you would accept it. But that heart is already laid on a sacred altar: the fire is

And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would soften her radiant vivacity; she

would withdraw her hand hastily from his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic

and so martyrlike. St. John, no doubt, would have given the world to follow, recall, retain her, when she

thus left him; but he would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of her love, one

hope of the true, eternal Paradise. Besides, he could not bind all that he had in his naturethe rover, the

aspirant, the poet, the priestin the limits of a single passion. He could nothe would notrenounce his

wild field of mission warfare for the parlours and the peace of Vale Hall. I learnt so much from himself in an

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 goodhumoured; vain

(she could not help it, when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness), but not affected;

liberalhanded; 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 Adele; except that, for a child

whom we have watched over and taught, a closer affection is engendered than we can give an equally

She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr. Rivers, only, certainly, she allowed, "not

onetenth 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 naturae, she affirmed, as a village schoolmistress:

One evening, while, with her usual childlike activity, and thoughtless yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she

was rummaging the cupboard and the tabledrawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French

books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then my drawingmaterials and some

sketches, including a pencilhead of a pretty little cherublike 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

"Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a lovewhat 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 artistdelight at the idea of copying from so perfect and

radiant a model. She had then on a darkblue 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 cardboard, and drew a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of colouring it; and, as it

She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself accompanied her next eveninga tall,

massivefeatured, middleaged, and greyheaded 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

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

"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.

Riversof 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

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 wellrubbed chairs. I had also made myself neat, and had now the afternoon before me to

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 lipsa soft curl here and there to the tressesa 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

"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 publicationa poem:

one of those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those daysthe 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,

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

"With all his firmness and selfcontrol," thought I, "he tasks himself too far: locks every feeling and pang

withinexpresses, confesses, imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk a little about this sweet

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."

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

"A wellexecuted picture," he said; "very soft, clear colouring; very graceful and correct drawing."

"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, Iless exalted in my views than St. Johnhad 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

"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 unapproachableto hear it thus freely

handledwas beginning to be felt by him as a new pleasurean unhopedfor relief. Reserved people often

really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The sternestseeming

stoic is human after all; and to "burst" with boldness and goodwill into "the silent sea" of their souls is often

"She likes you, I am sure," said I, as I stood behind his chair, "and her father respects you. Moreover, she is a

sweet girlrather thoughtless; but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself and her. You ought to

"Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you continually: there is no subject she enjoys so

"It is very pleasant to hear this," he said"very: go on for another quarter of an hour." And he actually took

"But where is the use of going on," I asked, "when you are probably preparing some iron blow of

"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 preparedso assiduously sown with the seeds of good intentions, of selfdenying

plans. And now it is deluged with a nectarous floodthe young germs swampeddelicious poison

cankering them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawingroom at Vale Hall at my bride

Rosamond Oliver's feet: she is talking to me with her sweet voicegazing down on me with those eyes your

skilful hand has copied so wellsmiling at me with these coral lips. She is mineI am hersthis present

life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say nothingmy heart is full of delightmy senses are

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 hollowher offers false: I see and

"It is strange," pursued he, "that while I love Rosamond Oliver so wildlywith all the intensity, indeed, of a

first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinatingI 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

"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 tocooperate in

nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female apostle? Rosamond a missionary's wife? No!"

"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

raceof carrying knowledge into the realms of ignoranceof substituting peace for warfreedom for

bondagereligion for superstitionthe 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

"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

"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 unsettledmy 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

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 shade 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 ama cold hard man."

"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 bloodbleached robe with which Christianity covers human

deformitya 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

"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 philosophera 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

Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my palette. Once more he looked at the

"She IS lovely," he murmured. "She is well named the Rose of the World, indeed!"

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

"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 "goodafternoon," 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

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

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 hurricanethe howling darknessand 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

"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

"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.

"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 halftold, 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 handsomefeatured

face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did just now, as he put aside his snowwet 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 uncalledfor gush of pity came over my heart: I was moved

"I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you: it is too bad that you should be quite alone; and you

"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

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

"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 pocketbook, 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 my he liked, but talk

"There has not been any change made about your own arrangements? You will not be summoned to leave

"I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me." Baffled so far, I changed my ground. I bethought

"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 Closethey would have come today but for the snow."

Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes. It aroused him; he uncrossed his legs, sat

"Halfanhour 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

"Twenty years ago, a poor curatenever mind his name at this momentfell 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, sootblack old cathedral of an overgrown manufacturing town in shire.)

They left a daughter, which, at its very birth, Charity received in her lapcold as that of the snowdrift I

almost stuck fast in tonight. Charity carried the friendless thing to the house of its rich maternal relations; it

was reared by an auntinlaw, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead. You startdid 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 knowbeing 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

yourselfreally it strikes me there are parallel points in her history and yoursshe left it to be a governess:

there, again, your fates were analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr. Rochester."

"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 goneno 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.

"Just tell me this," said I, "and since you know so much, you surely can tell it mewhat of Mr. Rochester?

"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

"Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from Mr. Rochester, but from a lady: it is

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

sufferingswhat object for his strong passionshad he sought there? I dared not answer the question. Oh,

"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 hereit

is always more satisfactory to see important points written down, fairly committed to black and white."

And the pocketbook 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 ultramarine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin of the portraitcover. 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

"Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:" he said, "the advertisements demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane

Elliott.I confess I had my suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once resolved into

"Yesyes; but where is Mr. Briggs? He perhaps knows more of Mr. Rochester than you do."

"Briggs is in London. I should doubt his knowing anything at all about Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr.

Rochester he is interested. Meantime, you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do not inquire why

"Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that he has left you all his property, and

"You must prove your identity of course," resumed St. John presently: "a step which will offer no difficulties;

you can then enter on immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the will

Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted in a moment from indigence to

wealtha very fine thing; but not a matter one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once. And then

there are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapturegiving: THIS is solid, an affair of the actual

world, nothing ideal about it: all its associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are the same. One

does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune; one begins to consider

responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we

Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words, Death, Funeral. My uncle I had heard

was deadmy only relative; ever since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of one

day seeing him: now, I never should. And then this money came only to me: not to me and a rejoicing family,

but to my isolated self. It was a grand boon doubtless; and independence would be gloriousyes, I felt

"You unbend your forehead at last," said Mr. Rivers. "I thought Medusa had looked at you, and that you were

"Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak oftwenty thousand pounds, I think they saybut what is that?"

Here was a new stunnerI had been calculating on four or five thousand. This news actually took my breath

"Well," said he, "if you had committed a murder, and I had told you your crime was discovered, you could

I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical powers sitting down to feast alone at a table

"If it were not such a very wild night," he said, "I would send Hannah down to keep you company: you look

too desperately miserable to be left alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts so well as I:

her legs are not quite so long: so I must e'en leave you to your sorrows. Goodnight."

He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me. "Stop one minute!" I cried.

"It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he knew you, or could fancy that you,

"Oh! I am a clergyman," he said; "and the clergy are often appealed to about odd matters." Again the latch

"No; that does not satisfy me!" I exclaimed: and indeed there was something in the hasty and unexplanatory

"No; tonight!tonight!" and as he turned from the door, I placed myself between it and him. He looked

Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax: gratified it must be, and that without delay; and

"Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has thawed all the snow from your cloak; by the

same token, it has streamed on to my floor, and made it like a trampled street. As you hope ever to be

forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to

"Well, then," he said, "I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your perseverance: as stone is worn by continual

dropping. Besides, you must know some day,as well now as later. Your name is Jane Eyre?"

"You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake?that I was christened St. John Eyre Rivers?"

"No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your initials written in books you have at

different times lent me; but I never asked for what name it stood. But what then? Surely"

I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to express, the thought that rushed upon methat

embodied itself, that, in a second, stood out a strong, solid probability. Circumstances knit themselves,

fitted themselves, shot into order: the chain that had been lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn

out straight,every ring was perfect, the connection complete. I knew, by instinct, how the matter stood,

before St. John had said another word; but I cannot expect the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so

"My mother's name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman, who married Miss Jane Reed, of

Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq., merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira. Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre's

solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle's death, and to say that he had left his property to

his brother the clergyman's orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel, never forgiven,

between him and my father. He wrote again a few weeks since, to intimate that the heiress was lost, and

asking if we knew anything of her. A name casually written on a slip of paper has enabled me to find her out.

"Do let me speak," I said; "let me have one moment to draw breath and reflect." I pausedhe stood before

"My uncle John was your uncle John? You, Diana, and Mary are his sister's children, as I am his brother's

"You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows from the same source?"

I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be proud of,one I could love; and two sisters,

whose qualities were such, that, when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine

affection and admiration. The two girls, on whom, kneeling down on the wet ground, and looking through the

low, latticed window of Moor House kitchen, I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of interest and despair,

were my near kinswomen; and the young and stately gentleman who had found me almost dying at his

threshold was my blood relation. Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed!wealth to

the heart!a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing, bright, vivid, and exhilarating;not like

the ponderous gift of gold: rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight. I now clapped

St. John smiled. "Did I not say you neglected essential points to pursue trifles?" he asked. "You were serious

when I told you you had got a fortune; and now, for a matter of no moment, you are excited."

"What can you mean? It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters and don't care for a cousin; but I had

nobody; and now three relations,or two, if you don't choose to be counted,are born into my world

I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the thoughts that rose faster than I could

receive, comprehend, settle them: thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere long. I

looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending stars,every one lit me to a purpose or

delight. Those who had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit. They

were under a yoke,I could free them: they were scattered,I could reunite them: the independence, the

affluence which was mine, might be theirs too. Were we not four? Twenty thousand pounds shared equally

would be five thousand each, justiceenough and to spare: justice would be done,mutual happiness

secured. Now the wealth did not weigh on me: now it was not a mere bequest of coin,it was a legacy of

How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot tell; but I perceived soon that Mr.

Rivers had placed a chair behind me, and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it. He also advised

me to be composed; I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and distraction, shook off his hand, and began

"Write to Diana and Mary tomorrow," I said, "and tell them to come home directly. Diana said they would

both consider themselves rich with a thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well."

"Tell me where I can get you a glass of water," said St. John; "you must really make an effort to tranquillise

"Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you? Will it keep you in England, induce you

"You wander: your head becomes confused. I have been too abrupt in communicating the news; it has excited

"Mr. Rivers! you quite put me out of patience: I am rational enough; it is you who misunderstand, or rather

"Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should comprehend better."

"Explain! What is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that twenty thousand pounds, the sum in question,

divided equally between the nephew and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to each? What I

want is, that you should write to your sisters and tell them of the fortune that has accrued to them."

"I have intimated my view of the case: I am incapable of taking any other. I am not brutally selfish, blindly

unjust, or fiendishly ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and connections. I like Moor

House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and Mary, and I will attach myself for life to Diana and

Mary. It would please and benefit me to have five thousand pounds; it would torment and oppress me to have

twenty thousand; which, moreover, could never be mine in justice, though it might in law. I abandon to you,

then, what is absolutely superfluous to me. Let there be no opposition, and no discussion about it; let us agree

"This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider such a matter, ere your word can be regarded

"Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy: you see the justice of the case?"

"I DO see a certain justice; but it is contrary to all custom. Besides, the entire fortune is your right: my uncle

gained it by his own efforts; he was free to leave it to whom he would: he left it to you. After all, justice

permits you to keep it: you may, with a clear conscience, consider it absolutely your own."

"With me," said I, "it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of conscience: I must indulge my feelings; I so

seldom have had an opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy me for a year, I could not

forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught a glimpsethat of repaying, in part, a mighty

"You think so now," rejoined St. John, "because you do not know what it is to possess, nor consequently to

enjoy wealth: you cannot form a notion of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you; of the

place it would enable you to take in society; of the prospects it would open to you: you cannot"

"And you," I interrupted, "cannot at all imagine the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a

home, I never had brothers or sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to admit me and

"Jane, I will be your brothermy sisters will be your sisters without stipulating for this sacrifice of your

"Brother? Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters? Yes; slaving amongst strangers! I,

wealthygorged with gold I never earned and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and

"But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness may be realised otherwise than by the

"That is saying too much: such hazardous affirmations are a proof of the excitement under which you

"It is not saying too much: I know what I feel, and how averse are my inclinations to the bare thought of

marriage. No one would take me for love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money speculation.

And I do not want a strangerunsympathising, alien, different from me; I want my kindred: those with

whom I have full fellowfeeling. Say again you will be my brother: when you uttered the words I was

"I think I can. I know I have always loved my own sisters; and I know on what my affection for them is

grounded,respect for their worth and admiration of their talents. You too have principle and mind: your

tastes and habits resemble Diana's and Mary's; your presence is always agreeable to me; in your conversation

I have already for some time found a salutary solace. I feel I can easily and naturally make room in my heart

"Thank you: that contents me for tonight. Now you had better go; for if you stay longer, you will perhaps

I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and arguments I used, to get matters regarding the

legacy settled as I wished. My task was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely resolvedas my cousins

saw at length that my mind was really and immutably fixed on making a just division of the propertyas

they must in their own hearts have felt the equity of the intention; and must, besides, have been innately

conscious that in my place they would have done precisely what I wished to dothey yielded at length so far

as to consent to put the affair to arbitration. The judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able lawyer: both

coincided in my opinion: I carried my point. The instruments of transfer were drawn out: St. John, Diana,

It was near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of general holiday approached. I now closed

Morton school, taking care that the parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune opens the hand as

well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely received, is but to afford a vent to

the unusual ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt with pleasure that many of my rustic scholars liked

me, and when we parted, that consciousness was confirmed: they manifested their affection plainly and

strongly. Deep was my gratification to find I had really a place in their unsophisticated hearts: I promised

them that never a week should pass in future that I did not visit them, and give them an hour's teaching in

Mr. Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty girls, file out before me, and locked the

door, I stood with the key in my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some halfdozen of

my best scholars: as decent, respectable, modest, and wellinformed young women as could be found in the

ranks of the British peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for after all, the British peasantry are the best

taught, best mannered, most selfrespecting of any in Europe: since those days I have seen paysannes and

Bauerinnen; and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton

"Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?" asked Mr. Rivers, when they were

gone. "Does not the consciousness of having done some real good in your day and generation give pleasure?"

"And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to the task of regenerating your race be

"Yes," I said; "but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy my own faculties as well as to cultivate those

of other people. I must enjoy them now; don't recall either my mind or body to the school; I am out of it and

He looked grave. "What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince? What are you going to do?"

"To be active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you to set Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to

"Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home in a week, and I want to have

"I understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion. It is better so: Hannah shall go with you."

"Tell her to be ready by tomorrow then; and here is the schoolroom key: I will give you the key of my

He took it. "You give it up very gleefully," said he; "I don't quite understand your lightheartedness, because

I cannot tell what employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you are relinquishing. What

"My first aim will be to CLEAN DOWN (do you comprehend the full force of the expression?)to CLEAN

DOWN Moor House from chamber to cellar; my next to rub it up with beeswax, oil, and an indefinite

number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical

precision; afterwards I shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; and

lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to

such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up

of materials for mincepies, and solemnising of other culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate

notion of to the uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state

of readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beauideal of a

"It is all very well for the present," said he; "but seriously, I trust that when the first flush of vivacity is over,

"No, Jane, no: this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt to make it so: nor of rest; do not turn

"Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months' grace I allow you for the full enjoyment of your new

position, and for pleasing yourself with this latefound charm of relationship; but THEN, I hope you will

begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and the selfish calm and sensual comfort

of civilised affluence. I hope your energies will then once more trouble you with their strength."

I looked at him with surprise. "St. John," I said, "I think you are almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be

"To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to your keeping; and of which He will

surely one day demand a strict account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiouslyI warn you of that.

And try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with which you throw yourself into commonplace home

pleasures. Don't cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate

"Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause to be happy, and I WILL be happy.

Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah: she was charmed to see how jovial I

could be amidst the bustle of a house turned topsyturvyhow I could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook.

And really, after a day or two of confusion worse confounded, it was delightful by degrees to invoke order

from the chaos ourselves had made. I had previously taken a journey to S to purchase some new furniture:

my cousins having given me CARTE BLANCHE TO effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum having

been set aside for that purpose. The ordinary sittingroom and bedrooms I left much as they were: for I knew

Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure from seeing again the old homely tables, and chairs, and beds,

than from the spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still some novelty was necessary, to give to their return

the piquancy with which I wished it to be invested. Dark handsome new carpets and curtains, an arrangement

of some carefully selected antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and

dressingcases, for the toilet tables, answered the end: they looked fresh without being glaring. A spare

parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the

passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model of

bright modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a specimen of wintry waste and desert dreariness

The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark, and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs

and below; the kitchen was in perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in readiness.

St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear of the house till everything was arranged: and,

indeed, the bare idea of the commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within its walls sufficed to scare

him to estrangement. He found me in the kitchen, watching the progress of certain cakes for tea, then baking.

Approaching the hearth, he asked, "If I was at last satisfied with housemaid's work?" I answered by inviting

him to accompany me on a general inspection of the result of my labours. With some difficulty, I got him to

make the tour of the house. He just looked in at the doors I opened; and when he had wandered upstairs and

downstairs, he said I must have gone through a great deal of fatigue and trouble to have effected such

considerable changes in so short a time: but not a syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in the improved

This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed some old associations he valued. I

"Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously respected every association: he feared,

indeed, I must have bestowed more thought on the matter than it was worth. How many minutes, for instance,

had I devoted to studying the arrangement of this very room?Bythebye, could I tell him where such a

I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and withdrawing to his accustomed window recess,

Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself

when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for himits

peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspireafter what was good and great, certainly;

but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead, still

and pale as a white stone at his fine lineaments fixed in studyI comprehended all at once that he would

hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I understood, as by inspiration, the

nature of his love for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how

he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle and

destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he was of

the material from which nature hews her heroesChristian and Paganher lawgivers, her statesmen, her

conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous

"This parlour is not his sphere," I reflected: "the Himalayan ridge or Caffre bush, even the plaguecursed

Guinea Coast swamp would suit him better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his

element: there his faculties stagnatethey cannot develop or appear to advantage. It is in scenes of strife and

dangerwhere courage is proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude taskedthat he will speak and move,

the leader and superior. A merry child would have the advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to choose a

"They are coming! they are coming!" cried Hannah, throwing open the parlour door. At the same moment old

Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran. It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had a

lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver opened the door: first one wellknown form,

then another, stepped out. In a minute I had my face under their bonnets, in contact first with Mary's soft

cheek, then with Diana's flowing curls. They laughedkissed methen Hannah: patted Carlo, who was half

wild with delight; asked eagerly if all was well; and being assured in the affirmative, hastened into the house.

They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and chilled with the frosty night air; but

their pleasant countenances expanded to the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah brought in the

boxes, they demanded St. John. At this moment he advanced from the parlour. They both threw their arms

round his neck at once. He gave each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood a

while to be talked to, and then, intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the parlour,

I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give hospitable orders respecting the driver; this

done, both followed me. They were delighted with the renovation and decorations of their rooms; with the

new drapery, and fresh carpets, and rich tinted china vases: they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly. I

had the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met their wishes exactly, and that what I had done added a

Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so eloquent in narrative and comment, that

their fluency covered St. John's taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in their glow of

fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise. The event of the daythat is, the return of Diana and

Marypleased him; but the accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee of reception

irked him: I saw he wished the calmer morrow was come. In the very meridian of the night's enjoyment,

about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered with the intimation that "a poor lad was

come, at that unlikely time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see his mother, who was drawing away."

"Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and moss all the way."

"I'm sure, sir, you had better not. It's the worst road to travel after dark that can be: there's no track at all over

the bog. And then it is such a bitter nightthe keenest wind you ever felt. You had better send word, sir, that

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

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 lifegiving 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

"Unchanged and unchangeable," was the reply. And he proceeded to inform us that his departure from

"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

"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

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 he 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

Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his head suddenly from the desk over which he

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?

"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

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 encyclopaedic 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 outlandishlooking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes fixing upon us, his

fellowstudents, 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

"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

And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little weatherbeaten, 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

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

everwatchful 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 superstitiousas if I were sitting in the room with

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

St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every impression made on him, either for pain or

pleasure, was deepgraved 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

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 goodnight, 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),

"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 piercinglyhe 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,

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 seablue tint and solemn

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 sourcethe 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 sandtraced

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

reentered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now at Moor House, I sought my bedroom each

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

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 seaside. 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 himI 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 longlooked 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 drawingroom, Mary was

gardeningit was a very fine May day, clear, sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at

"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

"No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put on your things; go out by the

kitchendoor: 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

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 starlike yellow blossom: the hills, meantime, shut us quite in; for the glen, towards its head,

"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 gemwhere it exaggerated the wild to the savage,

and exchanged the fresh for the frowningwhere it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, and a last refuge

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

"And I shall see it again," he said aloud, "in dreams when I sleep by the Ganges: and again in a more remote

Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot's passion for his fatherland! He sat down; for

halfanhour 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."

"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 fellowworms: my king, my

lawgiver, my captain, is the Allperfect. It seems strange to me that all round me do not burn to enlist under

"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

"You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them upto urge and exhort them to the effortto show

them what their gifts are, and why they were givento speak Heaven's message in their ear,to offer them,

"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

"Then I must speak for it," continued the deep, relentless voice. "Jane, come with me to India: come as my

The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved! It was as if I had heard a summons from Heavenas if a

visionary messenger, like him of Macedonia, had enounced, "Come over and help us!" But I was no

I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty, knew neither mercy nor remorse. He

"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 mustshall be. You shall be

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 closeresolved, however, that

"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, Janetrust 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 powerswhere 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 kindlingno life quickeningno 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 depthsthe fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot

"I have an answer for youhear 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 itin the unflagging energy and unshaken temper with

which you have met its difficultiesI 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 yourselfI can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst

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,

"Very willingly," he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance up the pass, threw himself down on a

"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

landMr. 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, Yesand 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 himto 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 altarheart, 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 itemone dreadful item. It isthat 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 calculationscoolly put into

practice his plansgo 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 himnot as his

I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column; his face turned to me: his eye beaming

"You have hitherto been my adopted brotherI, your adopted sister: let us continue as such: you and I had

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?

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

"We cannotwe cannot," he answered, with short, sharp determination: "it would not do. You have said you

"Wellwell. To the main pointthe departure with me from England, the cooperation with me in my

future laboursyou 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 viewhow 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 powerthe mission of your great Master. To do so, you

must have a coadjutor: not a brotherthat is a loose tiebut 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

"One fitted to my purpose, you meanfitted to my vocation. Again I tell you it is not the insignificant

private individualthe mere man, with the man's selfish sensesI wish to mate: it is the missionary."

"And I will give the missionary my energiesit is all he wantsbut not myself: that would be only adding

"You cannotyou 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

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, caring 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 equalone with whom I might argueone

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

"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 capricesall trivial difficulties and delicacies of

feelingall scruple about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal inclination you will

"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 warriormarch trample down: but as his wifeat his side always, and always

restrained, and always checkedforced 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 vitalTHIS would be

"I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellowmissionary, but not as your wife; I cannot marry 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 togethersometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage tribesand unwed?"

"Very well," I said shortly; "under the circumstances, quite as well as if I were either your real sister, or a

"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

"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 fellowsoldier's frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you

like; a neophyte's respect and submission to his hierophant: nothing moredon'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 mebe 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

"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

He looked at me fixedly, compressing his wellcut 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

"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 variancea 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

"No," said he; "it is a longcherished scheme, and the only one which can secure my great end: but I shall

urge you no further at present. Tomorrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many friends there to whom

I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a fortnighttake 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

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 submissionthe 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. Iwho, though I had no love, had much friendship for himwas hurt by the marked

"I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane," said Diana, "during your walk on the moor. But go after

I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be happy than dignified; and I ran

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

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

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

All this was torture to merefined, lingering torture. It kept up a slow fire of indignation and a trembling

trouble of grief, which harassed and crushed me altogether. I felt howif 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

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

"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

"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

"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

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?

The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash down.

"Formerly," I answered, "because you did not love me; now, I reply, because you almost hate me. If I were to

"I SHOULD KILL YOUI 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 seventyandseven 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

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 heartwrung.

"You utterly misinterpret my words," I said, at once seizing his hand: "I have no intention to grieve or pain

Most bitterly he smiledmost 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.

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

"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

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

Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion perfectly. He answered emphatically but

"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

"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."

"It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on which I have long endured painful doubt,

"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 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.

He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. He was soon out of sight.

On reentering 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

"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 elseto what end? I wish he loved

"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."

Diana clapped her hands. "That is just what we hoped and thought! And you will marry him, Jane, won't you?

"Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a fitting fellowlabourer in his Indian

"Madness!" she exclaimed. "You would not live three months there, I am certain. You never shall go: you

"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 undertookone of incessant fatigue, where fatigue

kills even the strong, and you are weak. St. Johnyou know himwould 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

"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

"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 labournot 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,

"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."

"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

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 mannerone 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 twentyfirst 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 fullnever did his manner become so impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the

oracles of God: and tonight that voice took a more solemn tonethat manner a more thrilling meaningas

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 earthtold 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

"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

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

In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gatheredall his stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest,

wrestling with God, and resolved on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the weakhearted; 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 roomin compliance, I think, with a whispered hint from him: I tendered my

"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 aimto do all things to the glory of God. My Master was

longsuffering: so will I be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a vessel of wrath: repentresolve, while

there is yet time. Remember, we are bid to work while it is daywarned 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

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 sheepor

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 despotsprovided only they be

sincerehave 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

I stood motionless under my hierophant's touch. My refusals were forgottenmy fears overcomemy

wrestlings paralysed. The ImpossibleI.E., my marriage with St. Johnwas fast becoming the Possible. All

was changing utterly with a sudden sweep. Religion calledAngels beckonedGod commandedlife

rolled together like a scrolldeath'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

"I could decide if I were but certain," I answered: "were I but convinced that it is God's will I should marry

"My I 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 ALMOSTI 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

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

I might have said, "Where is it?" for it did not seem in the room nor in the housenor in the garden; it did

not come out of the air nor from under the earthnor from overhead. I had heard it where, or whence,

for ever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human beinga known, loved, wellremembered

voicethat 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

The hills beyond Marsh Glen sent the answer faintly back"Where are you?" I listened. The wind sighed

"Down superstition!" I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the black yew at the gate. "This is not thy

deception, nor thy witchcraft: it is the work of nature. She was roused, and didno miraclebut her best."

I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained me. It was MY time to assume

ascendency. MY powers were in play and in force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to

leave me: I must and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is energy to command well enough,

obedience never fails. I mounted to my chamber; locked myself in; fell on my knees; and prayed in my

waya different way to St. John's, but effective in its own fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty

Spirit; and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet. I rose from the thanksgivingtook a resolveand lay

The daylight came. I rose at dawn. I busied myself for an hour or two with arranging my things in my

chamber, drawers, and wardrobe, in the order wherein I should wish to leave them during a brief absence.

Meantime, I heard St. John quit his room. He stopped at my door: I feared he would knockno, but a slip of

"You left me too suddenly last night. Had you stayed but a little longer, you would have laid your hand on the

Christian's cross and the angel's crown. I shall expect your clear decision when I return this day fortnight.

Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation: the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see,

"My spirit," I answered mentally, "is willing to do what is right; and my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to

accomplish the will of Heaven, when once that will is distinctly known to me. At any rate, it shall be strong

enough to searchinquireto grope an outlet from this cloud of doubt, and find the open day of certainty."

It was the first of June; yet the morning was overcast and chilly: rain beat fast on my casement. I heard the

frontdoor open, and St. John pass out. Looking through the window, I saw him traverse the garden. He took

the way over the misty moors in the direction of Whitcrossthere he would meet the coach.

"In a few more hours I shall succeed you in that track, cousin," thought I: "I too have a coach to meet at

Whitcross. I too have some to see and ask after in England, before I depart for ever."

It wanted yet two hours of breakfasttime. I filled the interval in walking softly about my room, and

pondering the visitation which had given my plans their present bent. I recalled that inward sensation I had

experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I

questioned whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in MEnot in the external world. I asked was it a

mere nervous impressiona delusion? I could not conceive or believe: it was more like an inspiration. The

wondrous shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas's

prison; it had opened the doors of the soul's cell and loosed its bandsit had wakened it out of its sleep,

whence it sprang trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a cry on my startled ear, and in my quaking

heart and through my spirit, which neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the success of one

"Ere many days," I said, as I terminated my musings, "I will know something of him whose voice seemed last

night to summon me. Letters have proved of no availpersonal inquiry shall replace them."

At breakfast I announced to Diana and Mary that I was going a journey, and should be absent at least four

"Yes; it was to see or hear news of a friend about whom I had for some time been uneasy."

They might have said, as I have no doubt they thought, that they had believed me to be without any friends

save them: for, indeed, I had often said so; but, with their true natural delicacy, they abstained from comment,

except that Diana asked me if I was sure I was well enough to travel. I looked very pale, she observed. I

replied, that nothing ailed me save anxiety of mind, which I hoped soon to alleviate.

It was easy to make my further arrangements; for I was troubled with no inquiriesno surmises. Having

once explained to them that I could not now be explicit about my plans, they kindly and wisely acquiesced in

the silence with which I pursued them, according to me the privilege of free action I should under similar

I left Moor House at three o'clock p.m., and soon after four I stood at the foot of the signpost of Whitcross,

waiting the arrival of the coach which was to take me to distant Thornfield. Amidst the silence of those

solitary roads and desert hills, I heard it approach from a great distance. It was the same vehicle whence, a

year ago, I had alighted one summer evening on this very spothow desolate, and hopeless, and objectless!

It stopped as I beckoned. I enterednot now obliged to part with my whole fortune as the price of its

accommodation. Once more on the road to Thornfield, I felt like the messengerpigeon flying home.

It was a journey of sixandthirty hours. I had set out from Whitcross on a Tuesday afternoon, and early on

the succeeding Thursday morning the coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn, situated in the

midst of scenery whose green hedges and large fields and low pastoral hills (how mild of feature and verdant

of hue compared with the stern NorthMidland moors of Morton!) met my eye like the lineaments of a once

familiar face. Yes, I knew the character of this landscape: I was sure we were near my bourne.

"My journey is closed," I thought to myself. I got out of the coach, gave a box I had into the ostler's charge, to

be kept till I called for it; paid my fare; satisfied the coachman, and was going: the brightening day gleamed

on the sign of the inn, and I read in gilt letters, "The Rochester Arms." My heart leapt up: I was already on

"Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught you know: and then, if he is at

Thornfield Hall, towards which you hasten, who besides him is there? His lunatic wife: and you have nothing

to do with him: you dare not speak to him or seek his presence. You have lost your labouryou had better

go no farther," urged the monitor. "Ask information of the people at the inn; they can give you all you seek:

they can solve your doubts at once. Go up to that man, and inquire if Mr. Rochester be at home."

The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force myself to act on it. I so dreaded a reply that would

crush me with despair. To prolong doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more see the Hall under the

ray of her star. There was the stile before methe very fields through which I had hurried, blind, deaf,

distracted with a revengeful fury tracking and scourging me, on the morning I fled from Thornfield: ere I well

knew what course I had resolved to take, I was in the midst of them. How fast I walked! How I ran

sometimes! How I looked forward to catch the first view of the wellknown woods! With what feelings I

welcomed single trees I knew, and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between them!

At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing broke the morning stillness. Strange delight

inspired me: on I hastened. Another field crosseda lane threadedand there were the courtyard

wallsthe back offices: the house itself, the rookery still hid. "My first view of it shall be in front," I

determined, "where its bold battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can single out my

master's very window: perhaps he will be standing at ithe rises early: perhaps he is now walking in the

orchard, or on the pavement in front. Could I but see him!but a moment! Surely, in that case, I should not

be so mad as to run to him? I cannot tellI am not certain. And if I didwhat then? God bless him! What

then? Who would be hurt by my once more tasting the life his glance can give me? I rave: perhaps at this

moment he is watching the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or on the tideless sea of the south."

I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchardturned its angle: there was a gate just there, opening into

the meadow, between two stone pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I could peep round

quietly at the full front of the mansion. I advanced my head with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any

bedroom windowblinds were yet drawn up: battlements, windows, long frontall from this sheltered

The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this survey. I wonder what they thought. They

must have considered I was very careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very bold and reckless. A

peep, and then a long stare; and then a departure from my niche and a straying out into the meadow; and a

sudden stop full in front of the great mansion, and a protracted, hardy gaze towards it. "What affectation of

diffidence was this at first?" they might have demanded; "what stupid regardlessness now?"

A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to catch a glimpse of her fair face without

waking her. He steals softly over the grass, careful to make no sound; he pausesfancying she has stirred: he

withdraws: not for worlds would he be seen. All is still: he again advances: he bends above her; a light veil

rests on her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of beautywarm, and

blooming, and lovely, in rest. How hurried was their first glance! But how they fix! How he starts! How he

suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms the form he dared not, a moment since, touch with his finger!

How he calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly! He thus grasps and cries, and gazes,

because he no longer fears to waken by any sound he can utterby any movement he can make. He thought

No need to cower behind a gatepost, indeed!to peep up at chamber lattices, fearing life was astir behind

them! No need to listen for doors openingto fancy steps on the pavement or the gravelwalk! The lawn,

the grounds were trodden and waste: the portal yawned void. The front was, as I had once seen it in a dream,

but a welllike wall, very high and very fragilelooking, perforated with paneless windows: no roof, no

And there was the silence of death about it: the solitude of a lonesome wild. No wonder that letters addressed

to people here had never received an answer: as well despatch epistles to a vault in a church aisle. The grim

blackness of the stones told by what fate the Hall had fallenby conflagration: but how kindled? What story

belonged to this disaster? What loss, besides mortar and marble and woodwork had followed upon it? Had

life been wrecked as well as property? If so, whose? Dreadful question: there was no one here to answer

In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated interior, I gathered evidence that the

calamity was not of late occurrence. Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter rains

beaten in at those hollow casements; for, amidst the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished

vegetation: grass and weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters. And oh! where

meantime was the hapless owner of this wreck? In what land? Under what auspices? My eye involuntarily

wandered to the grey church tower near the gates, and I asked, "Is he with Damer de Rochester, sharing the

Some answer must be had to these questions. I could find it nowhere but at the inn, and thither, ere long, I

returned. The host himself brought my breakfast into the parlour. I requested him to shut the door and sit

down: I had some questions to ask him. But when he complied, I scarcely knew how to begin; such horror

had I of the possible answers. And yet the spectacle of desolation I had just left prepared me in a measure for

The late! I seem to have received, with full force, the blow I had been trying to evade.

"I mean the present gentleman, Mr. Edward's father," he explained. I breathed again: my blood resumed its

flow. Fully assured by these words that Mr. EdwardMY Mr. Rochester (God bless him, wherever he

was!)was at least alive: was, in short, "the present gentleman." Gladdening words! It seemed I could hear

all that was to comewhatever the disclosures might bewith comparative tranquillity. Since he was not in

"Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now?" I asked, knowing, of course, what the answer would be, but

"No, ma'amoh, no! No one is living there. I suppose you are a stranger in these parts, or you would have

heard what happened last autumn,Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin: it was burnt down just about

harvesttime. A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of valuable property destroyed: hardly any of

the furniture could be saved. The fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from

Millcote, the building was one mass of flame. It was a terrible spectacle: I witnessed it myself."

"At dead of night!" I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of fatality at Thornfield. "Was it known how it

"They guessed, ma'am: they guessed. Indeed, I should say it was ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not

perhaps aware," he continued, edging his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking low, "that there was a

"She was kept in very close confinement, ma'am: people even for some years was not absolutely certain of

her existence. No one saw her: they only knew by rumour that such a person was at the Hall; and who or what

she was it was difficult to conjecture. They said Mr. Edward had brought her from abroad, and some believed

she had been his mistress. But a queer thing happened a year sincea very queer thing."

I feared now to hear my own story. I endeavoured to recall him to the main fact.

"This lady, ma'am," he answered, "turned out to be Mr. Rochester's wife! The discovery was brought about in

the strangest way. There was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in"

"I'm coming to that, ma'amthat Mr. Edward fell in love with. The servants say they never saw anybody so

much in love as he was: he was after her continually. They used to watch himservants will, you know,

ma'amand he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him thought her so very handsome. She

was a little small thing, they say, almost like a child. I never saw her myself; but I've heard Leah, the

housemaid, tell of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this governess not

twenty; and you see, when gentlemen of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were

"You shall tell me this part of the story another time," I said; "but now I have a particular reason for wishing

to hear all about the fire. Was it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had any hand in it?"

"You've hit it, ma'am: it's quite certain that it was her, and nobody but her, that set it going. She had a woman

to take care of her called Mrs. Poolean able woman in her line, and very trustworthy, but for one faulta

fault common to a deal of them nurses and matronsshe KEPT A PRIVATE BOTTLE OF GIN BY HER,

and now and then took a drop overmuch. It is excusable, for she had a hard life of it: but still it was

dangerous; for when Mrs. Poole was fast asleep after the gin and water, the mad lady, who was as cunning as

a witch, would take the keys out of her pocket, let herself out of her chamber, and go roaming about the

house, doing any wild mischief that came into her head. They say she had nearly burnt her husband in his bed

once: but I don't know about that. However, on this night, she set fire first to the hangings of the room next

her own, and then she got down to a lower storey, and made her way to the chamber that had been the

governess's(she was like as if she knew somehow how matters had gone on, and had a spite at her)and

she kindled the bed there; but there was nobody sleeping in it, fortunately. The governess had run away two

months before; and for all Mr. Rochester sought her as if she had been the most precious thing he had in the

world, he never could hear a word of her; and he grew savagequite savage on his disappointment: he never

was a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too. He sent Mrs. Fairfax, the

housekeeper, away to her friends at a distance; but he did it handsomely, for he settled an annuity on her for

life: and she deserved itshe was a very good woman. Miss Adele, a ward he had, was put to school. He

broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and shut himself up like a hermit at the Hall."

"Leave England? Bless you, no! He would not cross the doorstones of the house, except at night, when he

walked just like a ghost about the grounds and in the orchard as if he had lost his senses which it is my

opinion he had; for a more spirited, bolder, keener gentleman than he was before that midge of a governess

crossed him, you never saw, ma'am. He was not a man given to wine, or cards, or racing, as some are, and he

was not so very handsome; but he had a courage and a will of his own, if ever man had. I knew him from a

boy, you see: and for my part, I have often wished that Miss Eyre had been sunk in the sea before she came to

"Yes, indeed was he; and he went up to the attics when all was burning above and below, and got the servants

out of their beds and helped them down himself, and went back to get his mad wife out of her cell. And then

they called out to him that she was on the roof, where she was standing, waving her arms, above the

battlements, and shouting out till they could hear her a mile off: I saw her and heard her with my own eyes.

She was a big woman, and had long black hair: we could see it streaming against the flames as she stood. I

witnessed, and several more witnessed, Mr. Rochester ascend through the skylight on to the roof; we heard

him call 'Bertha!' We saw him approach her; and then, ma'am, she yelled and gave a spring, and the next

"Well, ma'am, afterwards the house was burnt to the ground: there are only some bits of walls standing now."

"Poor Mr. Edward!" he ejaculated, "I little thought ever to have seen it! Some say it was a just judgment on

him for keeping his first marriage secret, and wanting to take another wife while he had one living: but I pity

"Why? How?" My blood was again running cold. "Where is he?" I demanded. "Is he in England?"

I had dreaded worse. I had dreaded he was mad. I summoned strength to ask what had caused this calamity.

"It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness, in a way, ma'am: he wouldn't leave the house

till every one else was out before him. As he came down the great staircase at last, after Mrs. Rochester had

flung herself from the battlements, there was a great crashall fell. He was taken out from under the ruins,

alive, but sadly hurt: a beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him partly; but one eye was knocked out,

and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the surgeon, had to amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed: he

"At Ferndean, a manorhouse on a farm he has, about thirty miles off: quite a desolate spot."

"Old John and his wife: he would have none else. He is quite broken down, they say."

"Let it be got ready instantly; and if your postboy can drive me to Ferndean before dark this day, I'll pay

The manorhouse of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity, moderate size, and no architectural

pretensions, deep buried in a wood. I had heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often spoke of it, and sometimes

went there. His father had purchased the estate for the sake of the game covers. He would have let the house,

but could find no tenant, in consequence of its ineligible and insalubrious site. Ferndean then remained

uninhabited and unfurnished, with the exception of some two or three rooms fitted up for the accommodation

To this house I came just ere dark on an evening marked by the characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and

continued small penetrating rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the chaise and driver

with the double remuneration I had promised. Even when within a very short distance of the manorhouse, you

could see nothing of it, so thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy wood about it. Iron gates between

granite pillars showed me where to enter, and passing through them, I found myself at once in the twilight of

closeranked trees. There was a grassgrown track descending the forest aisle between hoar and knotty shafts

and under branched arches. I followed it, expecting soon to reach the dwelling; but it stretched on and on, it

I thought I had taken a wrong direction and lost my way. The darkness of natural as well as of sylvan dusk

gathered over me. I looked round in search of another road. There was none: all was interwoven stem,

I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; presently I beheld a railing, then the

housescarce, by this dim light, distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its decaying walls.

Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a space of enclosed ground, from which the wood

swept away in a semicircle. There were no flowers, no gardenbeds; only a broad gravelwalk girdling a

grassplat, and this set in the heavy frame of the forest. The house presented two pointed gables in its front;

the windows were latticed and narrow: the front door was narrow too, one step led up to it. The whole looked,

as the host of the Rochester Arms had said, "quite a desolate spot." It was as still as a church on a weekday:

the pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its vicinage.

Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movementthat narrow frontdoor was unclosing, and some

It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood on the step; a man without a hat: he stretched

forth his hand as if to feel whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised himit was my master,

I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch himto examine him, myself unseen, and alas! to

him invisible. It was a sudden meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check by pain. I had no

difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation, my step from hasty advance.

His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his port was still erect, his heir was still raven

black; nor were his features altered or sunk: not in one year's space, by any sorrow, could his athletic strength

be quelled or his vigorous prime blighted. But in his countenance I saw a change: that looked desperate and

broodingthat reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his

sullen woe. The caged eagle, whose goldringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that

And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity?if you do, you little know me. A soft hope

blest with my sorrow that soon I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lips so sternly

He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards the grassplat. Where was his daring

stride now? Then he paused, as if he knew not which way to turn. He lifted his hand and opened his eyelids;

gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky, and toward the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to

him was void darkness. He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the mutilated one, he kept hidden in his

bosom); he seemed to wish by touch to gain an idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy still; for the

trees were some yards off where he stood. He relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and stood quiet

and mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this moment John approached him from

"Will you take my arm, sir?" he said; "there is a heavy shower coming on: had you not better go in?"

John withdrew without having observed me. Mr. Rochester now tried to walk about: vainly,all was too

uncertain. He groped his way back to the house, and, reentering it, closed the door.

I now drew near and knocked: John's wife opened for me. "Mary," I said, "how are you?"

She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her hurried "Is it really you, miss, come at this late

hour to this lonely place?" I answered by taking her hand; and then I followed her into the kitchen, where

John now sat by a good fire. I explained to them, in few words, that I had heard all which had happened since

I left Thornfield, and that I was come to see Mr. Rochester. I asked John to go down to the turnpikehouse,

where I had dismissed the chaise, and bring my trunk, which I had left there: and then, while I removed my

bonnet and shawl, I questioned Mary as to whether I could be accommodated at the Manor House for the

night; and finding that arrangements to that effect, though difficult, would not be impossible, I informed her I

"When you go in," said I, "tell your master that a person wishes to speak to him, but do not give my name."

When she returned, I inquired what he had said. "You are to send in your name and your business," she

replied. She then proceeded to fill a glass with water, and place it on a tray, together with candles.

I took it from her hand: she pointed me out the parlour door. The tray shook as I held it; the water spilt from

the glass; my heart struck my ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me, and shut it behind me.

This parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low in the grate; and, leaning over it, with his

head supported against the high, oldfashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of the room. His old

dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of the way, and coiled up as if afraid of being inadvertently trodden

upon. Pilot pricked up his ears when I came in: then he jumped up with a yelp and a whine, and bounded

towards me: he almost knocked the tray from my hands. I set it on the table; then patted him, and said softly,

"Lie down!" Mr. Rochester turned mechanically to SEE what the commotion was: but as he SAW nothing, he

I approached him with the now only halffilled glass; Pilot followed me, still excited.

"Down, Pilot!" I again said. He checked the water on its way to his lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and

He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I stood, he did not touch me. "Who is this?

Who is this?" he demanded, trying, as it seemed, to SEE with those sightless eyes unavailing and

"Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was in the glass," I said.

"Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this evening," I answered.

"No delusionno madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy."

"And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I CANNOT see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and

my brain burst. Whateverwhoever you arebe perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!"

"Her very fingers!" he cried; "her small, slight fingers! If so there must be more of her."

The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulderneckwaistI was

"And this her voice," I added. "She is all here: her heart, too. God bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you

"My dear master," I answered, "I am Jane Eyre: I have found you outI am come back to you."

"You touch me, sir,you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold like a corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?"

"My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my

misery. It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I

do now; and kissed her, as thusand felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me."

"Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and

abandonedmy life dark, lonely, hopelessmy soul athirst and forbidden to drinkmy heart famished and

never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled

I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyesI swept his hair from his brow, and kissed that

too. He suddenly seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this seized him.

"And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you are not a pining outcast amongst

"Ah! this is practicalthis is real!" he cried: "I should never dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice

of hers, so animating and piquant, as well as soft: it cheers my withered heart; it puts life into it.What,

"If you won't let me live with you, I can build a house of my own close up to your door, and you may come

"But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who will look after you, and not suffer you to

"Certainlyunless you object. I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I

will be your companionto read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and

hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live."

He replied not: he seemed seriousabstracted; he sighed; he halfopened his lips as if to speak: he closed

them again. I felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly overleaped conventionalities; and he, like St.

John, saw impropriety in my inconsiderateness. I had indeed made my proposal from the idea that he wished

and would ask me to be his wife: an expectation, not the less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up,

that he would claim me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect escaping him and his countenance

becoming more overcast, I suddenly remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing

the fool unwittingly; and I began gently to withdraw myself from his armsbut he eagerly snatched me

"NonoJane; you must not go. NoI have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your

presencethe sweetness of your consolation: I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in myselfI must

have you. The world may laughmay call me absurd, selfishbut it does not signify. My very soul

demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame."

"Yesbut you understand one thing by staying with me; and I understand another. You, perhaps, could

make up your mind to be about my hand and chairto wait on me as a kind little nurse (for you have an

affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that

ought to suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you: do you

"I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your nurse, if you think it better."

"But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are youngyou must marry one day."

"You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try to make you carebuta sightless block!"

He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, and took fresh courage: these last

words gave me an insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite

relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed a livelier vein of conversation.

"It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you," said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks; "for I see

you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a 'faux air' of Nebuchadnezzar

in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your nails are grown

"On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails," he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing

"It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyesand the scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is,

one is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you."

"I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my cicatrised visage."

"Did you? Don't tell me solest I should say something disparaging to your judgment. Now, let me leave

you an instant, to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire?"

"But you shall have some tonight. I am hungry: so are you, I daresay, only you forget."

Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I prepared him, likewise, a comfortable

repast. My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long time

after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at

perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful

consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature: in his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in

mine. Blind as he was, smiles played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead: his lineaments softened and

After supper, he began to ask me many questions, of where I had been, what I had been doing, how I had

found him out; but I gave him only very partial replies: it was too late to enter into particulars that night.

Besides, I wished to touch no deepthrilling chordto open no fresh well of emotion in his heart: my sole

present aim was to cheer him. Cheered, as I have said, he was: and yet but by fits. If a moment's silence broke

"Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly rise on my lone hearth? I stretched my

hand to take a glass of water from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question, expecting John's

"And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary,

hopeless life I have dragged on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day;

feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless

sorrow, and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes: for her restoration I longed, far

more than for that of my lost sight. How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not

A commonplace, practical reply, out of the train of his own disturbed ideas, was, I was sure, the best and

most reassuring for him in this frame of mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and remarked that they

were scorched, and that I would apply something which would make them grow as broad and black as ever.

"Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit, when, at some fatal moment, you will again

desert mepassing like a shadow, whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards

"Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather alarming, when I examine you close at hand: you

"Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever you have sojourned."

"Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a hundred times better people; possessed of ideas and

"If you twist in that way you will make me pull the hair out of your head; and then I think you will cease to

"You shall not get it out of me tonight, sir; you must wait till tomorrow; to leave my tale half told, will,

you know, be a sort of security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it. By the bye, I must mind

not to rise on your hearth with only a glass of water then: I must bring an egg at the least, to say nothing of

"You mocking changelingfairyborn and humanbred! You make me feel as I have not felt these twelve

months. If Saul could have had you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without the aid of

"There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I'll leave you: I have been travelling these last three days,

I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs. "A good idea!" I thought with glee. "I see I

Very early the next morning I heard him up and astir, wandering from one room to another. As soon as Mary

came down I heard the question: "Is Miss Eyre here?" Then: "Which room did you put her into? Was it dry?

I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast. Entering the room very softly, I had a

view of him before he discovered my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to witness the subjugation of that

vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat in his chairstill, but not at rest: expectant evidently; the lines

of now habitual sadness marking his strong features. His countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched,

waiting to be relit and alas! it was not himself that could now kindle the lustre of animated expression: he

was dependent on another for that office! I had meant to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the

strong man touched my heart to the quick: still I accosted him with what vivacity I could.

"It is a bright, sunny morning, sir," I said. "The rain is over and gone, and there is a tender shining after it:

"Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not gone: not vanished? I heard one of your

kind an hour ago, singing high over the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than the rising sun

had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my Jane's tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a

The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence; just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch,

should be forced to entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be lachrymose: I dashed off the

Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of the wet and wild wood into some cheerful

fields: I described to him how brilliantly green they were; how the flowers and hedges looked refreshed; how

sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought a seat for him in a hidden and lovely spot, a dry stump of a tree; nor

did I refuse to let him, when seated, place me on his knee. Why should I, when both he and I were happier

near than apart? Pilot lay beside us: all was quiet. He broke out suddenly while clasping me in his arms

"Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered you had fled from Thornfield, and when I

could nowhere find you; and, after examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken no money, nor

anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little

casket; your trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for the bridal tour. What could my

darling do, I asked, left destitute and penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now."

Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last year. I softened considerably what related to

the three days of wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would have been to inflict

unnecessary pain: the little I did say lacerated his faithful heart deeper than I wished.

I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of making my way: I should have told him my

intention. I should have confided in him: he would never have forced me to be his mistress. Violent as he had

seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far too well and too tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he

would have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in return, rather than I should

have flung myself friendless on the wide world. I had endured, he was certain, more than I had confessed to

"Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short," I answered: and then I proceeded to tell him

how I had been received at Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, &c. The accession

of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in due order. Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in

frequently in the progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was immediately taken up.

"A good man. Does that mean a respectable wellconducted man of fifty? Or what does it mean?"

"'Jeune encore,' as the French say. Is he a person of low stature, phlegmatic, and plain. A person whose

goodness consists rather in his guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue."

"He is untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he lives to perform."

"But his brain? That is probably rather soft? He means well: but you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?"

"He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. His brain is firstrate, I should think not

"I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste, they must suit it; they are polished, calm,

"His appearance,I forget what description you gave of his appearance;a sort of raw curate, half strangled

"St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with blue eyes, and a Grecian profile."

I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting

was salutary: it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not, therefore, immediately

"Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Eyre?" was the next somewhat unexpected

"The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too overwhelming contrast. Your words have

delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination,tall, fair, blueeyed, and with

a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan,a real blacksmith, brown, broadshouldered: and blind and

"Well, you can leave me, ma'am: but before you go" (and he retained me by a firmer grasp than ever), "you

"St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were his cousin?"

"He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they would be clever, for you are a talented creature!"

"He would discover many things in you he could not have expected to find? Some of your accomplishments

"You had a little cottage near the school, you say: did he ever come there to see you?"

"How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship was discovered?"

"Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near the window, and we by the table."

"I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than once, and was as stiff about urging his point

"Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say the same thing? Why do you remain

"No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not with me: it is with this cousinthis St.

John. Oh, till this moment, I thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she loved me even when she

left me: that was an atom of sweet in much bitter. Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over

our separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her, she was loving another! But it is useless

"Shake me off, then, sir,push me away, for I'll not leave you of my own accord."

"Jane, I ever like your tone of voice: it still renews hope, it sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me

"He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me: I do not love him. He loves (as he CAN love,

and that is not as you love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me only because he

thought I should make a suitable missionary's wife, which she would not have done. He is good and great, but

severe; and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not happy at his side, nor near him, nor

with him. He has no indulgence for meno fondness. He sees nothing attractive in me; not even

I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my blind but beloved master. He smiled.

"What, Jane! Is this true? Is such really the state of matters between you and Rivers?"

"Absolutely, sir! Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease you a little to make you less sad: I thought

anger would be better than grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much I DO love you,

you would be proud and content. All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain,

Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect. "My scared vision! My crippled strength!" he

I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking, and wanted to speak for him, but dared

not. As he turned aside his face a minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid, and trickle down the

"I am no better than the old lightningstruck chestnuttree in Thornfield orchard," he remarked ere long.

"And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?"

"You are no ruin, sirno lightningstruck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your

roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow

they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop."

"Yes, of friends," I answered rather hesitatingly: for I knew I meant more than friends, but could not tell what

"Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my lifeif ever I thought a good thoughtif ever I prayed a

sincere and blameless prayerif ever I wished a righteous wish,I am rewarded now. To be your wife is,

"Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for content. To be privileged to put my arms

round what I valueto press my lips to what I loveto repose on what I trust: is that to make a sacrifice? If

"Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can really be useful to you, than I did in your state

of proud independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver and protector."

"Hitherto I have hated to be helpedto be led: henceforth, I feel I shall hate it no more. I did not like to put

my hand into a hireling's, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane's little fingers. I preferred utter loneliness

to the constant attendance of servants; but Jane's soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane suits me: do I suit

"The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for: we must be married instantly."

"We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but the licence to getthen we marry."

"Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from its meridian, and Pilot is actually gone

"Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward: I have no use for it."

"The third day from this must be our weddingday, Jane. Never mind fine clothes and jewels, now: all that is

"The sun has dried up all the raindrops, sir. The breeze is still: it is quite hot."

"Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl necklace at this moment fastened round my bronze scrag under

my cravat? I have worn it since the day I lost my only treasure, as a memento of her."

"Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of

this earth just now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but far more wisely. I

did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent flowerbreathed guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent snatched it

from me. I, in my stiffnecked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation: instead of bending to the decree, I

defied it. Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the

valley of the shadow of death. HIS chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for

ever. You know I was proud of my strength: but what is it now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance,

as a child does its weakness? Of late, Janeonlyonly of lateI began to see and acknowledge the hand

of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. I

"Some days since: nay, I can number themfour; it was last Monday night, a singular mood came over me:

one in which grief replaced frenzysorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression that since I could

nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that night perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve

o'clockere I retired to my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that, if it seemed good to Him, I might soon be

taken from this life, and admitted to that world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane.

"I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which was open: it soothed me to feel the balmy

nightair; though I could see no stars and only by a vague, luminous haze, knew the presence of a moon. I

longed for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with soul and flesh! I asked of God, at once in anguish and

humility, if I had not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and might not soon taste bliss and

peace once more. That I merited all I endured, I acknowledgedthat I could scarcely endure more, I

pleaded; and the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broke involuntarily from my lips in the words'Jane!

"I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought me mad: I pronounced them with such

"Yes; but the time is of no consequence: what followed is the strange point. You will think me

superstitious,some superstition I have in my blood, and always had: nevertheless, this is true true at

"As I exclaimed 'Jane! Jane! Jane!' a voiceI cannot tell whence the voice came, but I know whose voice it

wasreplied, 'I am coming: wait for me;' and a moment after, went whispering on the wind the

"I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words opened to my mind: yet it is difficult to express what I

want to express. Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where sound falls dull, and dies

unreverberating. 'Where are you?' seemed spoken amongst mountains; for I heard a hillsent echo repeat the

words. Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my brow: I could have deemed that in some

wild, lone scene, I and Jane were meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt were, at that

hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were

Reader, it was on Monday nightnear midnightthat I too had received the mysterious summons: those

were the very words by which I replied to it. I listened to Mr. Rochester's narrative, but made no disclosure in

return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told

anything, my tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression on the mind of my hearer:

and that mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural. I

"You cannot now wonder," continued my master, "that when you rose upon me so unexpectedly last night, I

had difficulty in believing you any other than a mere voice and vision, something that would melt to silence

and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had melted before. Now, I thank God! I know it

He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to

the earth, he stood in mute devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible.

"I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer

Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass

round my shoulder: being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide. We entered

Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present. When we

got back from church, I went into the kitchen of the manorhouse, where Mary was cooking the dinner and

"Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning." The housekeeper and her husband were both of

that decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece

of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and

subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the ladle

with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang suspended

in air; and for the same space of time John's knives also had rest from the polishing process: but Mary,

A short time after she pursued"I seed you go out with the master, but I didn't know you were gone to

church to be wed;" and she basted away. John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear.

"I telled Mary how it would be," he said: "I knew what Mr. Edward" (John was an old servant, and had

known his master when he was the cadet of the house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian name)"I

knew what Mr. Edward would do; and I was certain he would not wait long neither: and he's done right, for

"Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this." I put into his hand a fivepound note.

Without waiting to hear more, I left the kitchen. In passing the door of that sanctum some time after, I caught

"She'll happen do better for him nor ony o't' grand ladies." And again, "If she ben't one o' th' handsomest,

she's noan faal and varry goodnatured; and i' his een she's fair beautiful, onybody may see that."

I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say what I had done: fully explaining also why I

had thus acted. Diana and Mary approved the step unreservedly. Diana announced that she would just give

"She had better not wait till then, Jane," said Mr. Rochester, when I read her letter to him; "if she does, she

will be too late, for our honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade over your grave or

How St. John received the news, I don't know: he never answered the letter in which I communicated it: yet

six months after he wrote to me, without, however, mentioning Mr. Rochester's name or alluding to my

marriage. His letter was then calm, and, though very serious, kind. He has maintained a regular, though not

frequent, correspondence ever since: he hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not of those who live without God

You have not quite forgotten little Adele, have you, reader? I had not; I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr.

Rochester, to go and see her at the school where he had placed her. Her frantic joy at beholding me again

moved me much. She looked pale and thin: she said she was not happy. I found the rules of the establishment

were too strict, its course of study too severe for a child of her age: I took her home with me. I meant to

become her governess once more, but I soon found this impracticable; my time and cares were now required

by anothermy husband needed them all. So I sought out a school conducted on a more indulgent system,

and near enough to permit of my visiting her often, and bringing her home sometimes. I took care she should

never want for anything that could contribute to her comfort: she soon settled in her new abode, became very

happy there, and made fair progress in her studies. As she grew up, a sound English education corrected in a

great measure her French defects; and when she left school, I found in her a pleasing and obliging

companion: docile, goodtempered, and wellprincipled. By her grateful attention to me and mine, she has

long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had it in my power to offer her.

My tale draws to its close: one word respecting my experience of married life, and one brief glance at the

fortunes of those whose names have most frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have done.

I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I

hold myself supremely blestblest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as

fully is he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone

and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward's society: he knows none of mine, any more than

we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together.

To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day

long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on

him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in characterperfect concord is the result.

Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union; perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us

so very nearthat knit us so very close: for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally, I was

(what he often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw naturehe saw books through me; and never did I

weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud,

sunbeamof the landscape before us; of the weather round usand impressing by sound on his ear what

light could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of conducting

him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished to be done. And there was a pleasure in my

services, most full, most exquisite, even though sad because he claimed these services without painful

shame or damping humiliation. He loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my

attendance: he felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.

One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter to his dictation, he came and bent over me,

I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the obscurity clouding one eye was becoming

He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent oculist; and he eventually recovered the sight

of that one eye. He cannot now see very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he can find his way

without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a blank to himthe earth no longer a void. When his

firstborn was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once

werelarge, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God had

My Edward and I, then, are happy: and the more so, because those we most love are happy likewise. Diana

and Mary Rivers are both married: alternately, once every year, they come to see us, and we go to see them.

Diana's husband is a captain in the navy, a gallant officer and a good man. Mary's is a clergyman, a college

friend of her brother's, and, from his attainments and principles, worthy of the connection. Both Captain

As to St. John Rivers, he left England: he went to India. He entered on the path he had marked for himself; he

pursues it still. A more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers. Firm,

faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he labours for his race; he clears their painful way to

improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it. He may be stern;

he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards

his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the exaction of the apostle, who speaks but for

Christ, when he says"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and

follow me." His is the ambition of the high masterspirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those

who are redeemed from the earthwho stand without fault before the throne of God, who share the last

St. John is unmarried: he never will marry now. Himself has hitherto sufficed to the toil, and the toil draws

near its close: his glorious sun hastens to its setting. The last letter I received from him drew from my eves

human tears, and yet filled my heart with divine joy: he anticipated his sure reward, his incorruptible crown. I

know that a stranger's hand will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful servant has been called at

length into the joy of his Lord. And why weep for this? No fear of death will darken St. John's last hour: his

mind will be unclouded, his heart will be undaunted, his hope will be sure, his faith steadfast. His own words

"My Master," he says, "has forewarned me. Daily He announces more distinctly,'Surely I come quickly!'