Jane eyre

Two wax candles stood lighted on the table, and two on the
mantelpiece; basking in the light and heat of a superb fire, lay
Pilot--Adele 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 jaw--yes, 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 term--broad chested and thin flanked,
though neither tall nor graceful.
Mr. Rochester must have been aware of the entrance of Mrs. Fairfax
and myself; but it appeared he was not in the mood to notice us, for
he never lifted his head as we approached.
"Here is Miss Eyre, sir," said Mrs. Fairfax, in her quiet way. He
bowed, still not taking his eyes from the group of the dog and
child.
"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? At this moment I am not disposed to accost her."
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 usual--and, as usual,
rather trite--she 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 table; but the master did not leave his couch.
"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 request in my favour,
cried out -
"N'est-ce 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?" and he searched my face with
eyes that I saw were dark, irate, and piercing.
"I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are
generally thought pleasant things."
"Generally thought? But what do YOU think?"
"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 sees me: you beat about the
bush."
"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
acknowledgment."
"Oh, don't fall back on over-modesty! 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 covet--praise of their pupils' progress."
"Humph!" said Mr. Rochester, and he took his tea in silence.
"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 on my knee,
but she was ordered to amuse herself with Pilot.
"You have been resident in my house three months?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you came from--?"
"From Lowood school, in -shire."
"Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?"
"Eight years."
"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 have none."
"Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?"
"No."
"I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you
sat on that stile?"
"For whom, sir?"
"For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them.
Did I break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned
ice on the causeway?"
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 was.
"Well," resumed Mr. Rochester, "if you disown parents, you must have
some sort of kinsfolk: uncles and aunts?"
"No; none that I ever saw."
Gió nhớ gì ngẩn ngơ ngoài hiên
Mưa nhớ gì thì thầm ngoài hiên

​

"And your home?"
"I have none."
"Where do your brothers and sisters live?"
"I have no brothers or sisters."
"Who recommended you to come here?"
"I advertised, and Mrs. Fairfax answered my advertisement."
"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 teacher to Adele."
"Don't trouble yourself to give her a character," returned Mr.
Rochester: "eulogiums will not bias me; I shall judge for myself.
She began by felling my horse."
"Sir?" said Mrs. Fairfax.
"I have to thank her for this sprain."
The widow looked bewildered.
"Miss Eyre, have you ever lived in a town?"
"No, sir."
"Have you seen much society?"
"None but the pupils and teachers of Lowood, and now the inmates of
Thornfield."
"Have you read much?"
"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 understand directs Lowood, is
a parson, is he not?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you girls probably worshipped him, as a convent full of
religieuses would worship their director."
"Oh, no."
"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 hardly sew."
"That was very false economy," remarked Mrs. Fairfax, who now again
caught the drift of the dialogue.
"And was that the head and front of his offending?" demanded Mr.
Rochester.
"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 in***ing, about sudden deaths and judgments, which made us
afraid to go to bed."
"What age were you when you went to Lowood?"
"About ten."
"And you stayed there eight years: you are now, then, eighteen?"
I assented.
"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 you learn at Lowood? Can you play?"
"A little."
"Of course: that is the established answer. Go into the library--I
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 play a tune."
I departed, obeying his directions.
"Enough!" he called out in a few minutes. "You play A LITTLE, I
see; like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than
some, but not well."
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 you?"
"No, indeed!" I interjected.
"Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can
vouch for its contents being original; but don't pass your word
unless you are certain: I can recognise patchwork."
"Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir."
I brought the portfolio from the library.
"Approach the table," said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adele
and Mrs. Fairfax drew near to see the pictures.
"No crowding," said Mr. Rochester: "take the drawings from my hand
as I finish with them; but don't push your faces up to mine."
He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laid
aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him.
"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 hand yours?"
"Yes."
"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."
"Where did you get your copies?"
"Out of my head."
"That head I see now on your shoulders?"
"Yes, sir."
"Has it other furniture of the same kind within?"
"I should think it may have: I should hope--better."
Gió nhớ gì ngẩn ngơ ngoài hiên
Mưa nhớ gì thì thầm ngoài hiên

​

He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them
alternately.
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
had wrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived.
These pictures were in water-colours. 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 half-submerged 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 visible, whence the bracelet had been washed or torn.
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 bowed
this vision of the Evening Star.
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 I have ever known."
"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 day?"
"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."
"And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent
labours?"
"Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and
my handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was
quite powerless to realise."
"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 school-
girl, 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 hill-top. 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 than Pilot would have
done, nor so much.
"I wish you all good-night, 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: we curtseyed to him, received a frigid bow in
return, and so withdrew.
"You said Mr. Rochester was not strikingly peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax,"
I observed, when I rejoined her in her room, after putting Adele to
bed.
"Well, is he?"
"I think so: he is very changeful and abrupt."
"True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so
accustomed to his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has
peculiarities of temper, allowance should be made."
"Why?"
"Partly because it is his nature--and we can none of us help our
nature; and partly because he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to
harass him, and make his spirits unequal."
"What about?"
"Family troubles, for one thing."
"But he has no family."
"Not now, but he has had--or, at least, relatives. He lost his
elder brother a few years since."
"His ELDER brother?"
"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, no--perhaps 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
master of the estate; and, indeed, no wonder he shuns the old
place."
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Mưa nhớ gì thì thầm ngoài hiên

​

"Why should he shun it?"
"Perhaps he thinks it gloomy."
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 she wished me
to drop the subject, which I did accordingly.
CHAPTER XIV
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
disarrangement--we 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 dining-room. She
appeared to know it by instinct.
"Ma boite! ma boite!" exclaimed she, running towards it.
"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 easy-chair at the fireside.
"And mind," he continued, "don't bother me with any details of the
anatomical process, or any notice of the con***ion of the entrails:
let your operation be conducted in silence: tiens-toi tranquille,
enfant; comprends-tu?"
Adele seemed scarcely to need the warning--she 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 envelopes of tissue paper, she merely exclaimed -
"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 which I still stood.
"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 tete-e-tete with a brat. Don't draw that chair
farther off, Miss Eyre; sit down exactly where I placed it--if you
please, that is. Confound these civilities! I continually forget
them. Nor do I particularly affect simple-minded old ladies. By-
the-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, knitting-basket 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
au***ress and interlocutrice; it will be one of the most benevolent
acts you ever performed."
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 raptures in such broken English as she was mistress
of.
"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
comfortable chair, which I have no mind to do."
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 dining-room: 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 damask-covered 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 after-dinner mood; more
expanded and genial, and also more self-indulgent 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 granite-hewn features,
and in his great, dark eyes; for he had great, dark eyes, and very
fine eyes, too--not without a certain change in their depths
sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of
that feeling.
Gió nhớ gì ngẩn ngơ ngoài hiên
Mưa nhớ gì thì thầm ngoài hiên

​

He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking
the same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my
gaze fastened on his physiognomy.
"You examine me, Miss Eyre," said he: "do you think me handsome?"
I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by
something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow
slipped from my tongue before I was aware--"No, sir."
"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, by-the-bye, 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 rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at
least brusque. What do you mean by it?"
"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 something of that sort."
"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 placi***y, 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 other man?"
"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.
"Now, ma'am, am I a fool?"
"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 India-rubber ball; pervious,
though, through a chink or two still, and with one sentient point in
the middle of the lump. Yes: does that leave hope for me?"
"Hope of what, sir?"
"Of my final re-transformation from India-rubber back to flesh?"
"Decidedly he has had too much wine," I thought; and I did not know
what answer to make to his queer question: how could I tell whether
he was capable of being re-transformed?
"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 to be
gregarious and communicative to-night."
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 to-night," 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 ***to; 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 to-night I am resolved to be at ease;
to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases. It would
please me now to draw you out--to learn more of you--therefore
speak."
Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or
submissive smile either.
"Speak," he urged.
"What about, sir?"
"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 will find he has
addressed himself to the wrong person," I thought.
"You are dumb, Miss Eyre."
I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with a
single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes.
"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 point--cankering as a rusty nail."
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Mưa nhớ gì thì thầm ngoài hiên

​

He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel
insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so.
"I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir--quite 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 you
have lived quietly with one set of people in one house?"
"Do as you please, sir."
"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 *****periority depends on the use you have
made of your time and experience."
"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
you?"
I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester IS peculiar--he seems
to forget that he pays me 30 pounds per annum for receiving his
orders.
"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 subordinates were piqued and
hurt by their orders."
"Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh
yes, I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary
ground, will you agree to let me hector a little?"
"No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did forget
it, and that you care whether or not a dependent is comfortable in
his dependency, I agree heartily."
"And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional
forms and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from
insolence?"
"I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence:
one I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even
for a salary."
"Humbug! Most things free-born 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, coarse-minded misapprehension of one's
meaning are the usual rewards of candour. Not three in three
thousand raw school-girl-governesses 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, answering as if its import had
been spoken as well as imagined -
"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 one-and-
twenty, and have never recovered the right course since: but I
might have been very different; I might have been as good as you--
wiser--almost 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 treasure--an
inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?"
"How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?"
"All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had
turned it to fetid puddle. I was your equal at eighteen--quite 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, by-the-bye, 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 *****ppose that--not 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."
"How do you know?--how can you guess all this, sir?"
"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 should--so 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 firm--God knows I
do! Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse
is the poison of life."
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Mưa nhớ gì thì thầm ngoài hiên

​

"Repentance is said to be its cure, sir."
"It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could
reform--I have strength yet for that--if--but 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."
"Then you will degenerate still more, sir."
"Possibly: yet why should I, if I can get sweet, fresh pleasure?
And I may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee
gathers on the moor."
"It will sting--it will taste bitter, sir."
"How do you know?--you never tried it. How very serious--how 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 poison of existence."
"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
soothing--I 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 so fair a guest when it asks entrance
to my heart."
"Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel."
"Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to
distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger
from the eternal throne--between a guide and a seducer?"
"I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said
the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you
more misery if you listen to it."
"Not at all--it bears the most gracious message in the world: for
the rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don't make yourself
uneasy. Here, come in, bonny wanderer!"
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
pilgrim--a 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 revert with
pleasure."
"Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am
paving hell with energy."
"Sir?"
"I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint.
Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have
been."
"And better?"
"And better--so 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 and Persians, that both are right."
"They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise
them."
"They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute:
unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules."
"That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once
that it is liable to abuse."
"Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not
to abuse it."
"You are human and fallible."
"I am: so are you--what then?"
"The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the
divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted."
"What power?"
"That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action,--'Let
it be right.'"
"'Let it be right'--the very words: you have pronounced them."
"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 of ignorance.
"Where are you going?"
"To put Adele to bed: it is past her bedtime."
"You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx."
"Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I
am certainly not afraid."
"You ARE afraid--your self-love dreads a blunder."
"In that sense I do feel apprehensive--I have no wish to talk
nonsense."
"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 answer--I 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
brother--or father, or master, or what you will--to 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 close-set
bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were
it but free, it would soar cloud-high. You are still bent on
going?"
"It has struck nine, sir."
"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 re-
enter; 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 whether it will be
realised."
Ere long, Adele's little foot was heard tripping across the hall.
She entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of
rose-coloured 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
silk stockings and small white satin sandals.
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Mưa nhớ gì thì thầm ngoài hiên

​

"Est-ce que ma robe va bien?" cried she, bounding forwards; "et mes
souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!"
And spreading out her dress, she chasseed across the room till,
having reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him
on tip-toe, 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 faisait, n'est-ce pas,
monsieur?"
"Pre-cise-ly!" 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. Good-
night."
CHAPTER XV
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 shuttle****, he asked me to walk
up and down a long beech avenue within sight of her.
He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer,
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 d'athlete"
to the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.
"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 had--as I deserved to
have--the 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
will take one now, if you will excuse me."
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 opera-house, when in an
elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses,
and distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, 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 cloak--an unnecessary encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so
warm a June evening--I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen
peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the
carriage-step. 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 alone--when 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 passed under the
arched porte cochere of the hotel.
"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 you--and you may mark my
words--you 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 master-wave into a calmer current-
-as I am now.
"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 crow-trees and thorn-trees, 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 a great plague-house? How I do still abhor -"
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:
self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and petrified his
countenance: he went on -
"During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point
with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk--a 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
house-front, between the upper and lower row of windows, 'Like it if
you can! Like it if you dare!'
"'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 goodness--yes, 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 esteem but straw and rotten wood."
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Mưa nhớ gì thì thầm ngoài hiên

​

Adele here ran before him with her shuttle****. "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 abruptly diverged -
"Did you leave the balcony, sir," I asked, "when Mdlle. Varens
entered?"
I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed 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
opera-mistresses 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 chamber-maid 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 vicomte--a
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, however, than
I, who had been her dupe.
"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
defects--deformities 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
point-blank, at the second interview, that you did not think me
handsome. The contrast struck me at the time and--"
Adele here came running up again.
"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 opera-
girl, 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 place--that you beg me to look out for a new governess, &c.-
-Eh?"
"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, parentless--forsaken 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 Pilot--ran a
race with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttle****.
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.
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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 every-
day 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 me***ated 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 pleasure as for my benefit.
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 regions he disclosed, never startled or
troubled by one noxious allusion.
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 crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the
blanks of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I
gathered flesh and strength.
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 would have given much
to assuage it.
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 happy at Thornfield.
"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 sunshine
and fine days will seem!"
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 sound was
hushed.
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 chamber-door 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 fear.
All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the
kitchen-door 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,
scared by a marrow-freezing incident enough.
This was a demoniac laugh--low, suppressed, and deep--uttered, 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 goblin-laugher stood
at my bedside--or 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 to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to
cry out, "Who is there?"
Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the
gallery towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been
made to shut in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all
was still.
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