CHAPTER XIX

The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl—if Sibyl she
were—was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the chimney-corner. She had
on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or rather, a broad-brimmed 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 prayer-book, 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 drawing-room 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 hat-brim partially shaded her
face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked
all brown and black: elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which
passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye
confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze.

“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.”

“Did you? You’ve a quick ear.”

“I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain.”

“You need them all in your trade.”

“I do; especially when I’ve customers like you to deal with. Why don’t you
tremble?”

“I’m not cold.”

“Why don’t you turn pale?”

“I am not sick.”

“Why don’t you consult my art?”

“I’m not silly.”

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 you are silly.”

“Prove it,” I rejoined.

“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 to meet it where it waits you.”

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.”

“I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost any one?”

“In my circumstances.”

“Yes; just so, in your circumstances: but find me another precisely
placed as you are.”
your
“It would be easy to find you thousands.”

“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 somewhat apart;
let them be once approached and bliss results.”

“I don’t understand enigmas. I never could guess a riddle in my life.”

“If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm.”

“And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?”

“To be sure.”

I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot 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 approached her face to the palm, and pored over it
without touching it.

“It is too fine,” said she. “I can make nothing of such a hand as that; almost
without lines: besides, what is in a palm? Destiny is not written there.”

“I believe you,” said I.

“No,” she continued, “it is in the face: on the forehead, about the eyes, in
the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and lift up your head.”

“Ah! now you are coming to reality,” I said, as I obeyed her. “I shall begin to
put some faith in you presently.”

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 to-night,” 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 magic-lantern: 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.”

“I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes, but seldom sad.”

“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 house rented by myself.”

“A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that window-seat
(you see I know your habits)—”

“You have learned them from the servants.”

“Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak truth, I have an
acquaintance with one of them, Mrs. Poole—”

I started to my feet when I heard the name.

“You have—have 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 window-seat, 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 like to observe all the faces and all the figures.”

“But do you never single one from the rest—or it may be, two?”

“I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling a tale: it
amuses me to watch them.”

“What tale do you like best to hear?”

“Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme—courtship;
and promise to end in the same catastrophe—marriage.”

“And do you like that monotonous theme?”

“Positively, I don’t care about it: it is nothing to me.”

“Nothing to you? When a lady, young and full of life and health, charming with
beauty and endowed with the gifts of rank and fortune, sits and smiles in the
eyes of a gentleman you—”

“I what?”

“You know—and perhaps think well of.”

“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 middle-aged, and others young, dashing, handsome, and lively: but
certainly they are all at liberty to be the recipients of whose smiles they
please, without my feeling disposed to consider the transaction of any moment
to me.”

“You don’t know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a syllable with one
of them? Will you say that of the master of the house!”

“He is not at home.”

“A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote this morning,
and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that circumstance exclude him
from the list of your acquaintance—blot him, as it were, out of existence?”

“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?”

“Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests.”

“No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of all the
tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favoured with the most
lively and the most continuous?”

“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?”

“Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face.”

“Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if not
gratitude?”

I said nothing.

“You have seen love: have you not?—and, looking forward, you have seen him
married, and beheld his bride happy?”

“Humph! Not exactly. Your witch’s skill is rather at fault sometimes.”

“What the devil have you seen, then?”

“Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known that Mr.
Rochester is to be married?”

“Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram.”

“Shortly?”

“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 rent-roll,—he’s dished—”

“But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester’s fortune: I came to hear my
own; and you have told me nothing of it.”

“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 whether you will do so, is the problem I study. Kneel again
on the rug.”

“Don’t keep me long; the fire scorches me.”

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 my opinion. The eye is favourable.

“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 have human affection for its interlocutor. That feature too is
propitious.

“I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes
to say,—‘I can live alone, if self-respect, 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, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by:
but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the
dictates of conscience.’

“Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have formed my
plans—right plans I deem them—and 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, dissolution—such
is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight—to earn gratitude, not to
wring tears of blood—no, 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 me; ‘the play is played out.’”
ad infinitum
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 glass—as 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 me—on the contrary, the
bonnet was doffed, the bandage displaced, the head advanced.

“Well, Jane, do you know me?” asked the familiar voice.

“Only take off the red cloak, sir, and then—”

“But the string is in a knot—help me.”

“Break it, sir.”

“There, then—‘Off, ye lendings!’” And Mr. Rochester stepped out of his
disguise.

“Now, sir, what a strange idea!”

“But well carried out, eh? Don’t you think so?”

“With the ladies you must have managed well.”

“But not with you?”

“You did not act the character of a gipsy with me.”

“What character did I act? My own?”

“No; some unaccountable one. In short, I believe you have been trying to draw
me out—or in; you have been talking nonsense to make me talk nonsense. It is
scarcely fair, sir.”

“Do you forgive me, Jane?”

“I cannot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on reflection, I find I
have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall try to forgive you; but it was not
right.”

“Oh, you have been very correct—very careful, very sensible.”

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 fortune-tellers 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 Poole—that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I
considered her. I had never thought of Mr. Rochester.

“Well,” said he, “what are you musing about? What does that grave smile
signify?”

“Wonder and self-congratulation, sir. I have your permission to retire now, I
suppose?”

“No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawing-room yonder are
doing.”

“Discussing the gipsy, I daresay.”

“Sit down!—Let me hear what they said about me.”

“I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o’clock. Oh, are you
aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here since you left this
morning?”

“A stranger!—no; who can it be? I expected no one; is he gone?”

“No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the liberty of
installing himself here till you returned.”

“The devil he did! Did he give his name?”

“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.

“Do you feel ill, sir?” I inquired.

“Jane, I’ve got a blow; I’ve got a blow, Jane!” He staggered.

“Oh, lean on me, sir.”

“Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now.”

“Yes, sir, yes; and my arm.”

He sat down, and made me sit beside him. Holding my hand in both his own, he
chafed it; gazing on me, at the same time, with the most troubled and dreary
look.

“My little friend!” said he, “I wish I were in a quiet island with only you;
and trouble, and danger, and hideous recollections removed from me.”

“Can I help you, sir?—I’d give my life to serve you.”

“Jane, if aid is wanted, I’ll seek it at your hands; I promise you that.”

“Thank you, sir. Tell me what to do,—I’ll try, at least, to do it.”

“Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from the dining-room: they will be at
supper there; and tell me if Mason is with them, and what he is doing.”

I went. I found all the party in the dining-room 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 wine-glass (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 from my hand.

“Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!” he said. He swallowed the contents
and returned it to me. “What are they doing, Jane?”

“Laughing and talking, sir.”

“They don’t look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard something strange?”

“Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety.”

“And Mason?”

“He was laughing too.”

“If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would you do, Jane?”

“Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could.”

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 rather think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying with you.”

“To comfort me?”

“Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could.”

“And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?”

“I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I should care
nothing about it.”

“Then, you could dare censure for my sake?”

“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 wishes to see him: show him in here and then
leave me.”

“Yes, sir.”

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 upstairs.

At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors repair
to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester’s voice, and heard him say,
“This way, Mason; this is your room.”

He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease. I was soon asleep.

CHAPTER XX

I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to let down
my window-blind. 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
disk—silver-white and crystal clear. It was beautiful, but too solemn: I half
rose, and stretched my arm to draw the curtain.

Good God! What a cry!

The night—its silence—its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, a
shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.

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 widest-winged condor on the Andes could,
twice in succession, send out such a yell from the cloud shrouding his eyrie.
The thing delivering such utterance must rest ere it could repeat the effort.

It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And overhead—yes, in
the room just above my chamber-ceiling—I now heard a struggle: a deadly one it
seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered voice shouted—

“Help! help! help!” three times rapidly.

“Will no one come?” it cried; and then, while the staggering and stamping went
on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:—

“Rochester! Rochester! for God’s sake, come!”

A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery. Another step
stamped on the flooring above and something fell; and there was silence.

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 it?”—“Who is hurt?”—“What has happened?”—“Fetch a
light!”—“Is it fire?”—“Are there 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: the confusion was inextricable.

“Where the devil is Rochester?” cried Colonel Dent. “I cannot find him in his
bed.”

“Here! here!” was shouted in return. “Be composed, all of you: I’m coming.”

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 Ingram.

“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 shall wax dangerous.”

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 had left it.

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 to me that some event must follow the strange
cry, struggle, and call.

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 shoes, a cautious hand tapped
low at the door.

“Am I wanted?” I asked.

“Are you up?” asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my master’s.

“Yes, sir.”

“And dressed?”

“Yes.”

“Come out, then, quietly.”

I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.

“I want you,” he said: “come this way: take your time, and make no noise.”

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.

“Have you a sponge in your room?” he asked in a whisper.

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you any salts—volatile salts?”

“Yes.”

“Go back and fetch both.”

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 paused,
and addressed me again.

“You don’t turn sick at the sight of blood?”

“I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.”

I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no faintness.

“Just give me your hand,” he said: “it will not do to risk a fainting fit.”

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 easy-chair was near the bed-head: 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 face—the stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side, and
one arm, was almost soaked in blood.

“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 corpse-like face; he asked for my
smelling-bottle, 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 blood, trickling fast down.

“Is there immediate danger?” murmured Mr. Mason.

“Pooh! No—a mere scratch. Don’t be so overcome, man: bear up! I’ll fetch a
surgeon for you now, myself: you’ll be able to be removed by morning, I hope.
Jane,” he continued.

“Sir?”

“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 pretext—and—Richard,
it will be at the peril of your life if you speak to her: open your
lips—agitate yourself—and I’ll not answer for the consequences.”

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 to be heard.

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: yes—that was appalling—the
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 countenance—these
blue, still lips forbidden to unclose—these 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 opposite—whose front, divided into
twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the twelve apostles, each
enclosed in its separate panel as in a frame; while above them at the top rose
an ebon crucifix and a dying Christ.

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
arch-traitor—of Satan himself—in his subordinate’s form.

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 groan.

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 carrion-seeking bird of prey?

And this man I bent over—this commonplace, quiet stranger—how 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 below—what
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 individual—whom his word now sufficed to control like
a child—fallen on him, a few hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall on an
oak?

Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered: “Jane, I
have got a blow—I 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 lingered—as 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; and 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 shorter.

Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to fetch.

“Now, Carter, be on the alert,” he said to this last: “I give you but
half-an-hour for dressing the wound, fastening the bandages, getting the
patient downstairs and all.”

“But is he fit to move, sir?”

“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 the east. Then he
approached Mason, whom the surgeon was already handling.

“Now, my good fellow, how are you?” he asked.

“She’s done for me, I fear,” was the faint reply.

“Not a whit!—courage! This day fortnight you’ll hardly be a pin the worse of
it: you’ve lost a little blood; that’s all. Carter, assure him there’s no
danger.”

“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 much—but
how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well as cut. This wound was
not done with a knife: there have been teeth here!”

“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, shuddering. “And I did not expect it: she looked so quiet
at first.”

“I warned you,” was his friend’s answer; “I said—be on your guard when you go
near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-morrow, and had me with you:
it was mere folly to attempt the interview to-night, and alone.”

“I thought I could have done some good.”

“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. Carter—hurry!—hurry! The sun will soon rise, and I
must have him off.”

“Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to this other wound
in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think.”

“She sucked the blood: she said she’d drain my heart,” said Mason.

I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust, horror,
hatred, warped his countenance almost to distortion; but he only said—

“Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don’t repeat it.”

“I wish I could forget it,” was the answer.

“You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to Spanish Town,
you may think of her as dead and buried—or rather, you need not think of her at
all.”

“Impossible to forget this night!”

“It is not impossible: have some energy, man. You thought you were as dead as a
herring two hours since, and you are all alive and talking now. There!—Carter
has done with you or nearly so; I’ll make you decent in a trice. Jane” (he
turned to me for the first time since his re-entrance), “take this key: go down
into my bedroom, and walk straight forward into my dressing-room: open the top
drawer of the wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and neck-handkerchief: bring
them here; and be nimble.”

I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles named, and
returned with them.

“Now,” said he, “go to the other side of the bed while I order his toilet; but
don’t leave the room: you may be wanted again.”

I retired as directed.

“Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?” inquired Mr. Rochester
presently.

“No, sir; all was very still.”

“We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both for your sake,
and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have striven long to avoid
exposure, and I should not like it to come at last. Here, Carter, help him on
with his waist-coat. Where did you leave your furred cloak? You can’t travel a
mile without that, I know, in this damned cold climate. In your room?—Jane, run
down to Mr. Mason’s room,—the one next mine,—and fetch a cloak you will see
there.”

Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined and edged with
fur.

“Now, I’ve another errand for you,” said my untiring master; “you must away to
my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!—a clod-hopping
messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open the middle drawer of
my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a little glass you will find
there,—quick!”

I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.

“That’s well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a dose
myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of an Italian
charlatan—a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not a thing to be used
indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as now, for instance. Jane, a
little water.”

He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle on the
washstand.

“That will do;—now wet the lip of the phial.”

I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it to
Mason.

“Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so.”

“But will it hurt me?—is it inflammatory?”

“Drink! drink! drink!”

Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was dressed
now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and sullied. Mr. Rochester
let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the liquid; he then took his
arm—

“Now I am sure you can get on your feet,” he said—“try.”

The patient rose.

“Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer, Richard; step
out—that’s it!”

“I do feel better,” remarked Mr. Mason.

“I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the backstairs; unbolt
the side-passage door, and tell the driver of the post-chaise you will see in
the yard—or just outside, for I told him not to drive his rattling wheels over
the pavement—to be ready; we are coming: and, Jane, if any one is about, come
to the foot of the stairs and hem.”

It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of rising; but
I found the kitchen still dark and silent. The side-passage door was fastened;
I opened it with as little noise as possible: all the yard was quiet; but the
gates stood wide open, and there was a post-chaise, with horses ready
harnessed, and driver seated on the box, stationed outside. I approached him,
and said the gentlemen were coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully round
and listened. The stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains
were yet drawn over the servants’ chamber windows; little birds were just
twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs drooped like
white garlands over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the carriage
horses stamped from time to time in their closed stables: all else was still.

The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the surgeon,
seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him into the chaise; Carter
followed.

“Take care of him,” said Mr. Rochester to the latter, “and keep him at your
house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a day or two to see how he
gets on. Richard, how is it with you?”

“The fresh air revives me, Fairfax.”

“Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind—good-bye, Dick.”

“Fairfax—”

“Well what is it?”

“Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be: let her—”
he stopped and burst into tears.

“I do my best; and have done it, and will do it,” was the answer: he shut up
the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.

“Yet would to God there was an end of all this!” added Mr. Rochester, as he
closed and barred the heavy yard-gates.

This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a door in the
wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done with me, prepared to
return to the house; again, however, I heard him call “Jane!” He had opened the
portal and stood at it, waiting for me.

“Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments,” he said; “that house
is a mere dungeon: don’t you feel it so?”

“It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.”

“The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,” he answered; “and you see it
through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the
silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods
mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now here” (he pointed to the leafy
enclosure we had entered) “all is real, sweet, and pure.”

He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees, and cherry
trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all sorts of old-fashioned
flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies, mingled with southernwood,
sweet-briar, and various fragrant herbs. They were fresh now as a succession of
April showers and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them:
the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumined the
wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them.

“Jane, will you have a flower?”

He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to me.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light clouds which
are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm—this placid and balmly atmosphere?”

“I do, very much.”

“You have passed a strange night, Jane.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And it has made you look pale—were you afraid when I left you alone with
Mason?”

“I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room.”

“But I had fastened the door—I had the key in my pocket: I should have been a
careless shepherd if I had left a lamb—my pet lamb—so near a wolf’s den,
unguarded: you were safe.”

“Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?”

“Oh yes! don’t trouble your head about her—put the thing out of your thoughts.”

“Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays.”

“Never fear—I will take care of myself.”

“Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?”

“I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. To live,
for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and spue fire any
day.”

“But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is evidently potent
with him: he will never set you at defiance or wilfully injure you.”

“Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me—but,
unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me, if not
of life, yet for ever of happiness.”

“Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and show him how to
avert the danger.”

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 you not?”

“I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right.”

“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 me—working 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 light-footed running, no
neat-handed 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.”

“God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down.”

The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a rustic seat.
Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me: but I stood before him.

“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 wrong, Jane?”

I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been unwise.

“Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew—while 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
work—I’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.”

“No, sir; I am content.”

“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 pleasure—I mean in heartless,
sensual pleasure—such as dulls intellect and blights feeling. Heart-weary and
soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary banishment: you make a
new acquaintance—how 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 back—higher
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 custom—a mere
conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your
judgment approves?”

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 tree-tops; but their song, however
sweet, was inarticulate.

Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query:

“Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking 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 mind and
regeneration of life?”

“Sir,” I answered, “a wanderer’s repose or a sinner’s reformation should never
depend on a fellow-creature. 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 instrument—the instrument! God, who does the work, ordains the
instrument. I have myself—I tell it you without parable—been a worldly,
dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for my cure
in—”

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 minutes—so 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 tone—while 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 you think if I married her
she would regenerate me with a vengeance?”

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 disturbing your rest?”

“Curse you? No, sir.”

“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?”

“Whenever I can be useful, sir.”

“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.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She’s a rare one, is she not, Jane?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A strapper—a 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.”