CHAPTER XI

A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I
draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the
George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inn
rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantelpiece,
such prints, including a portrait of George the Third, and another of the
Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is
visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by
that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and
umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill
contracted by sixteen hours’ exposure to the rawness of an October day: I left
Lowton at four o’clock A.M., and the Millcote town clock is now
just striking eight.
A.M.
Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my
mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some one to meet me;
I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden steps the “boots” placed for
my convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced, and to see some
description of carriage waiting to convey me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort
was visible; and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a
Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no resource but to request
to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of
doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.

It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite
alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the
port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments
from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that
sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it;
and fear with me became predominant when half-an-hour elapsed and still I was
alone. I bethought myself to ring the bell.

“Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?” I asked of the
waiter who answered the summons.

“Thornfield? I don’t know, ma’am; I’ll inquire at the bar.” He vanished, but
reappeared instantly—

“Is your name Eyre, Miss?”

“Yes.”

“Person here waiting for you.”

I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the inn-passage: a
man was standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit street I dimly saw a
one-horse conveyance.

“This will be your luggage, I suppose?” said the man rather abruptly when he
saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage.

“Yes.” He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and then I got
in; before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to Thornfield.

“A matter of six miles.”

“How long shall we be before we get there?”

“Happen an hour and a half.”

He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set off. Our
progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I was content to be
at length so near the end of my journey; and as I leaned back in the
comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I meditated much at my ease.

“I suppose,” thought I, “judging from the plainness of the servant and
carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better; I
never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I
wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any
degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her; I will do my best;
it is a pity that doing one’s best does not always answer. At Lowood, indeed, I
took that resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I
remember my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may not
turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to stay with her!
let the worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. How far are we on our
road now, I wonder?”

I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by the
number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude, much larger
than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort of common; but there
were houses scattered all over the district; I felt we were in a different
region to Lowood, more populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less
romantic.

The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk all the
way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two hours; at last
he turned in his seat and said—

“You’re noan so far fro’ Thornfield now.”

Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower against
the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow galaxy of lights
too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About ten minutes after, the
driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed
to behind us. We now slowly ascended a drive, and came upon the long front of a
house: candlelight gleamed from one curtained bow-window; all the rest were
dark. The car stopped at the front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I
alighted and went in.

“Will you walk this way, ma’am?” said the girl; and I followed her across a
square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose double
illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting as it did with
the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours inured; when I could see,
however, a cosy and agreeable picture presented itself to my view.

A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high-backed
and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little elderly lady, in
widow’s cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron; exactly like what I had
fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder looking. She was occupied in
knitting; a large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to
complete the beau-ideal of domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for
a new governess could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to
overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady
got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.

“How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John drives
so slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire.”

“Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?” said I.

“Yes, you are right: do sit down.”

She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and untie
my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so much trouble.

“Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with cold.
Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are the keys of
the storeroom.”

And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and
delivered them to the servant.

“Now, then, draw nearer to the fire,” she continued. “You’ve brought your
luggage with you, haven’t you, my dear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ll see it carried into your room,” she said, and bustled out.

“She treats me like a visitor,” thought I. “I little expected such a reception;
I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is not like what I have heard
of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult too soon.”

She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a book or
two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now brought, and then
herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather confused at being the object
of more attention than I had ever before received, and, that too, shown by my
employer and superior; but as she did not herself seem to consider she was
doing anything out of her place, I thought it better to take her civilities
quietly.

“Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?” I asked, when I
had partaken of what she offered me.

“What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf,” returned the good lady,
approaching her ear to my mouth.

I repeated the question more distinctly.

“Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your future
pupil.”

“Indeed! Then she is not your daughter?”

“No,—I have no family.”

I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss Varens
was connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to ask too many
questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time.

“I am so glad,” she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took the cat
on her knee; “I am so glad you are come; it will be quite pleasant living here
now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for Thornfield is
a fine old hall, rather neglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a
respectable place; yet you know in winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in
the best quarters. I say alone—Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his
wife are very decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one
can’t converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due
distance, for fear of losing one’s authority. I’m sure last winter (it was a
very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained and
blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from
November till February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night
after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don’t think the
poor girl liked the task much: she felt it confining. In spring and summer one
got on better: sunshine and long days make such a difference; and then, just at
the commencement of this autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a
child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite
gay.”

My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew my
chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish that she might find
my company as agreeable as she anticipated.

“But I’ll not keep you sitting up late to-night,” said she; “it is on the
stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all day: you must feel
tired. If you have got your feet well warmed, I’ll show you your bedroom. I’ve
had the room next to mine prepared for you; it is only a small apartment, but I
thought you would like it better than one of the large front chambers: to be
sure they have finer furniture, but they are so dreary and solitary, I never
sleep in them myself.”

I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued with my
long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her candle, and I
followed her from the room. First she went to see if the hall-door was
fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the way upstairs. The
steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed;
both it and the long gallery into which the bedroom doors opened looked as if
they belonged to a church rather than a house. A very chill and vault-like air
pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and
solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of
small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style.

When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my door,
gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by
that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and that long, cold gallery,
by the livelier aspect of my little room, I remembered that, after a day of
bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven. The impulse
of gratitude swelled my heart, and I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up
thanks where thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my
further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly
offered me before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that night; my
solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I slept soon and soundly:
when I awoke it was broad day.

The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in between
the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and a carpeted
floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood, that my spirits
rose at the view. Externals have a great effect on the young: I thought that a
fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and
pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused by the change
of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely
define what they expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day
or that month, but at an indefinite future period.

I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain—for I had no article of
attire that was not made with extreme simplicity—I was still by nature
solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful of appearance or
careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I ever wished to look as
well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I
sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy
cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately,
and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so
pale, and had features so irregular and so marked. And why had I these
aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then
distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason
too. However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black
frock—which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a
nicety—and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do respectably
enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least
recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my chamber window, and seen that I
left all things straight and neat on the toilet table, I ventured forth.

Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of oak;
then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some pictures on
the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady
with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the
ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon
black with time and rubbing. Everything appeared very stately and imposing to
me; but then I was so little accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was
half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn
morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green
fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the
mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though
considerable: a gentleman’s manor-house, not a nobleman’s seat: battlements
round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front stood out well from
the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they
flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these
were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees,
strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the
mansion’s designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round
Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living
world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield
with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the stirring
locality of Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees,
straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district stood
nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the house and
gates.

I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet listening with
delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the
hall, and thinking what a great place it was for one lonely little dame like
Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady appeared at the door.

“What! out already?” said she. “I see you are an early riser.” I went up to
her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand.

“How do you like Thornfield?” she asked. I told her I liked it very much.

“Yes,” she said, “it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out of
order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come and reside
here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: great houses and fine
grounds require the presence of the proprietor.”

“Mr. Rochester!” I exclaimed. “Who is he?”

“The owner of Thornfield,” she responded quietly. “Did you not know he was
called Rochester?”

Of course I did not—I had never heard of him before; but the old lady seemed to
regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with which everybody
must be acquainted by instinct.

“I thought,” I continued, “Thornfield belonged to you.”

“To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the housekeeper—the
manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother’s
side, or at least my husband was; he was a clergyman, incumbent of Hay—that
little village yonder on the hill—and that church near the gates was his. The
present Mr. Rochester’s mother was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband:
but I never presume on the connection—in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider
myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always
civil, and I expect nothing more.”

“And the little girl—my pupil!”

“She is Mr. Rochester’s ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for her.
He intended to have her brought up in ——shire, I believe. Here she comes, with
her ‘bonne,’ as she calls her nurse.” The enigma then was explained: this
affable and kind little widow was no great dame; but a dependent like myself. I
did not like her the worse for that; on the contrary, I felt better pleased
than ever. The equality between her and me was real; not the mere result of
condescension on her part: so much the better—my position was all the freer.

As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her
attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not at first
appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or eight years old,
slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a redundancy of hair
falling in curls to her waist.

“Good morning, Miss Adela,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Come and speak to the lady who
is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day.” She approached.

“C’est là ma gouvernante!” said she, pointing to me, and addressing her nurse;
who answered—

“Mais oui, certainement.”

“Are they foreigners?” I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.

“The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I believe,
never left it till within six months ago. When she first came here she could
speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a little: I don’t
understand her, she mixes it so with French; but you will make out her meaning
very well, I dare say.”

Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady;
and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as
I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of
French by heart daily—applying myself to take pains with my accent, and
imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had
acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was
not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came and shook
hands with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to
breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied
briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined
me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced
chattering fluently.

“Ah!” cried she, in French, “you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester
does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She will be glad:
nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse;
she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked—how it
did smoke!—and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr.
Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and
I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a
shelf. And Mademoiselle—what is your name?”

“Eyre—Jane Eyre.”

“Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it
was quite daylight, at a great city—a huge city, with very dark houses and all
smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester
carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we
all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than
this and finer, called an hotel. We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie
used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park;
and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds
in it, that I fed with crumbs.”

“Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?” asked Mrs. Fairfax.

I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of
Madame Pierrot.

“I wish,” continued the good lady, “you would ask her a question or two about
her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?”

“Adèle,” I inquired, “with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean
town you spoke of?”

“I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama used to
teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and
ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their
knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?”

She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of her
accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my
knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her
curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from
some opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the
perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her
in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one
that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how
little his desertion has affected her.

The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the
point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled
with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was: at least I
thought so.

Adèle sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the naïveté of
her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, “Now, Mademoiselle, I
will repeat you some poetry.”
naïveté
Assuming an attitude, she began, “La Ligue des Rats: fable de La Fontaine.” She
then declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis,
a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual indeed
at her age, and which proved she had been carefully trained.

“Was it your mama who taught you that piece?” I asked.

“Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: ‘Qu’avez vous donc? lui dit un
de ces rats; parlez!’ She made me lift my hand—so—to remind me to raise my
voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you?”

“No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you say,
with whom did you live then?”

“With Madame Frédéric and her husband: she took care of me, but she is nothing
related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a house as mama. I
was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would like to go and live with
him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. Rochester before I knew Madame
Frédéric, and he was always kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys: but
you see he has not kept his word, for he has brought me to England, and now he
is gone back again himself, and I never see him.”

After breakfast, Adèle and I withdrew to the library, which room, it appears,
Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom. Most of the books
were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one bookcase left open
containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, and
several volumes of light literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few
romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that these were all the governess
would require for her private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me amply for
the present; compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been able to
glean at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and
information. In this room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite new and of
superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of globes.

I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she had not
been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be injudicious to
confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to her a great deal, and
got her to learn a little, and when the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed
her to return to her nurse. I then proposed to occupy myself till dinner-time
in drawing some little sketches for her use.

As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax called
to me: “Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose,” said she. She was
in a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in when she addressed
me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a
Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast window rich in stained glass,
and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine
purple spar, which stood on a sideboard.

“What a beautiful room!” I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never before
seen any half so imposing.

“Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in a
little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments that are
seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault.”

She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it with a
Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad steps, and
looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy place, so bright to my
novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was merely a very pretty
drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread with white carpets, on which
seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of
white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in rich contrast crimson
couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were
of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows large mirrors
repeated the general blending of snow and fire.

“In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!” said I. “No dust, no canvas
coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were
inhabited daily.”

“Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester’s visits here are rare, they are always
sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything
swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his arrival, I thought it
best to keep the rooms in readiness.”

“Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?”

“Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman’s tastes and habits, and he
expects to have things managed in conformity to them.”

“Do you like him? Is he generally liked?”

“Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the land in
this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the Rochesters time
out of mind.”

“Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he liked
for himself?”

“I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is
considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never lived
much amongst them.”
I
“But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?”

“Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps:
he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should
think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much conversation with him.”

“In what way is he peculiar?”

“I don’t know—it is not easy to describe—nothing striking, but you feel it when
he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest,
whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don’t thoroughly understand him, in
short—at least, I don’t: but it is of no consequence, he is a very good
master.”

This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and mine.
There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or
observing and describing salient points, either in persons or things: the good
lady evidently belonged to this class; my queries puzzled, but did not draw her
out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed
proprietor—nothing more: she inquired and searched no further, and evidently
wondered at my wish to gain a more definite notion of his identity.

When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of the
house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I went; for all
was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I thought especially
grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were
interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture once appropriated to the
lower apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions changed:
and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a
hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange
carvings of palm branches and cherubs’ heads, like types of the Hebrew ark;
rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated,
on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries,
wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All these
relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the
past: a shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these
retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night’s repose on one of those
wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others,
with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies
of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings,—all which
would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.

“Do the servants sleep in these rooms?” I asked.

“No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever sleeps
here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this
would be its haunt.”

“So I think: you have no ghost, then?”

“None that I ever heard of,” returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.

“Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?”

“I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a violent
than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the reason they rest
tranquilly in their graves now.”

“Yes—‘after life’s fitful fever they sleep well,’” I muttered. “Where are you
going now, Mrs. Fairfax?” for she was moving away.

“On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?” I followed
still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a ladder and
through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on a level with the crow
colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning over the battlements and
looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map: the bright and
velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a
park, dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path
visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the
church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn
day’s sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly
white. No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I
turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the
ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of blue air
to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene of grove, pasture, and
green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and over which I had been gazing
with delight.

Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by dint of
groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow
garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating
the front and back rooms of the third storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only
one little window at the far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black
doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard’s castle.

While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a
region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal,
mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it began again,
louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It passed off in a
clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every lonely chamber; though it
originated but in one, and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents
issued.

“Mrs. Fairfax!” I called out: for I now heard her descending the great stairs.
“Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?”

“Some of the servants, very likely,” she answered: “perhaps Grace Poole.”

“Did you hear it?” I again inquired.

“Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms. Sometimes Leah
is with her; they are frequently noisy together.”

The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an odd
murmur.

“Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.

I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as
preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and
that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation; but
that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously
afraid. However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even
of surprise.

The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,—a woman of between thirty
and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face:
any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely be conceived.

“Too much noise, Grace,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Remember directions!” Grace
curtseyed silently and went in.

“She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid’s work,”
continued the widow; “not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but she
does well enough. By-the-bye, how have you got on with your new pupil this
morning?”

The conversation, thus turned on Adèle, continued till we reached the light and
cheerful region below. Adèle came running to meet us in the hall, exclaiming—

“Mesdames, vous êtes servies!” adding, “J’ai bien faim, moi!”

We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax’s room.

CHAPTER XII

The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to Thornfield
Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer acquaintance with the place
and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out to be what she appeared, a
placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of competent education and average
intelligence. My pupil was a lively child, who had been spoilt and indulged,
and therefore was sometimes wayward; but as she was committed entirely to my
care, and no injudicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans
for her improvement, she soon forgot her little freaks, and became obedient and
teachable. She had no great talents, no marked traits of character, no peculiar
development of feeling or taste which raised her one inch above the ordinary
level of childhood; but neither had she any deficiency or vice which sunk her
below it. She made reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though
perhaps not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay prattle, and
efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of attachment
sufficient to make us both content in each other’s society.

This, par parenthèse, will be thought cool language by persons who
entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the duty
of those charged with their education to conceive for them an idolatrous
devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo cant, or
prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a conscientious
solicitude for Adèle’s welfare and progress, and a quiet liking for her little
self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness,
and a pleasure in her society proportionate to the tranquil regard she had for
me, and the moderation of her mind and character.

Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, when I
took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked
through them along the road; or when, while Adèle played with her nurse, and
Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed the three staircases,
raised the trap-door of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out
afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-line—that then I longed
for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the
busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen—that then
I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse
with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within
my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adèle;
but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and
what I believed in I wished to behold.

Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not
help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.
Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third storey,
backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow
my mind’s eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it—and,
certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the
exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with
life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended—a
tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of
incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual
existence.

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they
must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are
condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt
against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political
rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed
to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise
for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers
do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation,
precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged
fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making
puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.
It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or
learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole’s laugh: the same peal,
the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had thrilled me: I heard,
too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There were days when she
was quite silent; but there were others when I could not account for the sounds
she made. Sometimes I saw her: she would come out of her room with a basin, or
a plate, or a tray in her hand, go down to the kitchen and shortly return,
generally (oh, romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!)
bearing a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the
curiosity raised by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no
point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into
conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply
usually cut short every effort of that sort.

The other members of the household, viz., John and his wife, Leah the
housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people; but in no respect
remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and sometimes I asked her
questions about her native country; but she was not of a descriptive or
narrative turn, and generally gave such vapid and confused answers as were
calculated rather to check than encourage inquiry.

October, November, December passed away. One afternoon in January, Mrs. Fairfax
had begged a holiday for Adèle, because she had a cold; and, as Adèle seconded
the request with an ardour that reminded me how precious occasional holidays
had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it, deeming that I did well in
showing pliability on the point. It was a fine, calm day, though very cold; I
was tired of sitting still in the library through a whole long morning: Mrs.
Fairfax had just written a letter which was waiting to be posted, so I put on
my bonnet and cloak and volunteered to carry it to Hay; the distance, two
miles, would be a pleasant winter afternoon walk. Having seen Adèle comfortably
seated in her little chair by Mrs. Fairfax’s parlour fireside, and given her
her best wax doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a drawer)
to play with, and a story-book for change of amusement; and having replied to
her “Revenez bientôt, ma bonne amie, ma chère Mdlle. Jeannette,” with a kiss, I
set out.

The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast till
I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the species of
pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was three o’clock; the
church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the charm of the hour lay in
its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile
from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and
blackberries in autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips
and haws, but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless
repose. If a breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a
holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes
were as still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the
path. Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now
browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the hedge,
looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.

This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the middle, I sat
down on a stile which led thence into a field. Gathering my mantle about me,
and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel the cold, though it froze
keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice covering the causeway, where a little
brooklet, now congealed, had overflowed after a rapid thaw some days since.
From my seat I could look down on Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall
was the principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose
against the west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, and sank
crimson and clear behind them. I then turned eastward.

On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but
brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost in trees, sent
up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a mile distant, but in the
absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs of life. My ear, too, felt
the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could not tell: but there were
many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks threading their passes. That
evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of the
most remote.

A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so far away
and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, which effaced the
soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid mass of a crag, or the rough
boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong on the foreground, efface the
aërial distance of azure hill, sunny horizon, and blended clouds where
tint melts into tint.

The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the lane yet
hid it, but it approached. I was just leaving the stile; yet, as the path was
narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In those days I was young, and all sorts
of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories
were there amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added
to them a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could give. As this horse
approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered
certain of Bessie’s tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a
“Gytrash,” which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary
ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming
upon me.

It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp,
I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems glided a
great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct object against the
trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie’s Gytrash—a lion-like creature with
long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however, quietly enough; not staying
to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half expected it
would. The horse followed,—a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the
human being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was
always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb
carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form.
No Gytrash was this,—only a traveller taking the short cut to Millcote. He
passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned: a sliding sound and an
exclamation of “What the deuce is to do now?” and a clattering tumble, arrested
my attention. Man and horse were down; they had slipped on the sheet of ice
which glazed the causeway. The dog came bounding back, and seeing his master in
a predicament, and hearing the horse groan, barked till the evening hills
echoed the sound, which was deep in proportion to his magnitude. He snuffed
round the prostrate group, and then he ran up to me; it was all he could
do,—there was no other help at hand to summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to
the traveller, by this time struggling himself free of his steed. His efforts
were so vigorous, I thought he could not be much hurt; but I asked him the
question—

“Are you injured, sir?”

I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was pronouncing some
formula which prevented him from replying to me directly.

“Can I do anything?” I asked again.

“You must just stand on one side,” he answered as he rose, first to his knees,
and then to his feet. I did; whereupon began a heaving, stamping, clattering
process, accompanied by a barking and baying which removed me effectually some
yards’ distance; but I would not be driven quite away till I saw the event.
This was finally fortunate; the horse was re-established, and the dog was
silenced with a “Down, Pilot!” The traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and
leg, as if trying whether they were sound; apparently something ailed them, for
he halted to the stile whence I had just risen, and sat down.

I was in the mood for being useful, or at least officious, I think, for I now
drew near him again.

“If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch some one either from
Thornfield Hall or from Hay.”

“Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones,—only a sprain;” and again he
stood up and tried his foot, but the result extorted an involuntary “Ugh!”

Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I could
see him plainly. His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur collared and
steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced the general points
of middle height and considerable breadth of chest. He had a dark face, with
stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful
and thwarted just now; he was past youth, but had not reached middle-age;
perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness.
Had he been a handsome, heroic-looking young gentleman, I should not have dared
to stand thus questioning him against his will, and offering my services
unasked. I had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to
one. I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry,
fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape, I
should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have sympathy
with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would fire, lightning,
or anything else that is bright but antipathetic.

If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me when I addressed
him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with thanks, I should
have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew inquiries: but the
frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my ease: I retained my station
when he waved to me to go, and announced—

“I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary lane,
till I see you are fit to mount your horse.”

He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes in my direction
before.

“I should think you ought to be at home yourself,” said he, “if you have a home
in this neighbourhood: where do you come from?”

“From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when it is
moonlight: I will run over to Hay for you with pleasure, if you wish it:
indeed, I am going there to post a letter.”

“You live just below—do you mean at that house with the battlements?” pointing
to Thornfield Hall, on which the moon cast a hoary gleam, bringing it out
distinct and pale from the woods that, by contrast with the western sky, now
seemed one mass of shadow.

“Yes, sir.”

“Whose house is it?”

“Mr. Rochester’s.”

“Do you know Mr. Rochester?”

“No, I have never seen him.”

“He is not resident, then?”

“No.”

“Can you tell me where he is?”

“I cannot.”

“You are not a servant at the hall, of course. You are—” He stopped, ran his
eye over my dress, which, as usual, was quite simple: a black merino cloak, a
black beaver bonnet; neither of them half fine enough for a lady’s-maid. He
seemed puzzled to decide what I was; I helped him.

“I am the governess.”

“Ah, the governess!” he repeated; “deuce take me, if I had not forgotten! The
governess!” and again my raiment underwent scrutiny. In two minutes he rose
from the stile: his face expressed pain when he tried to move.

“I cannot commission you to fetch help,” he said; “but you may help me a little
yourself, if you will be so kind.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have not an umbrella that I can use as a stick?”

“No.”

“Try to get hold of my horse’s bridle and lead him to me: you are not afraid?”

I should have been afraid to touch a horse when alone, but when told to do it,
I was disposed to obey. I put down my muff on the stile, and went up to the
tall steed; I endeavoured to catch the bridle, but it was a spirited thing, and
would not let me come near its head; I made effort on effort, though in vain:
meantime, I was mortally afraid of its trampling fore-feet. The traveller
waited and watched for some time, and at last he laughed.

“I see,” he said, “the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all you
can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain; I must beg of you to come
here.”

I came. “Excuse me,” he continued: “necessity compels me to make you useful.”
He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and leaning on me with some stress, limped
to his horse. Having once caught the bridle, he mastered it directly and sprang
to his saddle; grimacing grimly as he made the effort, for it wrenched his
sprain.

“Now,” said he, releasing his under lip from a hard bite, “just hand me my
whip; it lies there under the hedge.”

I sought it and found it.

“Thank you; now make haste with the letter to Hay, and return as fast as you
can.”

A touch of a spurred heel made his horse first start and rear, and then bound
away; the dog rushed in his traces; all three vanished,

“Like heath that, in the wilderness,
    The wild wind whirls away.”

I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and was gone for me:
it was an incident of no moment, no romance, no interest in a sense; yet
it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life. My help had been
needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to have done something;
trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was
weary of an existence all passive. The new face, too, was like a new picture
introduced to the gallery of memory; and it was dissimilar to all the others
hanging there: firstly, because it was masculine; and, secondly, because it was
dark, strong, and stern. I had it still before me when I entered Hay, and
slipped the letter into the post-office; I saw it as I walked fast down-hill
all the way home. When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked round
and listened, with an idea that a horse’s hoofs might ring on the causeway
again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like Newfoundland dog, might
be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a pollard willow before me, rising
up still and straight to meet the moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of
wind roaming fitful among the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when
I glanced down in the direction of the murmur, my eye, traversing the
hall-front, caught a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was
late, and I hurried on.

I did not like re-entering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to return to
stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome staircase, to seek
my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil Mrs. Fairfax, and spend
the long winter evening with her, and her only, was to quell wholly the faint
excitement wakened by my walk,—to slip again over my faculties the viewless
fetters of an uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very
privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What
good it would have done me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an
uncertain struggling life, and to have been taught by rough and bitter
experience to long for the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes, just as much
good as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a “too easy chair” to take
a long walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances,
as it would be under his.

I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backwards and forwards
on the pavement; the shutters of the glass door were closed; I could not see
into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy
house—from the grey hollow filled with rayless cells, as it appeared to me—to
that sky expanded before me,—a blue sea absolved from taint of cloud; the moon
ascending it in solemn march; her orb seeming to look up as she left the
hill-tops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below her, and
aspired to the zenith, midnight dark in its fathomless depth and measureless
distance; and for those trembling stars that followed her course; they made my
heart tremble, my veins glow when I viewed them. Little things recall us to
earth; the clock struck in the hall; that sufficed; I turned from moon and
stars, opened a side-door, and went in.

The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the high-hung bronze lamp; a
warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the oak staircase. This ruddy
shine issued from the great dining-room, whose two-leaved door stood open, and
showed a genial fire in the grate, glancing on marble hearth and brass
fire-irons, and revealing purple draperies and polished furniture, in the most
pleasant radiance. It revealed, too, a group near the mantelpiece: I had
scarcely caught it, and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling of voices,
amongst which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adèle, when the door closed.

I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax’s room; there was a fire there too, but no candle,
and no Mrs. Fairfax. Instead, all alone, sitting upright on the rug, and gazing
with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a great black and white long-haired dog,
just like the Gytrash of the lane. It was so like it that I went forward and
said—“Pilot,” and the thing got up and came to me and snuffed me. I caressed
him, and he wagged his great tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone
with, and I could not tell whence he had come. I rang the bell, for I wanted a
candle; and I wanted, too, to get an account of this visitant. Leah entered.

“What dog is this?”

“He came with master.”

“With whom?”

“With master—Mr. Rochester—he is just arrived.”

“Indeed! and is Mrs. Fairfax with him?”

“Yes, and Miss Adèle; they are in the dining-room, and John is gone for a
surgeon; for master has had an accident; his horse fell and his ankle is
sprained.”

“Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?”

“Yes, coming down-hill; it slipped on some ice.”

“Ah! Bring me a candle will you Leah?”

Leah brought it; she entered, followed by Mrs. Fairfax, who repeated the news;
adding that Mr. Carter the surgeon was come, and was now with Mr. Rochester:
then she hurried out to give orders about tea, and I went upstairs to take off
my things.