CHAPTER XV

Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it. It was one afternoon, when
he chanced to meet me and Adèle in the grounds: and while she played with Pilot
and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk up and down a long beech avenue within
sight of her.

He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer, Céline Varens,
towards whom he had once cherished what he called a “grande passion.”
This passion Céline had professed to return with even superior ardour. He
thought himself her idol, ugly as he was: he believed, as he said, that she
preferred his “taille d’athlète” to the elegance of the Apollo
Belvidere.
grande passiontaille d’athlète
“And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the Gallic sylph
for her British gnome, that I installed her in an hotel; gave her a complete
establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres, diamonds, dentelles, &c.
In short, I began the process of ruining myself in the received style, like any
other spoony. I had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to
shame and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not to
deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had—as I deserved to have—the fate of
all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening when Céline did not expect
me, I found her out; but it was a warm night, and I was tired with strolling
through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air
consecrated so lately by her presence. No,—I exaggerate; I never thought there
was any consecrating virtue about her: it was rather a sort of pastille perfume
she had left; a scent of musk and amber, than an odour of sanctity. I was just
beginning to stifle with the fumes of conservatory flowers and sprinkled
essences, when I bethought myself to open the window and step out on to the
balcony. It was moonlight and gaslight besides, and very still and serene. The
balcony was furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar,—I
will take one now, if you will excuse me.”

Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a cigar; having
placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah incense on the freezing
and sunless air, he went on—

“I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was
croquant—(overlook the barbarism)—croquant chocolate comfits, and
smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along the
fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in an elegant
close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, and distinctly seen
in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the ‘voiture’ I had given Céline. She
was returning: of course my heart thumped with impatience against the iron
rails I leant upon. The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door;
my flame (that is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed
in a cloak—an unnecessary encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June evening—I
knew her instantly by her little foot, seen peeping from the skirt of her
dress, as she skipped from the carriage-step. Bending over the balcony, I was
about to murmur ‘Mon ange’—in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the
ear of love alone—when a figure jumped from the carriage after her; cloaked
also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement, and that was
a hatted head which now passed under the arched porte cochère of the
hotel.
croquantcroquantporte cochère
“You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask
you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience:
your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it. You think
all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has
hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither
see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the
breakers boil at their base. But I tell you—and you may mark my words—you will
come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life’s stream
will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be
dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave
into a calmer current—as I am now.

“I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and stillness
of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield, its antiquity, its
retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its grey façade, and
lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet how long have I
abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like a great plague-house? How I do
still abhor—”

He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck his boot
against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to have him in its grip, and
to hold him so tightly that he could not advance.

We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before us.
Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a glare such as I never
saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire, impatience, disgust, detestation, seemed
momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the large pupil dilating under his
ebon eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which should be paramount; but another
feeling rose and triumphed: something hard and cynical: self-willed and
resolute: it settled his passion and petrified his countenance: he went on—

“During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with my
destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk—a hag like one of those who
appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. ‘You like Thornfield?’ she said,
lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the air a memento, which ran in lurid
hieroglyphics all along the house-front, between the upper and lower row of
windows, ‘Like it if you can! Like it if you dare!’

“‘I will like it,’ said I; ‘I dare like it;’ and” (he subjoined moodily) “I
will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness, to goodness—yes,
goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been, than I am; as Job’s
leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the habergeon, hindrances which others
count as iron and brass, I will esteem but straw and rotten wood.”

Adèle here ran before him with her shuttlecock. “Away!” he cried harshly; “keep
at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!” Continuing then to pursue his walk
in silence, I ventured to recall him to the point whence he had abruptly
diverged—

“Did you leave the balcony, sir,” I asked, “when Mdlle. Varens entered?”

I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question, but, on the
contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes towards
me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. “Oh, I had forgotten Céline!
Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier,
I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating
coils from the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in
two minutes to my heart’s core. Strange!” he exclaimed, suddenly starting again
from the point. “Strange that I should choose you for the confidant of all
this, young lady; passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if
it were the most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of
his opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you! But the last
singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before: you, with your
gravity, considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient of secrets.
Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication with my own:
I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a
unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm it: but, if I did, it would not take
harm from me. The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot
blight you, you may refresh me.” After this digression he proceeded—

“I remained in the balcony. ‘They will come to her boudoir, no doubt,’ thought
I: ‘let me prepare an ambush.’ So putting my hand in through the open window, I
drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening through which I could take
observations; then I closed the casement, all but a chink just wide enough to
furnish an outlet to lovers’ whispered vows: then I stole back to my chair; and
as I resumed it the pair came in. My eye was quickly at the aperture. Céline’s
chamber-maid entered, lit a lamp, left it on the table, and withdrew. The
couple were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there
was ‘the Varens,’ shining in satin and jewels,—my gifts of course,—and there
was her companion in an officer’s uniform; and I knew him for a young roué of a
vicomte—a brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and
had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely. On
recognising him, the fang of the snake Jealousy was instantly broken; because
at the same moment my love for Céline sank under an extinguisher. A woman who
could betray me for such a rival was not worth contending for; she deserved
only scorn; less, however, than I, who had been her dupe.

“They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous,
mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary than
enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on the table; this being perceived,
brought my name under discussion. Neither of them possessed energy or wit to
belabour me soundly, but they insulted me as coarsely as they could in their
little way: especially Céline, who even waxed rather brilliant on my personal
defects—deformities she termed them. Now it had been her custom to launch out
into fervent admiration of what she called my ‘beauté mâle:’ wherein she
differed diametrically from you, who told me point-blank, at the second
interview, that you did not think me handsome. The contrast struck me at the
time and—”
beauté mâle
Adèle here came running up again.

“Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and wishes to
see you.”

“Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in upon them;
liberated Céline from my protection; gave her notice to vacate her hotel;
offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded screams, hysterics,
prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an appointment with the vicomte for a
meeting at the Bois de Boulogne. Next morning I had the pleasure of
encountering him; left a bullet in one of his poor etiolated arms, feeble as
the wing of a chicken in the pip, and then thought I had done with the whole
crew. But unluckily the Varens, six months before, had given me this filette
Adèle, who, she affirmed, was my daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see
no proofs of such grim paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more like
me than she. Some years after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her
child, and ran away to Italy with a musician or singer. I acknowledged no
natural claim on Adèle’s part to be supported by me, nor do I now acknowledge
any, for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite destitute, I e’en
took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris, and transplanted it
here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an English country garden. Mrs.
Fairfax found you to train it; but now you know that it is the illegitimate
offspring of a French opera-girl, you will perhaps think differently of your
post and protégée: you will be coming to me some day with notice that you have
found another place—that you beg me to look out for a new governess,
&c.—Eh?”

“No: Adèle is not answerable for either her mother’s faults or yours: I have a
regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense, parentless—forsaken by
her mother and disowned by you, sir—I shall cling closer to her than before.
How could I possibly prefer the spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who would hate
her governess as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her
as a friend?”

“Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; and you
too: it darkens.”

But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adèle and Pilot—ran a race with her,
and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When we went in, and I had
removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept her there an hour,
allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking even some little freedoms
and trivialities into which she was apt to stray when much noticed, and which
betrayed in her a superficiality of character, inherited probably from her
mother, hardly congenial to an English mind. Still she had her merits; and I
was disposed to appreciate all that was good in her to the utmost. I sought in
her countenance and features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none: no
trait, no turn of expression announced relationship. It was a pity: if she
could but have been proved to resemble him, he would have thought more of her.

It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the night, that I
steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me. As he had said, there was
probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of the narrative itself:
a wealthy Englishman’s passion for a French dancer, and her treachery to him,
were every-day matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was something
decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized him when
he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his
newly revived pleasure in the old hall and its environs. I meditated
wonderingly on this incident; but gradually quitting it, as I found it for the
present inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my master’s manner to
myself. The confidence he had thought fit to repose in me seemed a tribute to
my discretion: I regarded and accepted it as such. His deportment had now for
some weeks been more uniform towards me than at the first. I never seemed in
his way; he did not take fits of chilling hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly,
the encounter seemed welcome; he had always a word and sometimes a smile for
me: when summoned by formal invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a
cordiality of reception that made me feel I really possessed the power to amuse
him, and that these evening conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as
for my benefit.

I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with relish. It
was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a mind unacquainted
with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do not mean its corrupt
scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their interest from the great scale
on which they were acted, the strange novelty by which they were
characterised); and I had a keen delight in receiving the new ideas he offered,
in imagining the new pictures he portrayed, and following him in thought
through the new regions he disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious
allusion.

The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly frankness,
as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. I felt at
times as if he were my relation rather than my master: yet he was imperious
sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so
gratified did I become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to
pine after kindred: my thin crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of
existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and
strength.

And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many
associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked
to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire. Yet I
had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could not, for he brought them
frequently before me. He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every
description: in my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was
balanced by unjust severity to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably
so; I more than once, when sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his
library alone, with his head bent on his folded arms; and, when he looked up, a
morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But I believed that
his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say
former, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some
cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies,
higher principles, and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed,
education instilled, or destiny encouraged. I thought there were excellent
materials in him; though for the present they hung together somewhat spoiled
and tangled. I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and
would have given much to assuage it.
former
Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I could not
sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, and told how his
destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be happy at Thornfield.

“Why not?” I asked myself. “What alienates him from the house? Will he leave it
again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer than a fortnight at
a time; and he has now been resident eight weeks. If he does go, the change
will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how
joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!”

I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any rate, I
started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious, which
sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had kept my candle burning: the
night was drearily dark; my spirits were depressed. I rose and sat up in bed,
listening. The sound was hushed.

I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward tranquillity was
broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two. Just then it seemed my
chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had swept the panels in groping a way
along the dark gallery outside. I said, “Who is there?” Nothing answered. I was
chilled with fear.

All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the kitchen-door
chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up to the threshold of
Mr. Rochester’s chamber: I had seen him lying there myself in the mornings. The
idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down. Silence composes the nerves; and as an
unbroken hush now reigned again through the whole house, I began to feel the
return of slumber. But it was not fated that I should sleep that night. A dream
had scarcely approached my ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a
marrow-freezing incident enough.

This was a demoniac laugh—low, suppressed, and deep—uttered, as it seemed, at
the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was near the door, and
I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my bedside—or rather, crouched
by my pillow: but I rose, looked round, and could see nothing; while, as I
still gazed, the unnatural sound was reiterated: and I knew it came from behind
the panels. My first impulse was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to
cry out, “Who is there?”

Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery towards
the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut in that
staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was still.

“Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?” thought I.
Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs. Fairfax. I hurried
on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the door with a
trembling hand. There was a candle burning just outside, and on the matting in
the gallery. I was surprised at this circumstance: but still more was I amazed
to perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with smoke; and, while looking to
the right hand and left, to find whence these blue wreaths issued, I became
further aware of a strong smell of burning.

Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr. Rochester’s, and
the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no more of Mrs. Fairfax; I
thought no more of Grace Poole, or the laugh: in an instant, I was within the
chamber. Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In
the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep
sleep.

“Wake! wake!” I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the smoke
had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the very sheets were kindling, I
rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide and the other deep, and
both were filled with water. I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its
occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my own water-jug, baptized the
couch afresh, and, by God’s aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which
were devouring it.

The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I flung from
my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of the shower-bath I
had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last. Though it was now dark, I
knew he was awake; because I heard him fulminating strange anathemas at finding
himself lying in a pool of water.

“Is there a flood?” he cried.

“No, sir,” I answered; “but there has been a fire: get up, do; you are quenched
now; I will fetch you a candle.”

“In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?” he demanded.
“What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the room besides you?
Have you plotted to drown me?”

“I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven’s name, get up. Somebody has
plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and what it is.”

“There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait two minutes
till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be—yes, here is my
dressing-gown. Now run!”

I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery. He took it
from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened and scorched, the
sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water.

“What is it? and who did it?” he asked.

I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I had heard in
the gallery: the step ascending to the third storey; the smoke,—the smell of
fire which had conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters
there, and how I had deluged him with all the water I could lay hands on.

He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more concern than
astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had concluded.

“Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?” I asked.

“Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What can she do? Let
her sleep unmolested.”

“Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife.”

“Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not warm enough,
you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and sit down in the arm-chair:
there,—I will put it on. Now place your feet on the stool, to keep them out of
the wet. I am going to leave you a few minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain
where you are till I return; be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the
second storey. Don’t move, remember, or call any one.”

He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very softly,
unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible, shut it after
him, and the last ray vanished. I was left in total darkness. I listened for
some noise, but heard nothing. A very long time elapsed. I grew weary: it was
cold, in spite of the cloak; and then I did not see the use of staying, as I
was not to rouse the house. I was on the point of risking Mr. Rochester’s
displeasure by disobeying his orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on
the gallery wall, and I heard his unshod feet tread the matting. “I hope it is
he,” thought I, “and not something worse.”

He re-entered, pale and very gloomy. “I have found it all out,” said he,
setting his candle down on the washstand; “it is as I thought.”

“How, sir?”

He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the ground. At the
end of a few minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar tone—

“I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your chamber door.”

“No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground.”

“But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I should think,
or something like it?”

“Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,—she laughs in
that way. She is a singular person.”

“Just so. Grace Poole—you have guessed it. She is, as you say, singular—very.
Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am glad that you are the only
person, besides myself, acquainted with the precise details of to-night’s
incident. You are no talking fool: say nothing about it. I will account for
this state of affairs” (pointing to the bed): “and now return to your own room.
I shall do very well on the sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It
is near four:—in two hours the servants will be up.”

“Good-night, then, sir,” said I, departing.

He seemed surprised—very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to go.

“What!” he exclaimed, “are you quitting me already, and in that way?”

“You said I might go, sir.”

“But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of acknowledgment and
good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion. Why, you have saved my
life!—snatched me from a horrible and excruciating death! and you walk past me
as if we were mutual strangers! At least shake hands.”

He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, then in both
his own.

“You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a debt. I
cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been tolerable to me in
the character of creditor for such an obligation: but you: it is different;—I
feel your benefits no burden, Jane.”

He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,—but his
voice was checked.

“Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation, in the
case.”

“I knew,” he continued, “you would do me good in some way, at some time;—I saw
it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did
not”—(again he stopped)—“did not” (he proceeded hastily) “strike delight to my
very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies; I have
heard of good genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My
cherished preserver, good-night!”

Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.

“I am glad I happened to be awake,” I said: and then I was going.

“What! you will go?”
will
“I am cold, sir.”

“Cold? Yes,—and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!” But he still retained
my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of an expedient.

“I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir,” said I.

“Well, leave me:” he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone.

I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I was
tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under
surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore, sweet
as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale, wakened by hope,
bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even
in fancy—a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back.
Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion. Too feverish to rest,
I rose as soon as day dawned.

CHAPTER XVI

I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this
sleepless night: I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye.
During the early part of the morning, I momentarily expected his coming; he was
not in the frequent habit of entering the schoolroom, but he did step in for a
few minutes sometimes, and I had the impression that he was sure to visit it
that day.

But the morning passed just as usual: nothing happened to interrupt the quiet
course of Adèle’s studies; only soon after breakfast, I heard some bustle in
the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester’s chamber, Mrs. Fairfax’s voice, and Leah’s,
and the cook’s—that is, John’s wife—and even John’s own gruff tones. There were
exclamations of “What a mercy master was not burnt in his bed!” “It is always
dangerous to keep a candle lit at night.” “How providential that he had
presence of mind to think of the water-jug!” “I wonder he waked nobody!” “It is
to be hoped he will not take cold with sleeping on the library sofa,” &c.

To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to rights; and
when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I saw through the open
door that all was again restored to complete order; only the bed was stripped
of its hangings. Leah stood up in the window-seat, rubbing the panes of glass
dimmed with smoke. I was about to address her, for I wished to know what
account had been given of the affair: but, on advancing, I saw a second person
in the chamber—a woman sitting on a chair by the bedside, and sewing rings to
new curtains. That woman was no other than Grace Poole.

There she sat, staid and taciturn-looking, as usual, in her brown stuff gown,
her check apron, white handkerchief, and cap. She was intent on her work, in
which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on her hard forehead, and in her
commonplace features, was nothing either of the paleness or desperation one
would have expected to see marking the countenance of a woman who had attempted
murder, and whose intended victim had followed her last night to her lair, and
(as I believed), charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate. I was
amazed—confounded. She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no start, no
increase or failure of colour betrayed emotion, consciousness of guilt, or fear
of detection. She said “Good morning, Miss,” in her usual phlegmatic and brief
manner; and taking up another ring and more tape, went on with her sewing.

“I will put her to some test,” thought I: “such absolute impenetrability is
past comprehension.”

“Good morning, Grace,” I said. “Has anything happened here? I thought I heard
the servants all talking together a while ago.”

“Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep with his
candle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately, he awoke before the
bed-clothes or the wood-work caught, and contrived to quench the flames with
the water in the ewer.”

“A strange affair!” I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her fixedly—“Did
Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move?”

She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of
consciousness in their expression. She seemed to examine me warily; then she
answered—

“The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be likely to
hear. Mrs. Fairfax’s room and yours are the nearest to master’s; but Mrs.
Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get elderly, they often sleep
heavy.” She paused, and then added, with a sort of assumed indifference, but
still in a marked and significant tone—“But you are young, Miss; and I should
say a light sleeper: perhaps you may have heard a noise?”

“I did,” said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still polishing the
panes, could not hear me, “and at first I thought it was Pilot: but Pilot
cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a strange one.”

She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her needle
with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect composure—

“It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he was in
such danger: You must have been dreaming.”

“I was not dreaming,” I said, with some warmth, for her brazen coolness
provoked me. Again she looked at me; and with the same scrutinising and
conscious eye.

“Have you told master that you heard a laugh?” she inquired.

“I have not had the opportunity of speaking to him this morning.”

“You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the gallery?” she
further asked.

She appeared to be cross-questioning me, attempting to draw from me information
unawares. The idea struck me that if she discovered I knew or suspected her
guilt, she would be playing of some of her malignant pranks on me; I thought it
advisable to be on my guard.

“On the contrary,” said I, “I bolted my door.”

“Then you are not in the habit of bolting your door every night before you get
into bed?”

“Fiend! she wants to know my habits, that she may lay her plans accordingly!”
Indignation again prevailed over prudence: I replied sharply, “Hitherto I have
often omitted to fasten the bolt: I did not think it necessary. I was not aware
any danger or annoyance was to be dreaded at Thornfield Hall: but in future”
(and I laid marked stress on the words) “I shall take good care to make all
secure before I venture to lie down.”

“It will be wise so to do,” was her answer: “this neighbourhood is as quiet as
any I know, and I never heard of the hall being attempted by robbers since it
was a house; though there are hundreds of pounds’ worth of plate in the
plate-closet, as is well known. And you see, for such a large house, there are
very few servants, because master has never lived here much; and when he does
come, being a bachelor, he needs little waiting on: but I always think it best
to err on the safe side; a door is soon fastened, and it is as well to have a
drawn bolt between one and any mischief that may be about. A deal of people,
Miss, are for trusting all to Providence; but I say Providence will not
dispense with the means, though He often blesses them when they are used
discreetly.” And here she closed her harangue: a long one for her, and uttered
with the demureness of a Quakeress.

I still stood absolutely dumfoundered at what appeared to me her miraculous
self-possession and most inscrutable hypocrisy, when the cook entered.

“Mrs. Poole,” said she, addressing Grace, “the servants’ dinner will soon be
ready: will you come down?”

“No; just put my pint of porter and bit of pudding on a tray, and I’ll carry it
upstairs.”

“You’ll have some meat?”

“Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that’s all.”

“And the sago?”

“Never mind it at present: I shall be coming down before teatime: I’ll make it
myself.”

The cook here turned to me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for me: so I
departed.

I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax’s account of the curtain conflagration during
dinner, so much was I occupied in puzzling my brains over the enigmatical
character of Grace Poole, and still more in pondering the problem of her
position at Thornfield and questioning why she had not been given into custody
that morning, or, at the very least, dismissed from her master’s service. He
had almost as much as declared his conviction of her criminality last night:
what mysterious cause withheld him from accusing her? Why had he enjoined me,
too, to secrecy? It was strange: a bold, vindictive, and haughty gentleman
seemed somehow in the power of one of the meanest of his dependents; so much in
her power, that even when she lifted her hand against his life, he dared not
openly charge her with the attempt, much less punish her for it.

Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to think that
tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr. Rochester in her behalf;
but, hard-favoured and matronly as she was, the idea could not be admitted.
“Yet,” I reflected, “she has been young once; her youth would be contemporary
with her master’s: Mrs. Fairfax told me once, she had lived here many years. I
don’t think she can ever have been pretty; but, for aught I know, she may
possess originality and strength of character to compensate for the want of
personal advantages. Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric:
Grace is eccentric at least. What if a former caprice (a freak very possible to
a nature so sudden and headstrong as his) has delivered him into her power, and
she now exercises over his actions a secret influence, the result of his own
indiscretion, which he cannot shake off, and dare not disregard?” But, having
reached this point of conjecture, Mrs. Poole’s square, flat figure, and
uncomely, dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my mind’s eye, that
I thought, “No; impossible! my supposition cannot be correct. Yet,” suggested
the secret voice which talks to us in our own hearts, “you are not
beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you: at any rate, you have
often felt as if he did; and last night—remember his words; remember his look;
remember his voice!”

I well remembered all; language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment vividly
renewed. I was now in the schoolroom; Adèle was drawing; I bent over her and
directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start.

“Qu’avez-vous, mademoiselle?” said she. “Vos doigts tremblent comme la feuille,
et vos joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des cerises!”

“I am hot, Adèle, with stooping!” She went on sketching; I went on thinking.

I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been conceiving
respecting Grace Poole; it disgusted me. I compared myself with her, and found
we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was quite a lady; and she spoke
truth—I was a lady. And now I looked much better than I did when Bessie saw me;
I had more colour and more flesh, more life, more vivacity, because I had
brighter hopes and keener enjoyments.

“Evening approaches,” said I, as I looked towards the window. “I have never
heard Mr. Rochester’s voice or step in the house to-day; but surely I shall see
him before night: I feared the meeting in the morning; now I desire it, because
expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown impatient.”

When dusk actually closed, and when Adèle left me to go and play in the nursery
with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for the bell to ring
below; I listened for Leah coming up with a message; I fancied sometimes I
heard Mr. Rochester’s own tread, and I turned to the door, expecting it to open
and admit him. The door remained shut; darkness only came in through the
window. Still it was not late; he often sent for me at seven and eight o’clock,
and it was yet but six. Surely I should not be wholly disappointed to-night,
when I had so many things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the
subject of Grace Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him
plainly if he really believed it was she who had made last night’s hideous
attempt; and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret. It little mattered
whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing
him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always
prevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of provocation I never
ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my skill. Retaining every
minute form of respect, every propriety of my station, I could still meet him
in argument without fear or uneasy restraint; this suited both him and me.

A tread creaked on the stairs at last. Leah made her appearance; but it was
only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. Thither I repaired,
glad at least to go downstairs; for that brought me, I imagined, nearer to Mr.
Rochester’s presence.

“You must want your tea,” said the good lady, as I joined her; “you ate so
little at dinner. I am afraid,” she continued, “you are not well to-day: you
look flushed and feverish.”

“Oh, quite well! I never felt better.”

“Then you must prove it by evincing a good appetite; will you fill the teapot
while I knit off this needle?” Having completed her task, she rose to draw down
the blind, which she had hitherto kept up, by way, I suppose, of making the
most of daylight, though dusk was now fast deepening into total obscurity.

“It is fair to-night,” said she, as she looked through the panes, “though not
starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a favourable day for his
journey.”

“Journey!—Is Mr. Rochester gone anywhere? I did not know he was out.”

“Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted! He is gone to the Leas, Mr.
Eshton’s place, ten miles on the other side Millcote. I believe there is quite
a party assembled there; Lord Ingram, Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and
others.”

“Do you expect him back to-night?”

“No—nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a week or
more: when these fine, fashionable people get together, they are so surrounded
by elegance and gaiety, so well provided with all that can please and
entertain, they are in no hurry to separate. Gentlemen especially are often in
request on such occasions; and Mr. Rochester is so talented and so lively in
society, that I believe he is a general favourite: the ladies are very fond of
him; though you would not think his appearance calculated to recommend him
particularly in their eyes: but I suppose his acquirements and abilities,
perhaps his wealth and good blood, make amends for any little fault of look.”

“Are there ladies at the Leas?”

“There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters—very elegant young ladies
indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanche and Mary Ingram, most beautiful
women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanche, six or seven years since, when
she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a Christmas ball and party Mr.
Rochester gave. You should have seen the dining-room that day—how richly it was
decorated, how brilliantly lit up! I should think there were fifty ladies and
gentlemen present—all of the first county families; and Miss Ingram was
considered the belle of the evening.”

“You saw her, you say, Mrs. Fairfax: what was she like?”

“Yes, I saw her. The dining-room doors were thrown open; and, as it was
Christmas-time, the servants were allowed to assemble in the hall, to hear some
of the ladies sing and play. Mr. Rochester would have me to come in, and I sat
down in a quiet corner and watched them. I never saw a more splendid scene: the
ladies were magnificently dressed; most of them—at least most of the younger
ones—looked handsome; but Miss Ingram was certainly the queen.”

“And what was she like?”

“Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck: olive complexion,
dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr. Rochester’s: large and
black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then she had such a fine head of
hair; raven-black and so becomingly arranged: a crown of thick plaits behind,
and in front the longest, the glossiest curls I ever saw. She was dressed in
pure white; an amber-coloured scarf was passed over her shoulder and across her
breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below her knee.
She wore an amber-coloured flower, too, in her hair: it contrasted well with
the jetty mass of her curls.”

“She was greatly admired, of course?”

“Yes, indeed: and not only for her beauty, but for her accomplishments. She was
one of the ladies who sang: a gentleman accompanied her on the piano. She and
Mr. Rochester sang a duet.”

“Mr. Rochester? I was not aware he could sing.”

“Oh! he has a fine bass voice, and an excellent taste for music.”

“And Miss Ingram: what sort of a voice had she?”

“A very rich and powerful one: she sang delightfully; it was a treat to listen
to her;—and she played afterwards. I am no judge of music, but Mr. Rochester
is; and I heard him say her execution was remarkably good.”

“And this beautiful and accomplished lady, she is not yet married?”

“It appears not: I fancy neither she nor her sister have very large fortunes.
Old Lord Ingram’s estates were chiefly entailed, and the eldest son came in for
everything almost.”

“But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to her: Mr.
Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he not?”

“Oh! yes. But you see there is a considerable difference in age: Mr. Rochester
is nearly forty; she is but twenty-five.”

“What of that? More unequal matches are made every day.”

“True: yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an idea of the
sort. But you eat nothing: you have scarcely tasted since you began tea.”

“No: I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let me have another cup?”

I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between Mr. Rochester
and the beautiful Blanche; but Adèle came in, and the conversation was turned
into another channel.

When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into my
heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured to bring back with a
strict hand such as had been straying through imagination’s boundless and
trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense.

Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes,
sentiments I had been cherishing since last night—of the general state of mind
in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward
and told, in her own quiet way, a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had
rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal;—I pronounced judgment to
this effect:—

That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that
a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed
poison as if it were nectar.

“You,” I said, “a favourite with Mr. Rochester? You gifted with
the power of pleasing him? You of importance to him in any way? Go! your
folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens of
preference—equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man of the
world to a dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid dupe!—Could not
even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to yourself this morning the
brief scene of last night?—Cover your face and be ashamed! He said something in
praise of your eyes, did he? Blind puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on
your own accursed senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by
her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in all
women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and
unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded
to, must lead, ignis-fatuus-like, into miry wilds whence there is no
extrication.

“Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: to-morrow, place the glass before
you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without softening one
defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write
under it, ‘Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain.’

“Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory—you have one prepared in your
drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, finest, clearest tints;
choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate carefully the loveliest
face you can imagine; paint it in your softest shades and sweetest lines,
according to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember
the raven ringlets, the oriental eye;—What! you revert to Mr. Rochester as a
model! Order! No snivel!—no sentiment!—no regret! I will endure only sense and
resolution. Recall the august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and
bust; let the round and dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit
neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire,
aërial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call it
‘Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank.’

“Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of
you, take out these two pictures and compare them: say, ‘Mr. Rochester might
probably win that noble lady’s love, if he chose to strive for it; is it likely
he would waste a serious thought on this indigent and insignificant plebeian?’”

“I’ll do it,” I resolved: and having framed this determination, I grew calm,
and fell asleep.

I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in crayons;
and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory miniature of an imaginary
Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face enough, and when compared with the real
head in chalk, the contrast was as great as self-control could desire. I
derived benefit from the task: it had kept my head and hands employed, and had
given force and fixedness to the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on
my heart.

Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of wholesome
discipline to which I had thus forced my feelings to submit. Thanks to it, I
was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a decent calm, which, had they
found me unprepared, I should probably have been unequal to maintain, even
externally.