CHAPTER XXII

Mr. Rochester had given me but one week’s leave of absence: yet a month elapsed
before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave immediately after the funeral,
but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off to London, whither
she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down to
direct his sister’s interment and settle the family affairs. Georgiana said she
dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in her
dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with
her feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could, and did
my best in sewing for her and packing her dresses. It is true, that while I
worked, she would idle; and I thought to myself, “If you and I were destined to
live always together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing.
I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I should
assign you your share of labour, and compel you to accomplish it, or else it
should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your keeping some of those
drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in your own breast. It is only
because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly
mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on
my part.”

At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza’s turn to request me to stay
another week. Her plans required all her time and attention, she said; she was
about to depart for some unknown bourne; and all day long she stayed in her own
room, her door bolted within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers,
and holding no communication with any one. She wished me to look after the
house, to see callers, and answer notes of condolence.

One morning she told me I was at liberty. “And,” she added, “I am obliged to
you for your valuable services and discreet conduct! There is some difference
between living with such an one as you and with Georgiana: you perform your own
part in life and burden no one. To-morrow,” she continued, “I set out for the
Continent. I shall take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle—a nunnery
you would call it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself
for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful
study of the workings of their system: if I find it to be, as I half suspect it
is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all things decently and in
order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the veil.”

I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade her
from it. “The vocation will fit you to a hair,” I thought: “much good may it do
you!”

When we parted, she said: “Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well: you
have some sense.”

I then returned: “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have, I
suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent. However,
it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don’t much care.”

“You are in the right,” said she; and with these words we each went our
separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to her or her sister
again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana made an advantageous match
with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and that Eliza actually took the veil,
and is at this day superior of the convent where she passed the period of her
novitiate, and which she endowed with her fortune.

How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I
did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to
come back to Gateshead when a child after a long walk, to be scolded for
looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was to come back from church to
Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get
either. Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet
drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I
came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried.

My journey seemed tedious—very tedious: fifty miles one day, a night spent at
an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first twelve hours I thought of
Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her disfigured and discoloured face, and
heard her strangely altered voice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the
hearse, the black train of tenants and servants—few was the number of
relatives—the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service. Then I
thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the
other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on and analysed their separate
peculiarities of person and character. The evening arrival at the great town of
—— scattered these thoughts; night gave them quite another turn: laid down on
my traveller’s bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation.

I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there? Not long; of
that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the interim of my absence:
the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had left for London three
weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax
surmised that he was gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had
talked of purchasing a new carriage: she said the idea of his marrying Miss
Ingram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said, and from what
she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the event would shortly
take place. “You would be strangely incredulous if you did doubt it,” was my
mental comment. “I don’t doubt it.”

The question followed, “Where was I to go?” I dreamt of Miss Ingram all the
night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of Thornfield
against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. Rochester looked on with
his arms folded—smiling sardonically, as it seemed, at both her and me.

I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return; for I did not
wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed to walk the
distance quietly by myself; and very quietly, after leaving my box in the
ostler’s care, did I slip away from the George Inn, about six o’clock of a June
evening, and take the old road to Thornfield: a road which lay chiefly through
fields, and was now little frequented.

It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft: the
haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky, though far from
cloudless, was such as promised well for the future: its blue—where blue was
visible—was mild and settled, and its cloud strata high and thin. The west,
too, was warm: no watery gleam chilled it—it seemed as if there was a fire lit,
an altar burning behind its screen of marbled vapour, and out of apertures
shone a golden redness.

I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped once to ask
myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it was not to my home I
was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to a place where fond friends
looked out for me and waited my arrival. “Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm
welcome, to be sure,” said I; “and little Adèle will clap her hands and jump to
see you: but you know very well you are thinking of another than they, and that
he is not thinking of you.”

But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience? These
affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of again looking on
Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and they added—“Hasten! hasten!
be with him while you may: but a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are
parted from him for ever!” And then I strangled a new-born agony—a deformed
thing which I could not persuade myself to own and rear—and ran on.

They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the labourers are
just quitting their work, and returning home with their rakes on their
shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field or two to traverse,
and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates. How full the hedges are of
roses! But I have no time to gather any; I want to be at the house. I passed a
tall briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path; I see the
narrow stile with stone steps; and I see—Mr. Rochester sitting there, a book
and a pencil in his hand; he is writing.

Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am
beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I should tremble in
this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the power of motion in his
presence. I will go back as soon as I can stir: I need not make an absolute
fool of myself. I know another way to the house. It does not signify if I knew
twenty ways; for he has seen me.

“Hillo!” he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. “There you are! Come
on, if you please.”

I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; being scarcely
cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm; and, above all,
to control the working muscles of my face—which I feel rebel insolently against
my will, and struggle to express what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a
veil—it is down: I may make shift yet to behave with decent composure.

“And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot? Yes—just one
of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and come clattering over street and
road like a common mortal, but to steal into the vicinage of your home along
with twilight, just as if you were a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you
done with yourself this last month?”

“I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.”

“A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other
world—from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me
alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I’d touch you, to see if you are
substance or shadow, you elf!—but I’d as soon offer to take hold of a blue
ignis fatuus light in a marsh. Truant! truant!” he added, when he had
paused an instant. “Absent from me a whole month, and forgetting me quite, I’ll
be sworn!”
ignis fatuus
I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though broken
by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by the knowledge
that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I
thought) such a wealth of the power of communicating happiness, that to taste
but of the crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to
feast genially. His last words were balm: they seemed to imply that it imported
something to him whether I forgot him or not. And he had spoken of Thornfield
as my home—would that it were my home!

He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I inquired soon
if he had not been to London.

“Yes; I suppose you found that out by second-sight.”

“Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter.”

“And did she inform you what I went to do?”

“Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand.”

“You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don’t think it will suit
Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won’t look like Queen Boadicea, leaning
back against those purple cushions. I wish, Jane, I were a trifle better
adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now, fairy as you are—can’t you
give me a charm, or a philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome
man?”

“It would be past the power of magic, sir;” and, in thought, I added, “A loving
eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; or rather your
sternness has a power beyond beauty.”

Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to me
incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice of my abrupt vocal
response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of his own, and which
he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think it too good for common
purposes: it was the real sunshine of feeling—he shed it over me now.

“Pass, Janet,” said he, making room for me to cross the stile: “go up home, and
stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend’s threshold.”

All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to colloquise
further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant to leave him calmly. An
impulse held me fast—a force turned me round. I said—or something in me said
for me, and in spite of me—

“Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get
back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only home.”

I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he tried.
Little Adèle was half wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs. Fairfax received
me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and even Sophie bid me “bon
soir” with glee. This was very pleasant; there is no happiness like that of
being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an
addition to their comfort.

I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my ears
against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and coming grief.
When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting, and I had assumed a
low seat near her, and Adèle, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to
me, and a sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden
peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but
when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us,
seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable—when he said he
supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter
back again, and added that he saw Adèle was “prête à croquer sa petite maman
Anglaise”—I half ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage, keep
us together somewhere under the shelter of his protection, and not quite exiled
from the sunshine of his presence.

A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall. Nothing was
said of the master’s marriage, and I saw no preparation going on for such an
event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had yet heard anything
decided: her answer was always in the negative. Once she said she had actually
put the question to Mr. Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride
home; but he had answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and
she could not tell what to make of him.

One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no journeyings
backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be sure it was twenty miles
off, on the borders of another county; but what was that distance to an ardent
lover? To so practised and indefatigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would
be but a morning’s ride. I began to cherish hopes I had no right to conceive:
that the match was broken off; that rumour had been mistaken; that one or both
parties had changed their minds. I used to look at my master’s face to see if
it were sad or fierce; but I could not remember the time when it had been so
uniformly clear of clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and my pupil
spent with him, I lacked spirits and sank into inevitable dejection, he became
even gay. Never had he called me more frequently to his presence; never been
kinder to me when there—and, alas! never had I loved him so well.

CHAPTER XXIII

A splendid Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so radiant as were
then seen in long succession, seldom favour even singly, our wave-girt land. It
was as if a band of Italian days had come from the South, like a flock of
glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The
hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads
white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime; hedge and wood,
full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the
cleared meadows between.

On Midsummer-eve, Adèle, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay Lane
half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop asleep, and when
I left her, I sought the garden.

It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:—“Day its fervid fires had
wasted,” and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit. Where the sun
had gone down in simple state—pure of the pomp of clouds—spread a solemn
purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on
one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half
heaven. The east had its own charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a
rising and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath
the horizon.

I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent—that of a
cigar—stole from some window; I saw the library casement open a handbreadth; I
knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into the orchard. No nook in
the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it was full of trees, it bloomed
with flowers: a very high wall shut it out from the court, on one side; on the
other, a beech avenue screened it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk
fence; its sole separation from lonely fields: a winding walk, bordered with
laurels and terminating in a giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a
seat, led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such honey-dew
fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt
such shade for ever; but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the
upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising moon
cast on this more open quarter, my step is stayed—not by sound, not by sight,
but once more by a warning fragrance.

Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding
their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither of shrub nor
flower; it is—I know it well—it is Mr. Rochester’s cigar. I look round and I
listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in
a wood half a mile off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but
that perfume increases: I must flee. I make for the wicket leading to the
shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy recess;
he will not stay long: he will soon return whence he came, and if I sit still
he will never see me.

But no—eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as
attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-tree branches to look
at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are laden; now taking a ripe
cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale
their fragrance or to admire the dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes
humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester’s foot: he sees it, and
bends to examine it.

“Now, he has his back towards me,” thought I, “and he is occupied too; perhaps,
if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed.”

I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly gravel might not
betray me: he was standing among the beds at a yard or two distant from where I
had to pass; the moth apparently engaged him. “I shall get by very well,” I
meditated. As I crossed his shadow, thrown long over the garden by the moon,
not yet risen high, he said quietly, without turning—

“Jane, come and look at this fellow.”

I had made no noise: he had not eyes behind—could his shadow feel? I started at
first, and then I approached him.

“Look at his wings,” said he, “he reminds me rather of a West Indian insect;
one does not often see so large and gay a night-rover in England; there! he is
flown.”

The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also; but Mr. Rochester
followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said—

“Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house; and surely
no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at meeting with moonrise.”

It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at an
answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing an excuse; and always
the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or plausible pretext is
specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment. I did not like to walk
at this hour alone with Mr. Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not
find a reason to allege for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and
thoughts busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself
looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any
confusion: the evil—if evil existent or prospective there was—seemed to lie
with me only; his mind was unconscious and quiet.

“Jane,” he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly strayed down
in the direction of the sunk fence and the horse-chestnut, “Thornfield is a
pleasant place in summer, is it not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You must have become in some degree attached to the house,—you, who have an
eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the organ of Adhesiveness?”

“I am attached to it, indeed.”

“And though I don’t comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired a degree
of regard for that foolish little child Adèle, too; and even for simple dame
Fairfax?”

“Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affection for both.”

“And would be sorry to part with them?”

“Yes.”

“Pity!” he said, and sighed and paused. “It is always the way of events in this
life,” he continued presently: “no sooner have you got settled in a pleasant
resting-place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on, for the hour
of repose is expired.”

“Must I move on, sir?” I asked. “Must I leave Thornfield?”

“I believe you must, Jane. I am sorry, Janet, but I believe indeed you must.”

This was a blow: but I did not let it prostrate me.

“Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes.”

“It is come now—I must give it to-night.”

“Then you are going to be married, sir?”

“Ex-act-ly—pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the nail
straight on the head.”

“Soon, sir?”

“Very soon, my—that is, Miss Eyre: and you’ll remember, Jane, the first time I,
or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my intention to put my old
bachelor’s neck into the sacred noose, to enter into the holy estate of
matrimony—to take Miss Ingram to my bosom, in short (she’s an extensive armful:
but that’s not to the point—one can’t have too much of such a very excellent
thing as my beautiful Blanche): well, as I was saying—listen to me, Jane!
You’re not turning your head to look after more moths, are you? That was only a
lady-clock, child, ‘flying away home.’ I wish to remind you that it was you who
first said to me, with that discretion I respect in you—with that foresight,
prudence, and humility which befit your responsible and dependent position—that
in case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little Adèle had better trot
forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur conveyed in this suggestion on the
character of my beloved; indeed, when you are far away, Janet, I’ll try to
forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom; which is such that I have made it my
law of action. Adèle must go to school; and you, Miss Eyre, must get a new
situation.”

“Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I suppose—” I was going
to say, “I suppose I may stay here, till I find another shelter to betake
myself to:” but I stopped, feeling it would not do to risk a long sentence, for
my voice was not quite under command.

“In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom,” continued Mr. Rochester; “and in
the interim, I shall myself look out for employment and an asylum for you.”

“Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give—”

“Oh, no need to apologise! I consider that when a dependent does her duty as
well as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim upon her employer for any
little assistance he can conveniently render her; indeed I have already,
through my future mother-in-law, heard of a place that I think will suit: it is
to undertake the education of the five daughters of Mrs. Dionysius O’Gall of
Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland. You’ll like Ireland, I think: they’re
such warm-hearted people there, they say.”

“It is a long way off, sir.”

“No matter—a girl of your sense will not object to the voyage or the distance.”

“Not the voyage, but the distance: and then the sea is a barrier—”

“From what, Jane?”

“From England and from Thornfield: and—”

“Well?”

“From you, sir.”

I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of free will, my
tears gushed out. I did not cry so as to be heard, however; I avoided sobbing.
The thought of Mrs. O’Gall and Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to my heart; and
colder the thought of all the brine and foam, destined, as it seemed, to rush
between me and the master at whose side I now walked, and coldest the
remembrance of the wider ocean—wealth, caste, custom intervened between me and
what I naturally and inevitably loved.

“It is a long way,” I again said.

“It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland, I
shall never see you again, Jane: that’s morally certain. I never go over to
Ireland, not having myself much of a fancy for the country. We have been good
friends, Jane; have we not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the little
time that remains to them close to each other. Come! we’ll talk over the voyage
and the parting quietly half-an-hour or so, while the stars enter into their
shining life up in heaven yonder: here is the chestnut tree: here is the bench
at its old roots. Come, we will sit there in peace to-night, though we should
never more be destined to sit there together.” He seated me and himself.

“It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my little friend on
such weary travels: but if I can’t do better, how is it to be helped? Are you
anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?”

I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.

“Because,” he said, “I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to
you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string
somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar
string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that
boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us,
I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous
notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,—you’d forget me.”

“That I never should, sir: you know—” Impossible to proceed.

“Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!”

In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I endured no
longer; I was obliged to yield, and I was shaken from head to foot with acute
distress. When I did speak, it was only to express an impetuous wish that I had
never been born, or never come to Thornfield.

“Because you are sorry to leave it?”

The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming
mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a right to predominate, to
overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last: yes,—and to speak.

“I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:—I love it, because I have
lived in it a full and delightful life,—momentarily at least. I have not been
trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior
minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and
energetic and high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence, with
what I delight in,—with an original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have known
you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I
absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure;
and it is like looking on the necessity of death.”

“Where do you see the necessity?” he asked suddenly.

“Where? You, sir, have placed it before me.”

“In what shape?”

“In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman,—your bride.”

“My bride! What bride? I have no bride!”

“But you will have.”

“Yes;—I will!—I will!” He set his teeth.

“Then I must go:—you have said it yourself.”

“No: you must stay! I swear it—and the oath shall be kept.”

“I tell you I must go!” I retorted, roused to something like passion. “Do you
think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?—a
machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from
my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because
I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think
wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart! And if God had
gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for
you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now
through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;—it
is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the
grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal,—as we are!”

“As we are!” repeated Mr. Rochester—“so,” he added, enclosing me in his arms,
gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips: “so, Jane!”

“Yes, so, sir,” I rejoined: “and yet not so; for you are a married man—or as
good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to you—to one with whom you have
no sympathy—whom I do not believe you truly love; for I have seen and heard you
sneer at her. I would scorn such a union: therefore I am better than you—let me
go!”

“Where, Jane? To Ireland?”

“Yes—to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now.”

“Jane, be still; don’t struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending
its own plumage in its desperation.”

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an
independent will, which I now exert to leave you.”

Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him.

“And your will shall decide your destiny,” he said: “I offer you my hand, my
heart, and a share of all my possessions.”

“You play a farce, which I merely laugh at.”

“I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and best
earthly companion.”

“For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by it.”

“Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be still too.”

A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through the
boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away—away—to an indefinite distance—it
died. The nightingale’s song was then the only voice of the hour: in listening
to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat quiet, looking at me gently and
seriously. Some time passed before he spoke; he at last said—

“Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another.”

“I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and cannot return.”

“But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to marry.”

I was silent: I thought he mocked me.

“Come, Jane—come hither.”

“Your bride stands between us.”

He rose, and with a stride reached me.

“My bride is here,” he said, again drawing me to him, “because my equal is
here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?”

Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his grasp: for I was
still incredulous.

“Do you doubt me, Jane?”

“Entirely.”

“You have no faith in me?”

“Not a whit.”

“Am I a liar in your eyes?” he asked passionately. “Little sceptic, you
shall be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and that you
know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains to prove: I caused
a rumour to reach her that my fortune was not a third of what was supposed, and
after that I presented myself to see the result; it was coldness both from her
and her mother. I would not—I could not—marry Miss Ingram. You—you strange, you
almost unearthly thing!—I love as my own flesh. You—poor and obscure, and small
and plain as you are—I entreat to accept me as a husband.”

“What, me!” I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness—and especially in his
incivility—to credit his sincerity: “me who have not a friend in the world but
you—if you are my friend: not a shilling but what you have given me?”

“You, Jane, I must have you for my own—entirely my own. Will you be mine? Say
yes, quickly.”

“Mr. Rochester, let me look at your face: turn to the moonlight.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to read your countenance—turn!”

“There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled, scratched page.
Read on: only make haste, for I suffer.”

His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there were strong
workings in the features, and strange gleams in the eyes.

“Oh, Jane, you torture me!” he exclaimed. “With that searching and yet faithful
and generous look, you torture me!”

“How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only feelings to
you must be gratitude and devotion—they cannot torture.”

“Gratitude!” he ejaculated; and added wildly—“Jane accept me quickly. Say,
Edward—give me my name—Edward—I will marry you.”

“Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me to be your
wife?”

“I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it.”

“Then, sir, I will marry you.”

“Edward—my little wife!”

“Dear Edward!”

“Come to me—come to me entirely now,” said he; and added, in his deepest tone,
speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, “Make my happiness—I will
make yours.”

“God pardon me!” he subjoined ere long; “and man meddle not with me: I have
her, and will hold her.”

“There is no one to meddle, sir. I have no kindred to interfere.”

“No—that is the best of it,” he said. And if I had loved him less I should have
thought his accent and look of exultation savage; but, sitting by him, roused
from the nightmare of parting—called to the paradise of union—I thought only of
the bliss given me to drink in so abundant a flow. Again and again he said,
“Are you happy, Jane?” And again and again I answered, “Yes.” After which he
murmured, “It will atone—it will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and
cold, and comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace her? Is there
not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves? It will expiate at God’s
tribunal. I know my Maker sanctions what I do. For the world’s judgment—I wash
my hands thereof. For man’s opinion—I defy it.”

But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we were all in
shadow: I could scarcely see my master’s face, near as I was. And what ailed
the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned; while wind roared in the laurel
walk, and came sweeping over us.

“We must go in,” said Mr. Rochester: “the weather changes. I could have sat
with thee till morning, Jane.”

“And so,” thought I, “could I with you.” I should have said so, perhaps, but a
livid, vivid spark leapt out of a cloud at which I was looking, and there was a
crack, a crash, and a close rattling peal; and I thought only of hiding my
dazzled eyes against Mr. Rochester’s shoulder.

The rain rushed down. He hurried me up the walk, through the grounds, and into
the house; but we were quite wet before we could pass the threshold. He was
taking off my shawl in the hall, and shaking the water out of my loosened hair,
when Mrs. Fairfax emerged from her room. I did not observe her at first, nor
did Mr. Rochester. The lamp was lit. The clock was on the stroke of twelve.

“Hasten to take off your wet things,” said he; “and before you go,
good-night—good-night, my darling!”

He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked up, on leaving his arms, there stood the
widow, pale, grave, and amazed. I only smiled at her, and ran upstairs.
“Explanation will do for another time,” thought I. Still, when I reached my
chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even temporarily misconstrue what
she had seen. But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind
blew, near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the
lightning gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours’
duration, I experienced no fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my
door in the course of it, to ask if I was safe and tranquil: and that was
comfort, that was strength for anything.

Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adèle came running in to tell me
that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been struck by
lightning in the night, and half of it split away.