CHAPTER XXXI

My home, then, when I at last find a home,—is a cottage; a little room with
whitewashed walls and a sanded floor, containing four painted chairs and a
table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three plates and dishes, and a set of
tea-things in delf. Above, a chamber of the same dimensions as the kitchen,
with a deal bedstead and chest of drawers; small, yet too large to be filled
with my scanty wardrobe: though the kindness of my gentle and generous friends
has increased that, by a modest stock of such things as are necessary.

It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little orphan
who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the hearth. This morning,
the village school opened. I had twenty scholars. But three of the number can
read: none write or cipher. Several knit, and a few sew a little. They speak
with the broadest accent of the district. At present, they and I have a
difficulty in understanding each other’s language. Some of them are unmannered,
rough, intractable, as well as ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to
learn, and evince a disposition that pleases me. I must not forget that these
coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of
gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement,
intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those
of the best-born. My duty will be to develop these germs: surely I shall find
some happiness in discharging that office. Much enjoyment I do not expect in
the life opening before me: yet it will, doubtless, if I regulate my mind, and
exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live on from day to day.

Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder bare,
humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to deceive myself, I must
reply—No: I felt desolate to a degree. I felt—yes, idiot that I am—I felt
degraded. I doubted I had taken a step which sank instead of raising me in the
scale of social existence. I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty,
the coarseness of all I heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise
myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong—that is a great
step gained; I shall strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I trust, I shall get
the better of them partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, they will be quite
subdued. In a few months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and
a change for the better in my scholars may substitute gratification for
disgust.

Meantime, let me ask myself one question—Which is better?—To have surrendered
to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort—no struggle;—but to
have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it;
wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have
been now living in France, Mr. Rochester’s mistress; delirious with his love
half my time—for he would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He
did love me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know
the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else
shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no
man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and
above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool’s
paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with
the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a
village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the
healthy heart of England?
did
Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and
scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me
to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!

Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my door, and
looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet fields before my
cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a mile from the village. The
birds were singing their last strains—

“The air was mild, the dew was balm.”

While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself ere
long weeping—and why? For the doom which had reft me from adhesion to my
master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate grief and fatal
fury—consequences of my departure—which might now, perhaps, be dragging him
from the path of right, too far to leave hope of ultimate restoration thither.
At this thought, I turned my face aside from the lovely sky of eve and lonely
vale of Morton—I say lonely, for in that bend of it visible to me there
was no building apparent save the church and the parsonage, half-hid in trees,
and, quite at the extremity, the roof of Vale Hall, where the rich Mr. Oliver
and his daughter lived. I hid my eyes, and leant my head against the stone
frame of my door; but soon a slight noise near the wicket which shut in my tiny
garden from the meadow beyond it made me look up. A dog—old Carlo, Mr. Rivers’
pointer, as I saw in a moment—was pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John
himself leant upon it with folded arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave almost
to displeasure, fixed on me. I asked him to come in.
lonely
“No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters left for
you. I think it contains a colour-box, pencils, and paper.”

I approached to take it: a welcome gift it was. He examined my face, I thought,
with austerity, as I came near: the traces of tears were doubtless very visible
upon it.

“Have you found your first day’s work harder than you expected?” he asked.

“Oh, no! On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my scholars very
well.”

“But perhaps your accommodations—your cottage—your furniture—have disappointed
your expectations? They are, in truth, scanty enough; but—” I interrupted—

“My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and commodious.
All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not absolutely such a fool
and sensualist as to regret the absence of a carpet, a sofa, and silver plate;
besides, five weeks ago I had nothing—I was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant;
now I have acquaintance, a home, a business. I wonder at the goodness of God;
the generosity of my friends; the bounty of my lot. I do not repine.”

“But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind you is dark
and empty.”

“I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less to grow
impatient under one of loneliness.”

“Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate, your good
sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the vacillating fears
of Lot’s wife. What you had left before I saw you, of course I do not know; but
I counsel you to resist firmly every temptation which would incline you to look
back: pursue your present career steadily, for some months at least.”

“It is what I mean to do,” I answered. St. John continued—

“It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of
nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has given us, in a
measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our energies seem to demand a
sustenance they cannot get—when our will strains after a path we may not
follow—we need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair: we
have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden
food it longed to taste—and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous
foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us,
if rougher than it.

“A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had made a
mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties wearied me to death. I
burnt for the more active life of the world—for the more exciting toils of a
literary career—for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather
than that of a priest: yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a
votary of glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power, beat under my
curate’s surplice. I considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed,
or I must die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and
relief fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without
bounds—my powers heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength,
spread their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me; to bear
which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and eloquence, the
best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, were all needed: for
these all centre in the good missionary.

“A missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind changed; the
fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving nothing of bondage
but its galling soreness—which time only can heal. My father, indeed, imposed
the determination, but since his death, I have not a legitimate obstacle to
contend with; some affairs settled, a successor for Morton provided, an
entanglement or two of the feelings broken through or cut asunder—a last
conflict with human weakness, in which I know I shall overcome, because I have
vowed that I will overcome—and I leave Europe for the East.”
will
He said this, in his peculiar, subdued, yet emphatic voice; looking, when he
had ceased speaking, not at me, but at the setting sun, at which I looked too.
Both he and I had our backs towards the path leading up the field to the
wicket. We had heard no step on that grass-grown track; the water running in
the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and scene; we might well then
start when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed—

“Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is quicker to
recognise his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his ears and wagged his
tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have your back towards me
now.”

It was true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those musical
accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, he stood yet, at
the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in which the speaker had
surprised him—his arm resting on the gate, his face directed towards the west.
He turned at last, with measured deliberation. A vision, as it seemed to me,
had risen at his side. There appeared, within three feet of him, a form clad in
pure white—a youthful, graceful form: full, yet fine in contour; and when,
after bending to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and threw back a long
veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of perfect beauty. Perfect beauty
is a strong expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as sweet features
as ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as
ever her humid gales and vapoury skies generated and screened, justified, in
this instance, the term. No charm was wanting, no defect was perceptible; the
young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and coloured as we
see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark, and full; the long and shadowy
eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so soft a fascination; the pencilled
brow which gives such clearness; the white smooth forehead, which adds such
repose to the livelier beauties of tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and
smooth; the lips, fresh too, ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and
gleaming teeth without flaw; the small dimpled chin; the ornament of rich,
plenteous tresses—all advantages, in short, which, combined, realise the ideal
of beauty, were fully hers. I wondered, as I looked at this fair creature: I
admired her with my whole heart. Nature had surely formed her in a partial
mood; and, forgetting her usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed
this, her darling, with a grand-dame’s bounty.

What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally asked myself
that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her; and, as naturally, I
sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance. He had already withdrawn
his eye from the Peri, and was looking at a humble tuft of daisies which grew
by the wicket.

“A lovely evening, but late for you to be out alone,” he said, as he crushed
the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot.

“Oh, I only came home from S——” (she mentioned the name of a large town some
twenty miles distant) “this afternoon. Papa told me you had opened your school,
and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my bonnet after tea, and
ran up the valley to see her: this is she?” pointing to me.

“It is,” said St. John.

“Do you think you shall like Morton?” she asked of me, with a direct and naïve
simplicity of tone and manner, pleasing, if child-like.

“I hope I shall. I have many inducements to do so.”

“Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected?”

“Quite.”

“Do you like your house?”

“Very much.”

“Have I furnished it nicely?”

“Very nicely, indeed.”

“And made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood?”

“You have indeed. She is teachable and handy.” (This then, I thought, is Miss
Oliver, the heiress; favoured, it seems, in the gifts of fortune, as well as in
those of nature! What happy combination of the planets presided over her birth,
I wonder?)

“I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes,” she added. “It will be a
change for me to visit you now and then; and I like a change. Mr. Rivers, I
have been so gay during my stay at S——. Last night, or rather this
morning, I was dancing till two o’clock. The ——th regiment are stationed there
since the riots; and the officers are the most agreeable men in the world: they
put all our young knife-grinders and scissor merchants to shame.”
so
It seemed to me that Mr. St. John’s under lip protruded, and his upper lip
curled a moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed, and the
lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the laughing girl gave
him this information. He lifted his gaze, too, from the daisies, and turned it
on her. An unsmiling, a searching, a meaning gaze it was. She answered it with
a second laugh, and laughter well became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her
bright eyes.

As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo. “Poor Carlo
loves me,” said she. “He is not stern and distant to his friends; and if
he could speak, he would not be silent.”
He
As she patted the dog’s head, bending with native grace before his young and
austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master’s face. I saw his solemn eye
melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless emotion. Flushed and kindled
thus, he looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she for a woman. His chest
heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of despotic constriction, had
expanded, despite the will, and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of
liberty. But he curbed it, I think, as a resolute rider would curb a rearing
steed. He responded neither by word nor movement to the gentle advances made
him.

“Papa says you never come to see us now,” continued Miss Oliver, looking up.
“You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall. He is alone this evening, and not very
well: will you return with me and visit him?”

“It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver,” answered St. John.

“Not a seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour when papa most
wants company: when the works are closed and he has no business to occupy him.
Now, Mr. Rivers, do come. Why are you so very shy, and so very sombre?”
She filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of her own.
do
“I forgot!” she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if shocked at
herself. “I am so giddy and thoughtless! Do excuse me. It had slipped my
memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for joining in my chatter.
Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor House is shut up, and you are so lonely.
I am sure I pity you. Do come and see papa.”
Do
“Not to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night.”

Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew the effort it
cost him thus to refuse.

“Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay any
longer: the dew begins to fall. Good evening!”

She held out her hand. He just touched it. “Good evening!” he repeated, in a
voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned, but in a moment returned.

“Are you well?” she asked. Well might she put the question: his face was
blanched as her gown.

“Quite well,” he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She went one
way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she tripped fairy-like
down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, never turned at all.

This spectacle of another’s suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts from
exclusive meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had designated her brother
“inexorable as death.” She had not exaggerated.

CHAPTER XXXII

I continued the labours of the village-school as actively and faithfully as I
could. It was truly hard work at first. Some time elapsed before, with all my
efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature. Wholly untaught, with
faculties quite torpid, they seemed to me hopelessly dull; and, at first sight,
all dull alike: but I soon found I was mistaken. There was a difference amongst
them as amongst the educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this
difference rapidly developed itself. Their amazement at me, my language, my
rules, and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping
rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls enough. Many showed themselves
obliging, and amiable too; and I discovered amongst them not a few examples of
natural politeness, and innate self-respect, as well as of excellent capacity,
that won both my goodwill and my admiration. These soon took a pleasure in
doing their work well, in keeping their persons neat, in learning their tasks
regularly, in acquiring quiet and orderly manners. The rapidity of their
progress, in some instances, was even surprising; and an honest and happy pride
I took in it: besides, I began personally to like some of the best girls; and
they liked me. I had amongst my scholars several farmers’ daughters: young
women grown, almost. These could already read, write, and sew; and to them I
taught the elements of grammar, geography, history, and the finer kinds of
needlework. I found estimable characters amongst them—characters desirous of
information and disposed for improvement—with whom I passed many a pleasant
evening hour in their own homes. Their parents then (the farmer and his wife)
loaded me with attentions. There was an enjoyment in accepting their simple
kindness, and in repaying it by a consideration—a scrupulous regard to their
feelings—to which they were not, perhaps, at all times accustomed, and which
both charmed and benefited them; because, while it elevated them in their own
eyes, it made them emulous to merit the deferential treatment they received.

I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went out, I heard
on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with friendly smiles. To
live amidst general regard, though it be but the regard of working people, is
like “sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet;” serene inward feelings bud and
bloom under the ray. At this period of my life, my heart far oftener swelled
with thankfulness than sank with dejection: and yet, reader, to tell you all,
in the midst of this calm, this useful existence—after a day passed in
honourable exertion amongst my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading
contentedly alone—I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams
many-coloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormy—dreams
where, amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure, with agitating risk and
romantic chance, I still again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some
exciting crisis; and then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice,
meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by
him—the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its
first force and fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how
situated. Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and
then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the
burst of passion. By nine o’clock the next morning I was punctually opening the
school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady duties of the day.

Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call at the school was
generally made in the course of her morning ride. She would canter up to the
door on her pony, followed by a mounted livery servant. Anything more exquisite
than her appearance, in her purple habit, with her Amazon’s cap of black velvet
placed gracefully above the long curls that kissed her cheek and floated to her
shoulders, can scarcely be imagined: and it was thus she would enter the rustic
building, and glide through the dazzled ranks of the village children. She
generally came at the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving his daily
catechising lesson. Keenly, I fear, did the eye of the visitress pierce the
young pastor’s heart. A sort of instinct seemed to warn him of her entrance,
even when he did not see it; and when he was looking quite away from the door,
if she appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marble-seeming features,
though they refused to relax, changed indescribably, and in their very
quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervour, stronger than working
muscle or darting glance could indicate.

Of course, she knew her power: indeed, he did not, because he could not,
conceal it from her. In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she went up and
addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even fondly in his face, his
hand would tremble and his eye burn. He seemed to say, with his sad and
resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips, “I love you, and I know you
prefer me. It is not despair of success that keeps me dumb. If I offered my
heart, I believe you would accept it. But that heart is already laid on a
sacred altar: the fire is arranged round it. It will soon be no more than a
sacrifice consumed.”

And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would soften
her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily from his, and turn in
transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic and so martyr-like. St.
John, no doubt, would have given the world to follow, recall, retain her, when
she thus left him; but he would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish,
for the elysium of her love, one hope of the true, eternal Paradise. Besides,
he could not bind all that he had in his nature—the rover, the aspirant, the
poet, the priest—in the limits of a single passion. He could not—he would
not—renounce his wild field of mission warfare for the parlours and the peace
of Vale Hall. I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once, despite his
reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence.

Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage. I had
learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise: she was
coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly selfish. She had
been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely spoilt. She was hasty, but
good-humoured; vain (she could not help it, when every glance in the glass
showed her such a flush of loveliness), but not affected; liberal-handed;
innocent of the pride of wealth; ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay,
lively, and unthinking: she was very charming, in short, even to a cool
observer of her own sex like me; but she was not profoundly interesting or
thoroughly impressive. A very different sort of mind was hers from that, for
instance, of the sisters of St. John. Still, I liked her almost as I liked my
pupil Adèle; except that, for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a
closer affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult
acquaintance.

She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr. Rivers, only,
certainly, she allowed, “not one-tenth so handsome, though I was a nice neat
little soul enough, but he was an angel.” I was, however, good, clever,
composed, and firm, like him. I was a lusus naturæ, she affirmed,
as a village schoolmistress: she was sure my previous history, if known, would
make a delightful romance.

One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless yet not
offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and the table-drawer
of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French books, a volume of
Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then my drawing-materials and
some sketches, including a pencil-head of a pretty little cherub-like girl, one
of my scholars, and sundry views from nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and
on the surrounding moors. She was first transfixed with surprise, and then
electrified with delight.

“Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a love—what a
miracle I was! I drew better than her master in the first school in S——. Would
I sketch a portrait of her, to show to papa?”

“With pleasure,” I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at the idea
of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had then on a dark-blue
silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only ornament was her chestnut
tresses, which waved over her shoulders with all the wild grace of natural
curls. I took a sheet of fine card-board, and drew a careful outline. I
promised myself the pleasure of colouring it; and, as it was getting late then,
I told her she must come and sit another day.

She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself accompanied
her next evening—a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and grey-headed man, at
whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright flower near a hoary turret.
He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud personage; but he was very kind to
me. The sketch of Rosamond’s portrait pleased him highly: he said I must make a
finished picture of it. He insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend
the evening at Vale Hall.

I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant evidences of
wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee and pleasure all the time I
stayed. Her father was affable; and when he entered into conversation with me
after tea, he expressed in strong terms his approbation of what I had done in
Morton school, and said he only feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too
good for the place, and would soon quit it for one more suitable.

“Indeed,” cried Rosamond, “she is clever enough to be a governess in a high
family, papa.”

I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in the land.
Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers—of the Rivers family—with great respect. He said
it was a very old name in that neighbourhood; that the ancestors of the house
were wealthy; that all Morton had once belonged to them; that even now he
considered the representative of that house might, if he liked, make an
alliance with the best. He accounted it a pity that so fine and talented a
young man should have formed the design of going out as a missionary; it was
quite throwing a valuable life away. It appeared, then, that her father would
throw no obstacle in the way of Rosamond’s union with St. John. Mr. Oliver
evidently regarded the young clergyman’s good birth, old name, and sacred
profession as sufficient compensation for the want of fortune.

It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after helping me
to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a penny for her
aid. All about me was spotless and bright—scoured floor, polished grate, and
well-rubbed chairs. I had also made myself neat, and had now the afternoon
before me to spend as I would.

The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got my
palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier occupation,
of completing Rosamond Oliver’s miniature. The head was finished already: there
was but the background to tint and the drapery to shade off; a touch of
carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips—a soft curl here and there to the
tresses—a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash under the azured eyelid. I was
absorbed in the execution of these nice details, when, after one rapid tap, my
door unclosed, admitting St. John Rivers.

“I am come to see how you are spending your holiday,” he said. “Not, I hope, in
thought? No, that is well: while you draw you will not feel lonely. You see, I
mistrust you still, though you have borne up wonderfully so far. I have brought
you a book for evening solace,” and he laid on the table a new publication—a
poem: one of those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate
public of those days—the golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of
our era are less favoured. But courage! I will not pause either to accuse or
repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power
over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence, their
presence, their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful angels, safe in
heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their
destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let
envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but reign and redeem:
and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell—the
hell of your own meanness.

While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of “Marmion” (for “Marmion” it
was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall figure sprang erect
again with a start: he said nothing. I looked up at him: he shunned my eye. I
knew his thoughts well, and could read his heart plainly; at the moment I felt
calmer and cooler than he: I had then temporarily the advantage of him, and I
conceived an inclination to do him some good, if I could.

“With all his firmness and self-control,” thought I, “he tasks himself too far:
locks every feeling and pang within—expresses, confesses, imparts nothing. I am
sure it would benefit him to talk a little about this sweet Rosamond, whom he
thinks he ought not to marry: I will make him talk.”

I said first, “Take a chair, Mr. Rivers.” But he answered, as he always did,
that he could not stay. “Very well,” I responded, mentally, “stand if you like;
but you shall not go just yet, I am determined: solitude is at least as bad for
you as it is for me. I’ll try if I cannot discover the secret spring of your
confidence, and find an aperture in that marble breast through which I can shed
one drop of the balm of sympathy.”

“Is this portrait like?” I asked bluntly.

“Like! Like whom? I did not observe it closely.”

“You did, Mr. Rivers.”

He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness: he looked at me
astonished. “Oh, that is nothing yet,” I muttered within. “I don’t mean to be
baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I’m prepared to go to considerable
lengths.” I continued, “You observed it closely and distinctly; but I have no
objection to your looking at it again,” and I rose and placed it in his hand.

“A well-executed picture,” he said; “very soft, clear colouring; very graceful
and correct drawing.”

“Yes, yes; I know all that. But what of the resemblance? Who is it like?”

Mastering some hesitation, he answered, “Miss Oliver, I presume.”

“Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I will promise
to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this very picture, provided
you admit that the gift would be acceptable to you. I don’t wish to throw away
my time and trouble on an offering you would deem worthless.”

He continued to gaze at the picture: the longer he looked, the firmer he held
it, the more he seemed to covet it. “It is like!” he murmured; “the eye is well
managed: the colour, light, expression, are perfect. It smiles!”

“Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting? Tell me
that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India, would it be a
consolation to have that memento in your possession? or would the sight of it
bring recollections calculated to enervate and distress?”

He now furtively raised his eyes: he glanced at me, irresolute, disturbed: he
again surveyed the picture.

“That I should like to have it is certain: whether it would be judicious or
wise is another question.”

Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that her father
was not likely to oppose the match, I—less exalted in my views than St.
John—had been strongly disposed in my own heart to advocate their union. It
seemed to me that, should he become the possessor of Mr. Oliver’s large
fortune, he might do as much good with it as if he went and laid his genius out
to wither, and his strength to waste, under a tropical sun. With this
persuasion I now answered—

“As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were to take
to yourself the original at once.”

By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the table before him,
and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over it. I discerned he
was now neither angry nor shocked at my audacity. I saw even that to be thus
frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed unapproachable—to hear it thus
freely handled—was beginning to be felt by him as a new pleasure—an unhoped-for
relief. Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their
sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is
human after all; and to “burst” with boldness and good-will into “the silent
sea” of their souls is often to confer on them the first of obligations.

“She likes you, I am sure,” said I, as I stood behind his chair, “and her
father respects you. Moreover, she is a sweet girl—rather thoughtless; but you
would have sufficient thought for both yourself and her. You ought to marry
her.”

“Does she like me?” he asked.

“Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you continually:
there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so often.”

“It is very pleasant to hear this,” he said—“very: go on for another quarter of
an hour.” And he actually took out his watch and laid it upon the table to
measure the time.

“But where is the use of going on,” I asked, “when you are probably preparing
some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to fetter your
heart?”

“Don’t imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am doing:
human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and overflowing
with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and with such labour
prepared—so assiduously sown with the seeds of good intentions, of self-denying
plans. And now it is deluged with a nectarous flood—the young germs
swamped—delicious poison cankering them: now I see myself stretched on an
ottoman in the drawing-room at Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver’s feet:
she is talking to me with her sweet voice—gazing down on me with those eyes
your skilful hand has copied so well—smiling at me with these coral lips. She
is mine—I am hers—this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say
nothing—my heart is full of delight—my senses are entranced—let the time I
marked pass in peace.”

I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I stood silent.
Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the watch, laid the picture
down, rose, and stood on the hearth.

“Now,” said he, “that little space was given to delirium and delusion. I rested
my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck voluntarily under her
yoke of flowers; I tasted her cup. The pillow was burning: there is an asp in
the garland: the wine has a bitter taste: her promises are hollow—her offers
false: I see and know all this.”

I gazed at him in wonder.

“It is strange,” pursued he, “that while I love Rosamond Oliver so wildly—with
all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is
exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating—I experience at the same time a
calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a good wife; that she
is not the partner suited to me; that I should discover this within a year
after marriage; and that to twelve months’ rapture would succeed a lifetime of
regret. This I know.”

“Strange indeed!” I could not help ejaculating.

“While something in me,” he went on, “is acutely sensible to her charms,
something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they are such that she
could sympathise in nothing I aspired to—co-operate in nothing I undertook.
Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female apostle? Rosamond a missionary’s
wife? No!”

“But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme.”

“Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on earth for
a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all
ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race—of carrying knowledge
into the realms of ignorance—of substituting peace for war—freedom for
bondage—religion for superstition—the hope of heaven for the fear of hell? Must
I relinquish that? It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I have
to look forward to, and to live for.”

After a considerable pause, I said—“And Miss Oliver? Are her disappointment and
sorrow of no interest to you?”

“Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than a
month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will forget me; and will
marry, probably, some one who will make her far happier than I should do.”

“You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are wasting
away.”

“No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects, yet
unsettled—my departure, continually procrastinated. Only this morning, I
received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I have been so long
expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three months to come yet; and
perhaps the three months may extend to six.”

“You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the schoolroom.”

Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not imagined that a
woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in this sort of
discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong, discreet, and
refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed the outworks of
conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of confidence, and won a place
by their heart’s very hearthstone.

“You are original,” said he, “and not timid. There is something brave in
your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to assure you
that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think them more profound and
potent than they are. You give me a larger allowance of sympathy than I have a
just claim to. When I colour, and when I shake before Miss Oliver, I do not
pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I know it is ignoble: a mere fever of the
flesh: not, I declare, the convulsion of the soul. That is just as fixed
as a rock, firm set in the depths of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am—a
cold hard man.”

I smiled incredulously.

“You have taken my confidence by storm,” he continued, “and now it is much at
your service. I am simply, in my original state—stripped of that blood-bleached
robe with which Christianity covers human deformity—a cold, hard, ambitious
man. Natural affection only, of all the sentiments, has permanent power over
me. Reason, and not feeling, is my guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire
to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable. I honour endurance,
perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men
achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence. I watch your career with
interest, because I consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic
woman: not because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through, or what
you still suffer.”

“You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher,” I said.

“No. There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers: I believe;
and I believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet. I am not a pagan, but a
Christian philosopher—a follower of the sect of Jesus. As His disciple I adopt
His pure, His merciful, His benignant doctrines. I advocate them: I am sworn to
spread them. Won in youth to religion, she has cultivated my original qualities
thus:—From the minute germ, natural affection, she has developed the
overshadowing tree, philanthropy. From the wild stringy root of human
uprightness, she has reared a due sense of the Divine justice. Of the ambition
to win power and renown for my wretched self, she has formed the ambition to
spread my Master’s kingdom; to achieve victories for the standard of the cross.
So much has religion done for me; turning the original materials to the best
account; pruning and training nature. But she could not eradicate nature: nor
will it be eradicated ‘till this mortal shall put on immortality.’”

Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my palette.
Once more he looked at the portrait.

“She is lovely,” he murmured. “She is well named the Rose of the World,
indeed!”

“And may I not paint one like it for you?”

“Cui bono? No.”

He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was accustomed to
rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard from being sullied. What he
suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was impossible for me to tell; but
something had caught his eye. He took it up with a snatch; he looked at the
edge; then shot a glance at me, inexpressibly peculiar, and quite
incomprehensible: a glance that seemed to take and make note of every point in
my shape, face, and dress; for it traversed all, quick, keen as lightning. His
lips parted, as if to speak: but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it
was.

“What is the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing in the world,” was the reply; and, replacing the paper, I saw him
dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It disappeared in his glove;
and, with one hasty nod and “good-afternoon,” he vanished.

“Well!” I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, “that caps the globe,
however!”

I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few dingy
stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I pondered the mystery
a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and being certain it could not be
of much moment, I dismissed, and soon forgot it.