Books: Jane Eyre

C >> Charlotte Bronte >> Jane Eyre

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41

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

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

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

"Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that
pretty clean town you spoke of?"

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

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

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

Adele sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the naivete
of her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, "Now,
Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry."

Assuming an attitude, she began, "La Ligue des Rats: fable de La
Fontaine." She then declaimed the little piece with an attention
to punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an
appropriateness of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and
which proved she had been carefully trained.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Do you like him? Is he generally liked?"

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

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

"I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he
is considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he
has never lived much amongst them."

"But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?"

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

"In what way is he peculiar?"

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

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

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

"Do the servants sleep in these rooms?" I asked.

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

"So I think: you have no ghost, then?"

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

"Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?"

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

"Yes -- 'after life's fitful fever they sleep well,'" I muttered.
"Where are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?" for she was moving away.

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

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

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

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

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

"Did you hear it?" I again inquired.

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

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

"Grace!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.

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

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

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

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

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

"Mesdames, vous etes servies!" adding, "J'ai bien faim, moi!"

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

CHAPTER XII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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