Books: Jane Eyre

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Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the
piano, spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, commenced
a brilliant prelude; talking meantime. She appeared to be on her
high horse to-night; both her words and her air seemed intended to
excite not only the admiration, but the amazement of her auditors:
she was evidently bent on striking them as something very dashing
and daring indeed.

"Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the present day!" exclaimed
she, rattling away at the instrument. "Poor, puny things, not fit
to stir a step beyond papa's park gates: nor to go even so far
without mama's permission and guardianship! Creatures so absorbed
in care about their pretty faces, and their white hands, and
their small feet; as if a man had anything to do with beauty! As
if loveliness were not the special prerogative of woman -- her
legitimate appanage and heritage! I grant an ugly WOMAN is a blot
on the fair face of creation; but as to the GENTLEMEN, let them be
solicitous to possess only strength and valour: let their motto
be:- Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not worth a fillip. Such
should be my device, were I a man."

"Whenever I marry," she continued after a pause which none interrupted,
"I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me.
I will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an
undivided homage: his devotions shall not be shared between me
and the shape he sees in his mirror. Mr. Rochester, now sing, and
I will play for you."

"I am all obedience," was the response.

"Here then is a Corsair-song. Know that I doat on Corsairs; and
for that reason, sing it con spirito."

"Commands from Miss Ingram's lips would put spirit into a mug of
milk and water."

"Take care, then: if you don't please me, I will shame you by
showing how such things SHOULD be done."

"That is offering a premium on incapacity: I shall now endeavour
to fail."

"Gardez-vous en bien! If you err wilfully, I shall devise a
proportionate punishment."

"Miss Ingram ought to be clement, for she has it in her power to
inflict a chastisement beyond mortal endurance."

"Ha! explain!" commanded the lady.

"Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must
inform you that one of your frowns would be a sufficient substitute
for capital punishment."

"Sing!" said she, and again touching the piano, she commenced an
accompaniment in spirited style.

"Now is my time to slip away," thought I: but the tones that then
severed the air arrested me. Mrs. Fairfax had said Mr. Rochester
possessed a fine voice: he did -- a mellow, powerful bass, into
which he threw his own feeling, his own force; finding a way through
the ear to the heart, and there waking sensation strangely. I
waited till the last deep and full vibration had expired -- till
the tide of talk, checked an instant, had resumed its flow; I then
quitted my sheltered corner and made my exit by the side-door,
which was fortunately near. Thence a narrow passage led into the
hall: in crossing it, I perceived my sandal was loose; I stopped
to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of
the staircase. I heard the dining-room door unclose; a gentleman
came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it was
Mr. Rochester.

"How do you do?" he asked.

"I am very well, sir."

"Why did you not come and speak to me in the room?"

I thought I might have retorted the question on him who
put it: but I would not take that freedom. I answered -

"I did not wish to disturb you, as you seemed engaged, sir."

"What have you been doing during my absence?"

"Nothing particular; teaching Adele as usual."

"And getting a good deal paler than you were -- as I saw at first
sight. What is the matter?"

"Nothing at all, sir."

"Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?"

"Not the least."

"Return to the drawing-room: you are deserting too early."

"I am tired, sir."

He looked at me for a minute.

"And a little depressed," he said. "What about? Tell me."

"Nothing -- nothing, sir. I am not depressed."

"But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more
words would bring tears to your eyes -- indeed, they are there
now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash
and fallen on to the flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal
dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what
all this means. Well, to-night I excuse you; but understand that
so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room
every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect it. Now go, and send
Sophie for Adele. Good-night, my -- " He stopped, bit his lip,
and abruptly left me.

CHAPTER XVIII

Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: how
different from the first three months of stillness, monotony, and
solitude I had passed beneath its roof! All sad feelings seemed
now driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten: there
was life everywhere, movement all day long. You could not now
traverse the gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chambers,
once so tenantless, without encountering a smart lady's-maid or a
dandy valet.

The kitchen, the butler's pantry, the servants' hall, the entrance
hall, were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void and
still when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring
weather called their occupants out into the grounds. Even when
that weather was broken, and continuous rain set in for some days,
no damp seemed cast over enjoyment: indoor amusements only became
more lively and varied, in consequence of the stop put to outdoor
gaiety.

I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change
of entertainment was proposed: they spoke of "playing charades,"
but in my ignorance I did not understand the term. The servants
were called in, the dining-room tables wheeled away, the lights
otherwise disposed, the chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the
arch. While Mr. Rochester and the other gentlemen directed these
alterations, the ladies were running up and down stairs ringing
for their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to give information
respecting the resources of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies of
any kind; and certain wardrobes of the third storey were ransacked,
and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped petticoats,
satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets, &c., were brought down in
armfuls by the abigails; then a selection was made, and such things
as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing-room.

Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him,
and was selecting certain of their number to be of his party. "Miss
Ingram is mine, of course," said he: afterwards he named the two
Misses Eshton, and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I happened to be
near him, as I had been fastening the clasp of Mrs. Dent's bracelet,
which had got loose.

"Will you play?" he asked. I shook my head. He did not insist,
which I rather feared he would have done; he allowed me to return
quietly to my usual seat.

He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party,
which was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs.
One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to propose
that I should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly
negatived the notion.

"No," I heard her say: "she looks too stupid for any game of the
sort."

Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up. Within the arch,
the bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had likewise
chosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, on
a table, lay open a large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton,
draped in Mr. Rochester's cloak, and holding a book in her hand.
Somebody, unseen, rang the bell merrily; then Adele (who had insisted
on being one of her guardian's party), bounded forward, scattering
round her the contents of a basket of flowers she carried on her
arm. Then appeared the magnificent figure of Miss Ingram, clad
in white, a long veil on her head, and a wreath of roses round her
brow; by her side walked Mr. Rochester, and together they drew near
the table. They knelt; while Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton, dressed
also in white, took up their stations behind them. A ceremony
followed, in dumb show, in which it was easy to recognise the
pantomime of a marriage. At its termination, Colonel Dent and his
party consulted in whispers for two minutes, then the Colonel called out -

"Bride!" Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell.

A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its second
rising displayed a more elaborately prepared scene than the last.
The drawing-room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps
above the dining-room, and on the top of the upper step, placed a
yard or two back within the room, appeared a large marble basin --
which I recognised as an ornament of the conservatory -- where it
usually stood, surrounded by exotics, and tenanted by gold fish
-- and whence it must have been transported with some trouble, on
account of its size and weight.

Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr.
Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head. His
dark eyes and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the costume
exactly: he looked the very model of an Eastern emir, an agent
or a victim of the bowstring. Presently advanced into view Miss
Ingram. She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimson
scarf tied sash-like round the waist: an embroidered handkerchief
knotted about her temples; her beautifully-moulded arms bare, one
of them upraised in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully
on her head. Both her cast of form and feature, her complexion and
her general air, suggested the idea of some Israelitish princess
of the patriarchal days; and such was doubtless the character she
intended to represent.

She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher;
she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink
now seemed to accost her; to make some request:- "She hasted, let
down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink." From the
bosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it and showed
magnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment and
admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulity
and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the stranger
fastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears. It
was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were wanting.

The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they
could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated.
Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded "the tableau of the whole;"
whereupon the curtain again descended.

On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed;
the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark
and coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place,
stood a deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible
by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles
being all extinguished.

Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands resting
on his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr. Rochester;
though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging
loose from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back
in a scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance, the rough,
bristling hair might well have disguised him. As he moved, a chain
clanked; to his wrists were attached fetters.

"Bridewell!" exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved.

A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume
their ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room. Mr. Rochester
led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting.

"Do you know," said she, "that, of the three characters, I liked
you in the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier,
what a gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!"

"Is all the soot washed from my face?" he asked, turning it towards
her.

"Alas! yes: the more's the pity! Nothing could be more becoming
to your complexion than that ruffian's rouge."

"You would like a hero of the road then?"

"An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an
Italian bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine
pirate."

"Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an
hour since, in the presence of all these witnesses." She giggled,
and her colour rose.

"Now, Dent," continued Mr. Rochester, "it is your turn." And as
the other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats.
Miss Ingram placed herself at her leader's right hand; the other
diviners filled the chairs on each side of him and her. I did
not now watch the actors; I no longer waited with interest for the
curtain to rise; my attention was absorbed by the spectators; my
eyes, erewhile fixed on the arch, were now irresistibly attracted
to the semicircle of chairs. What charade Colonel Dent and his party
played, what word they chose, how they acquitted themselves, I no
longer remember; but I still see the consultation which followed
each scene: I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss
Ingram to him; I see her incline her head towards him, till the
jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his cheek;
I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged glances;
and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle returns
in memory at this moment.

I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester:
I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had
ceased to notice me -- because I might pass hours in his presence,
and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction -- because
I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned
to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever
her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw
it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation. I
could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon marry this
very lady -- because I read daily in her a proud security in his
intentions respecting her -- because I witnessed hourly in him
a style of courtship which, if careless and choosing rather to be
sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating,
and in its very pride, irresistible.

There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances,
though much to create despair. Much too, you will think, reader,
to engender jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume
to be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram's. But I was not jealous:
or very rarely; -- the nature of the pain I suffered could not be
explained by that word. Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy:
she was too inferior to excite the feeling. Pardon the seeming
paradox; I mean what I say. She was very showy, but she was not
genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; but
her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed
spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by
its freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she used
to repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had,
an opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but
she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and
truth were not in her. Too often she betrayed this, by the undue
vent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she had conceived against
little Adele: pushing her away with some contumelious epithet if
she happened to approach her; sometimes ordering her from the room,
and always treating her with coldness and acrimony. Other eyes
besides mine watched these manifestations of character -- watched
them closely, keenly, shrewdly. Yes; the future bridegroom,
Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended a ceaseless
surveillance; and it was from this sagacity -- this guardedness of
his -- this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one's defects
-- this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her,
that my ever-torturing pain arose.

I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political
reasons, because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he
had not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill
adapted to win from him that treasure. This was the point -- this
was where the nerve was touched and teased -- this was where the
fever was sustained and fed: SHE COULD NOT CHARM HIM.

If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and
sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face,
turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss
Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour,
kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two tigers
-- jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I
should have admired her -- acknowledged her excellence, and been
quiet for the rest of my days: and the more absolute her superiority,
the deeper would have been my admiration -- the more truly tranquil
my quiescence. But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram's
efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeated
failure -- herself unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying
that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming
herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelled
further and further what she wished to allure -- to witness THIS,
was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.

Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows
that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fell
harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand,
have quivered keen in his proud heart -- have called love into his
stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still,
without weapons a silent conquest might have been won.

"Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw
so near to him?" I asked myself. "Surely she cannot truly like
him, or not like him with true affection! If she did, she need not
coin her smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly,
manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seems
to me that she might, by merely sitting quietly at his side, saying
little and looking less, get nigher his heart. I have seen in his
face a far different expression from that which hardens it now while
she is so vivaciously accosting him; but then it came of itself:
it was not elicited by meretricious arts and calculated manoeuvres;
and one had but to accept it -- to answer what he asked without
pretension, to address him when needful without grimace -- and
it increased and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed one like
a fostering sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when they
are married? I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might
be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very
happiest woman the sun shines on."

I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester's project
of marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when I
first discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a
man unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice
of a wife; but the longer I considered the position, education, &c.,
of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming
either him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and
principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood.
All their class held these principles: I supposed, then, they had
reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom. It seemed
to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom
only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of the
advantages to the husband's own happiness offered by this plan
convinced me that there must be arguments against its general
adoption of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all
the world would act as I wished to act.

But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to
my master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once
kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study
all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and
from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now
I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that
had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice
dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt
as comparatively insipid. And as for the vague something -- was it
a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression?
-- that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye,
and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially
disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink,
as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had
suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape: that something,
I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not
with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only
to dare -- to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because
one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its
secrets and analyse their nature.

Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride
-- saw only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only
their movements of importance -- the rest of the party were occupied
with their own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn
and Ingram continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they
nodded their two turbans at each other, and held up their four
hands in confronting gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror,
according to the theme on which their gossip ran, like a pair of
magnified puppets. Mild Mrs. Dent talked with good-natured Mrs.
Eshton; and the two sometimes bestowed a courteous word or smile
on me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed
politics, or county affairs, or justice business. Lord Ingram
flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and sang to and with one
of the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly to the
gallant speeches of the other. Sometimes all, as with one consent,
suspended their by-play to observe and listen to the principal actors:
for, after all, Mr. Rochester and -- because closely connected
with him -- Miss Ingram were the life and soul of the party. If
he was absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed
to steal over the spirits of his guests; and his re-entrance was
sure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation.

The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt
one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was
not likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk
the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched
on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of the
gentlemen were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together with
the younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room.
The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards.
Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity,
some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into
conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and
airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the library,
had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared
to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence.
The room and the house were silent: only now and then the merriment
of the billiard-players was heard from above.

It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of
the hour to dress for dinner, when little Adele, who knelt
by me in the drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed -

"Voile, Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!"

I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the
others, too, looked up from their several occupations; for at the
same time a crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs
became audible on the wet gravel. A post-chaise was approaching.

"What can possess him to come home in that style?" said Miss Ingram.
"He rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went out?
and Pilot was with him:- what has he done with the animals?"

As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments
so near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the
breaking of my spine: in her eagerness she did not observe me at
first, but when she did, she curled her lip and moved to another
casement. The post-chaise stopped; the driver rang the door-bell,
and a gentleman alighted attired in travelling garb; but it was not
Mr. Rochester; it was a tall, fashionable-looking man, a stranger.