Books: Jane Eyre

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"I warned you," was his friend's answer; "I said -- be on your
guard when you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till
to- morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the
interview to-night, and alone."

"I thought I could have done some good."

"You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear
you: but, however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer
enough for not taking my advice; so I'll say no more. Carter --
hurry! -- hurry! The sun will soon rise, and I must have him off."

"Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to this
other wound in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think."

"She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart," said Mason.

I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust,
horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to distortion;
but he only said -

"Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don't
repeat it."

"I wish I could forget it," was the answer.

"You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to
Spanish Town, you may think of her as dead and buried -- or rather,
you need not think of her at all."

"Impossible to forget this night!"

"It is not impossible: have some energy, man. You thought you
were as dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive
and talking now. There! -- Carter has done with you or nearly so;
I'll make you decent in a trice. Jane" (he turned to me for the
first time since his re-entrance), "take this key: go down into
my bedroom, and walk straight forward into my dressing-room: open
the top drawer of the wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and
neck-handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble."

I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles
named, and returned with them.

"Now," said he, "go to the other side of the bed while I order his
toilet; but don't leave the room: you may be wanted again."

I retired as directed.

"Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?" inquired
Mr. Rochester presently.

"No, sir; all was very still."

"We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both
for your sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have
striven long to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come
at last. Here, Carter, help him on with his waist-coat. Where
did you leave your furred cloak? You can't travel a mile without
that, I know, in this damned cold climate. In your room? -- Jane,
run down to Mr. Mason's room, -- the one next mine, -- and fetch
a cloak you will see there."

Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined
and edged with fur.

"Now, I've another errand for you," said my untiring master; "you
must away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet,
Jane! -- a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture.
You must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a
little phial and a little glass you will find there, -- quick!"

I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.

"That's well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering
a dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at
Rome, of an Italian charlatan -- a fellow you would have kicked,
Carter. It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is
good upon occasion: as now, for instance. Jane, a little water."

He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle
on the washstand.

"That will do; -- now wet the lip of the phial."

I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented
it to Mason.

"Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour
or so."

"But will it hurt me? -- is it inflammatory?"

"Drink! drink! drink!"

Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He
was dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory
and sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after
he had swallowed the liquid; he then took his arm -

"Now I am sure you can get on your feet," he said -- "try."

The patient rose.

"Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer,
Richard; step out -- that's it!"

"I do feel better," remarked Mr. Mason.

"I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the
backstairs; unbolt the side-passage door, and tell the driver of
the post-chaise you will see in the yard -- or just outside, for I
told him not to drive his rattling wheels over the pavement -- to
be ready; we are coming: and, Jane, if any one is about, come to
the foot of the stairs and hem."

It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of
rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent. The side-
passage door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as
possible: all the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open,
and there was a post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver
seated on the box, stationed outside. I approached him, and said
the gentlemen were coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully round
and listened. The stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere;
the curtains were yet drawn over the servants' chamber windows;
little birds were just twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard
trees, whose boughs drooped like white garlands over the wall
enclosing one side of the yard; the carriage horses stamped from
time to time in their closed stables: all else was still.

The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and
the surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted
him into the chaise; Carter followed.

"Take care of him," said Mr. Rochester to the latter, "and keep
him at your house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a
day or two to see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you?"

"The fresh air revives me, Fairfax."

"Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind --
good- bye, Dick."

"Fairfax -- "

"Well what is it?"

"Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may
be: let her -- " he stopped and burst into tears.

"I do my best; and have done it, and will do it," was the answer:
he shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.

"Yet would to God there was an end of all this!" added Mr. Rochester,
as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates.

This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a
door in the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done
with me, prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard
him call "Jane!" He had opened feel portal and stood at it, waiting
for me.

"Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments," he said;
"that house is a mere dungeon: don't you feel it so?"

"It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir."

"The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes," he answered; "and
you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the
gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble
is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly
bark. Now HERE" (he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered)
"all is real, sweet, and pure."

He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees,
and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all
sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses,
pansies, mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant
herbs. They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and
gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them: the
sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumined
the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks
under them.

"Jane, will you have a flower?"

He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered
it to me.

"Thank you, sir."

"Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light
clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm -- this
placid and balmly atmosphere?"

"I do, very much."

"You have passed a strange night, Jane."

"Yes, sir."

"And it has made you look pale -- were you afraid when I left you
alone with Mason?"

"I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room."

"But I had fastened the door -- I had the key in my pocket: I should
have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb -- my pet lamb
-- so near a wolf's den, unguarded: you were safe."

"Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?"

"Oh yes! don't trouble your head about her -- put the thing out
of your thoughts."

"Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays."

"Never fear -- I will take care of myself."

"Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?"

"I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even
then. To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which
may crack and spue fire any day."

"But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is
evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or
wilfully injure you."

"Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt
me -- but, unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless
word, deprive me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness."

"Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and
show him how to avert the danger."

He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw
it from him.

"If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be? Annihilated
in a moment. Ever since I have known Mason, I have only had to say
to him 'Do that,' and the thing has been done. But I cannot give
him orders in this case: I cannot say 'Beware of harming me,
Richard;' for it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that
harm to me is possible. Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle
you further. You are my little friend, are you not?"

"I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right."

"Precisely: I see you do. I see genuine contentment in your gait
and mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing
me -- working for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically
say, 'ALL THAT IS RIGHT:' for if I bid you do what you thought wrong,
there would be no light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no
lively glance and animated complexion. My friend would then turn
to me, quiet and pale, and would say, 'No, sir; that is impossible:
I cannot do it, because it is wrong;' and would become immutable
as a fixed star. Well, you too have power over me, and may injure
me: yet I dare not show you where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful
and friendly as you are, you should transfix me at once."

"If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from me,
sir, you are very safe."

"God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down."

The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained
a rustic seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for
me: but I stood before him.

"Sit," he said; "the bench is long enough for two. You don't
hesitate to take a place at my side, do you? Is that wrong, Jane?"

I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been
unwise.

"Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew -- while all
the flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds
fetch their young ones' breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the
early bees do their first spell of work -- I'll put a case to you,
which you must endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look
at me, and tell me you are at ease, and not fearing that I err in
detaining you, or that you err in staying."

"No, sir; I am content."

"Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:- suppose you were no
longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged
from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land;
conceive that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what
nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences must follow
you through life and taint all your existence. Mind, I don't say
a CRIME; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty
act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word
is ERROR. The results of what you have done become in time to you
utterly insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual
measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable. Still you are
miserable; for hope has quitted you on the very confines of life:
your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which you feel will not
leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and base associations
have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here and
there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure -- I mean in
heartless, sensual pleasure -- such as dulls intellect and blights
feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years
of voluntary banishment: you make a new acquaintance -- how or
where no matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and
bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never
before encountered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil
and without taint. Such society revives, regenerates: you feel
better days come back -- higher wishes, purer feelings; you desire
to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days
in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this end,
are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom -- a mere
conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies
nor your judgment approves?"

He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some
good spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain
aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no
gentle Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds
sang in the tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate.

Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query:

"Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant,
man justified in daring the world's opinion, in order to attach
to him for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby
securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?"

"Sir," I answered, "a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation
should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die;
philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any
one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his
equals for strength to amend and solace to heal."

"But the instrument -- the instrument! God, who does the work,
ordains the instrument. I have myself -- I tell it you without
parable -- been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and
I believe I have found the instrument for my cure in -- "

He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling.
I almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to
catch the suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many
minutes -- so long was the silence protracted. At last I looked
up at the tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me.

"Little friend," said he, in quite a changed tone -- while his
face changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming
harsh and sarcastic -- "you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss
Ingram: don't you think if I married her she would regenerate me
with a vengeance?"

He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and
when he came back he was humming a tune.

"Jane, Jane," said he, stopping before me, "you are quite pale with
your vigils: don't you curse me for disturbing your rest?"

"Curse you? No, sir."

"Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers!
They were warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the
mysterious chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?"

"Whenever I can be useful, sir."

"For instance, the night before I am married! I am sure I shall
not be able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear
me company? To you I can talk of my lovely one: for now you have
seen her and know her."

"Yes, sir."

"She's a rare one, is she not, Jane?"

"Yes, sir."

"A strapper -- a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom; with
hair just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me!
there's Dent and Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery,
through that wicket."

As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in
the yard, saying cheerfully -

"Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before
sunrise: I rose at four to see him off."

CHAPTER XXI

Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so
are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity
has not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in
my life, because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies,
I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent,
wholly estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their
alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin)
whose workings baffle mortal comprehension. And signs, for aught
we know, may be but the sympathies of Nature with man.

When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard
Bessie Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about
a little child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of
trouble, either to one's self or one's kin. The saying might have
worn out of my memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed
which served indelibly to fix it there. The next day Bessie was
sent for home to the deathbed of her little sister.

Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for
during the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that
had not brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes
hushed in my arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched
playing with daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its hands in
running water. It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing
one the next: now it nestled close to me, and now it ran from me;
but whatever mood the apparition evinced, whatever aspect it wore,
it failed not for seven successive nights to meet me the moment I
entered the land of slumber.

I did not like this iteration of one idea -- this strange recurrence
of one image, and I grew nervous as bedtime approached and the
hour of the vision drew near. It was from companionship with this
baby-phantom I had been roused on that moonlight night when I heard
the cry; and it was on the afternoon of the day following I was
summoned downstairs by a message that some one wanted me in Mrs.
Fairfax's room. On repairing thither, I found a man waiting for
me, having the appearance of a gentleman's servant: he was dressed
in deep mourning, and the hat he held in his hand was surrounded
with a crape band.

"I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss," he said, rising as I
entered; "but my name is Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed
when you were at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live
there still."

"Oh, Robert! how do you do? I remember you very well: you used
to give me a ride sometimes on Miss Georgiana's bay pony. And how
is Bessie? You are married to Bessie?"

"Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me
another little one about two months since -- we have three now --
and both mother and child are thriving."

"And are the family well at the house, Robert?"

"I am sorry I can't give you better news of them, Miss: they are
very badly at present -- in great trouble."

"I hope no one is dead," I said, glancing at his black dress. He
too looked down at the crape round his hat and replied -

"Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London."

"Mr. John?"

"Yes."

"And how does his mother bear it?"

"Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life
has been very wild: these last three years he gave himself up to
strange ways, and his death was shocking."

"I heard from Bessie he was not doing well."

"Doing well! He could not do worse: he ruined his health and
his estate amongst the worst men and the worst women. He got into
debt and into jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon
as he was free he returned to his old companions and habits. His
head was not strong: the knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond
anything I ever heard. He came down to Gateshead about three weeks
ago and wanted missis to give up all to him. Missis refused: her
means have long been much reduced by his extravagance; so he went
back again, and the next news was that he was dead. How he died,
God knows! -- they say he killed himself."

I was silent: the things were frightful. Robert Leaven resumed -

"Missis had been out of health herself for some time: she had got
very stout, but was not strong with it; and the loss of money and
fear of poverty were quite breaking her down. The information
about Mr. John's death and the manner of it came too suddenly:
it brought on a stroke. She was three days without speaking; but
last Tuesday she seemed rather better: she appeared as if she wanted
to say something, and kept making signs to my wife and mumbling.
It was only yesterday morning, however, that Bessie understood
she was pronouncing your name; and at last she made out the words,
'Bring Jane -- fetch Jane Eyre: I want to speak to her.' Bessie
is not sure whether she is in her right mind, or means anything by
the words; but she told Miss Reed and Miss Georgiana, and advised
them to send for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but
their mother grew so restless, and said, 'Jane, Jane,' so many
times, that at last they consented. I left Gateshead yesterday:
and if you can get ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with
me early to-morrow morning."

"Yes, Robert, I shall be ready: it seems to me that I ought to
go."

"I think so too, Miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not
refuse: but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can
get off?"

"Yes; and I will do it now;" and having directed him to the
servants' hall, and recommended him to the care of John's wife,
and the attentions of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester.

He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the
stables, or the grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him;
-- yes: she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram.
To the billiard-room I hastened: the click of balls and the hum
of voices resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two
Misses Eshton, and their admirers, were all busied in the game. It
required some courage to disturb so interesting a party; my errand,
however, was one I could not defer, so I approached the master
where he stood at Miss Ingram's side. She turned as I drew near,
and looked at me haughtily: her eyes seemed to demand, "What can
the creeping creature want now?" and when I said, in a low voice,
"Mr. Rochester," she made a movement as if tempted to order me away.
I remember her appearance at the moment -- it was very graceful and
very striking: she wore a morning robe of sky-blue crape; a gauzy
azure scarf was twisted in her hair. She had been all animation
with the game, and irritated pride did not lower the expression of
her haughty lineaments.

"Does that person want you?" she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and
Mr. Rochester turned to see who the "person" was. He made a curious
grimace -- one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations -- threw
down his cue and followed me from the room.

"Well, Jane?" he said, as he rested his back against the schoolroom
door, which he had shut.

"If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two."

"What to do? -- where to go?"

"To see a sick lady who has sent for me."

"What sick lady? -- where does she live?"

"At Gateshead; in -shire."

"-shire? That is a hundred miles off! Who may she be that sends
for people to see her that distance?"

"Her name is Reed, sir -- Mrs. Reed."

"Reed of Gateshead? There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate."

"It is his widow, sir."

"And what have you to do with her? How do you know her?"

"Mr. Reed was my uncle -- my mother's brother."

"The deuce he was! You never told me that before: you always said
you had no relations."

"None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast
me off."

"Why?"

"Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me."

"But Reed left children? -- you must have cousins? Sir George
Lynn was talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said,
was one of the veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning
a Georgiana Reed of the same place, who was much admired for her
beauty a season or two ago in London."

"John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and half-ruined
his family, and is supposed to have committed suicide. The news
so shocked his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack."

"And what good can you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never think
of running a hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps,
be dead before you reach her: besides, you say she cast you off."