Books: Jane Eyre

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Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced,
too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I
felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through his frame.
The second stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the background,
now drew near; a pale face looked over the solicitor's shoulder
-- yes, it was Mason himself. Mr. Rochester turned and glared at
him. His eye, as I have often said, was a black eye: it had now
a tawny, nay, a bloody light in its gloom; and his face flushed --
olive cheek and hueless forehead received a glow as from spreading,
ascending heart-fire: and he stirred, lifted his strong arm -- he
could have struck Mason, dashed him on the church-floor, shocked
by ruthless blow the breath from his body -- but Mason shrank away,
and cried faintly, "Good God!" Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester
-- his passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he only
asked -- "What have YOU to say?"

An inaudible reply escaped Mason's white lips.

"The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again
demand, what have you to say?"

"Sir -- sir," interrupted the clergyman, "do not forget you are in
a sacred place." Then addressing Mason, he inquired gently, "Are
you aware, sir, whether or not this gentleman's wife is still
living?"

"Courage," urged the lawyer, -- "speak out."

"She is now living at Thornfield Hall," said Mason, in more articulate
tones: "I saw her there last April. I am her brother."

"At Thornfield Hall!" ejaculated the clergyman. "Impossible! I
am an old resident in this neighbourhood, sir, and I never heard
of a Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield Hall."

I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester's lips, and he muttered -

"No, by God! I took care that none should hear of it --
or of her under that name." He mused -- for ten minutes he held
counsel with himself: he formed his resolve, and announced it -

"Enough! all shall bolt out at once, like the bullet from the
barrel. Wood, close your book and take off your surplice; John
Green (to the clerk), leave the church: there will be no wedding
to-day." The man obeyed.

Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: "Bigamy is an
ugly word! -- I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out-
manoeuvred me, or Providence has checked me, -- perhaps the last.
I am little better than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor
there would tell me, deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of
God, even to the quenchless fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen,
my plan is broken up:- what this lawyer and his client say is true:
I have been married, and the woman to whom I was married lives!
You say you never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at the house up yonder,
Wood; but I daresay you have many a time inclined your ear to gossip
about the mysterious lunatic kept there under watch and ward. Some
have whispered to you that she is my bastard half-sister: some,
my cast-off mistress. I now inform you that she is my wife, whom
I married fifteen years ago, -- Bertha Mason by name; sister of
this resolute personage, who is now, with his quivering limbs and
white cheeks, showing you what a stout heart men may bear. Cheer
up, Dick! -- never fear me! -- I'd almost as soon strike a woman
as you. Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots
and maniacs through three generations! Her mother, the Creole,
was both a madwoman and a drunkard! -- as I found out after I had
wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before.
Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points.
I had a charming partner -- pure, wise, modest: you can fancy I
was a happy man. I went through rich scenes! Oh! my experience
has been heavenly, if you only knew it! But I owe you no further
explanation. Briggs, Wood, Mason, I invite you all to come up to
the house and visit Mrs. Poole's patient, and MY WIFE! You shall
see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing, and judge
whether or not I had a right to break the compact, and seek sympathy
with something at least human. This girl," he continued, looking
at me, "knew no more than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret:
she thought all was fair and legal and never dreamt she was going
to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch,
already bound to a bad, mad, and embruted partner! Come all of
you -- follow!"

Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen
came after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage.

"Take it back to the coach-house, John," said Mr. Rochester coolly;
"it will not be wanted to-day."

At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adele, Sophie, Leah, advanced to
meet and greet us.

"To the right-about -- every soul!" cried the master; "away with
your congratulations! Who wants them? Not I! -- they are fifteen
years too late!"

He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, and
still beckoning the gentlemen to follow him, which they did. We
mounted the first staircase, passed up the gallery, proceeded to
the third storey: the low, black door, opened by Mr. Rochester's
master-key, admitted us to the tapestried room, with its great bed
and its pictorial cabinet.

"You know this place, Mason," said our guide; "she bit and stabbed
you here."

He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door:
this, too, he opened. In a room without a window, there burnt a
fire guarded by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from
the ceiling by a chain. Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently
cooking something in a saucepan. In the deep shade, at the farther
end of the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards. What it
was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight,
tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled
like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing,
and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head
and face.

"Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole!" said Mr. Rochester. "How are you? and
how is your charge to-day?"

"We're tolerable, sir, I thank you," replied Grace, lifting the
boiling mess carefully on to the hob: "rather snappish, but not
'rageous."

A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report: the
clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet.

"Ah! sir, she sees you!" exclaimed Grace: "you'd better not
stay."

"Only a few moments, Grace: you must allow me a few moments."

"Take care then, sir! -- for God's sake, take care!"

The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage,
and gazed wildly at her visitors. I recognised well that purple
face, -- those bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced.

"Keep out of the way," said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside:
"she has no knife now, I suppose, and I'm on my guard."

"One never knows what she has, sir: she is so cunning: it is not
in mortal discretion to fathom her craft."

"We had better leave her," whispered Mason.

"Go to the devil!" was his brother-in-law's recommendation.

"'Ware!" cried Grace. The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously.
Mr. Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled
his throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they
struggled. She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her
husband, and corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the
contest -- more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as
he was. He could have settled her with a well-planted blow; but
he would not strike: he would only wrestle. At last he mastered
her arms; Grace Poole gave him a cord, and he pinioned them behind
her: with more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a chair.
The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the most
convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then turned to the spectators:
he looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate.

"That is MY WIFE," said he. "Such is the sole conjugal embrace
I am ever to know -- such are the endearments which are to solace
my leisure hours! And THIS is what I wished to have" (laying his
hand on my shoulder): "this young girl, who stands so grave and
quiet at the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of
a demon, I wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout.
Wood and Briggs, look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes
with the red balls yonder -- this face with that mask -- this form
with that bulk; then judge me, priest of the gospel and man of the
law, and remember with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged!
Off with you now. I must shut up my prize."

We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a moment behind us, to give
some further order to Grace Poole. The solicitor addressed me as
he descended the stair.

"You, madam," said he, "are cleared from all blame: your uncle
will be glad to hear it -- if, indeed, he should be still living
-- when Mr. Mason returns to Madeira."

"My uncle! What of him? Do you know him?"

"Mr. Mason does. Mr. Eyre has been the Funchal correspondent of
his house for some years. When your uncle received your letter
intimating the contemplated union between yourself and Mr. Rochester,
Mr. Mason, who was staying at Madeira to recruit his health, on his
way back to Jamaica, happened to be with him. Mr. Eyre mentioned
the intelligence; for he knew that my client here was acquainted
with a gentleman of the name of Rochester. Mr. Mason, astonished
and distressed as you may suppose, revealed the real state of
matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to say, is now on a sick bed; from
which, considering the nature of his disease -- decline -- and the
stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will ever rise. He could
not then hasten to England himself, to extricate you from the snare
into which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason to lose no
time in taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He referred
him to me for assistance. I used all despatch, and am thankful
I was not too late: as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I not
morally certain that your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira,
I would advise you to accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I
think you had better remain in England till you can hear further,
either from or of Mr. Eyre. Have we anything else to stay for?"
he inquired of Mr. Mason.

"No, no -- let us be gone," was the anxious reply; and without
waiting to take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at
the hall door. The clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences,
either of admonition or reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this
duty done, he too departed.

I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room, to
which I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in,
fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded -- not to
weep, not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but -- mechanically
to take off the wedding dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I
had worn yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat
down: I felt weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and
my head dropped on them. And now I thought: till now I had only
heard, seen, moved -- followed up and down where I was led or dragged
-- watched event rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure:
but NOW, I THOUGHT.

The morning had been a quiet morning enough -- all except the brief
scene with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been
noisy; there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no
dispute, no defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words
had been spoken, a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage
made; some stern, short questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers,
explanations given, evidence adduced; an open admission of the
truth had been uttered by my master; then the living proof had been
seen; the intruders were gone, and all was over.

I was in my own room as usual -- just myself, without obvious
change: nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And
yet where was the Jane Eyre of yesterday? -- where was her life?
-- where were her prospects?

Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman -- almost
a bride, was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her
prospects were desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer;
a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe
apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay
a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers,
to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which
twelve hours since waved leafy and flagrant as groves between the
tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry
Norway. My hopes were all dead -- struck with a subtle doom, such
as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt.
I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing;
they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive. I
looked at my love: that feeling which was my master's -- which he
had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a
cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek
Mr. Rochester's arms -- it could not derive warmth from his breast.
Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted
-- confidence destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had
been; for he was not what I had thought him. I would not ascribe
vice to him; I would not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute
of stainless truth was gone from his idea, and from his presence I
must go: THAT I perceived well. When -- how -- whither, I could
not yet discern; but he himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from
Thornfield. Real affection, it seemed, he could not have for me;
it had been only fitful passion: that was balked; he would want me
no more. I should fear even to cross his path now: my view must
be hateful to him. Oh, how blind had been my eyes! How weak my
conduct!

My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim
round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow.
Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me
down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened
in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no
will, to flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead.
One idea only still throbbed life-like within me -- a remembrance
of God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering
up and down in my rayless mind, as something that should
be whispered, but no energy was found to express them -

"Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help."

It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it
-- as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved
my lips -- it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over
me. The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my
hope quenched, my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above
me in one sullen mass. That bitter hour cannot be described: in
truth, "the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt
no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me."

CHAPTER XXVII

Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round
and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the
wall, I asked, "What am I to do?"

But the answer my mind gave -- "Leave Thornfield at once" -- was
so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not
bear such words now. "That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is
the least part of my woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of
most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror
I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly,
instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it."

But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold
that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted
to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering
I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion
by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her
dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he
would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.

"Let me be torn away," then I cried. "Let another help me!"

"No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall
yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand:
your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it."

I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless
a judge haunted, -- at the silence which so awful a voice filled.
My head swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening
from excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my
lips that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange
pang, I now reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no
message had been sent to ask how I was, or to invite me to come
down: not even little Adele had tapped at the door; not even Mrs.
Fairfax had sought me. "Friends always forget those whom fortune
forsakes," I murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed out. I
stumbled over an obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was
dim, and my limbs were feeble. I could not soon recover myself.
I fell, but not on to the ground: an outstretched arm caught me.
I looked up -- I was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair
across my chamber threshold.

"You come out at last," he said. "Well, I have been waiting for
you long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor
one sob: five minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should
have forced the lock like a burglar. So you shun me? -- you shut
yourself up and grieve alone! I would rather you had come and
upbraided me with vehemence. You are passionate. I expected a
scene of some kind. I was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only
I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has
received them, or your drenched handkerchief. But I err: you have
not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace
of tears. I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping blood?"

"Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter -- nothing
poignant? Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit
quietly where I have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive
look."

"Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but
one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of
his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some
mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his
bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive
me?"

Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was
such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such
manly energy in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged
love in his whole look and mien -- I forgave him all: yet not in
words, not outwardly; only at my heart's core.

"You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?" ere long he inquired wistfully
-- wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness, the
result rather of weakness than of will.

"Yes, sir."

"Then tell me so roundly and sharply -- don't spare me."

"I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water." He heaved
a sort of shuddering sigh, and taking me in his arms, carried me
downstairs. At first I did not know to what room he had borne me;
all was cloudy to my glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving
warmth of a fire; for, summer as it was, I had become icy cold in
my chamber. He put wine to my lips; I tasted it and revived; then
I ate something he offered me, and was soon myself. I was in the
library -- sitting in his chair -- he was quite near. "If I could
go out of life now, without too sharp a pang, it would be well
for me," I thought; "then I should not have to make the effort of
cracking my heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester's.
I must leave him, it appears. I do not want to leave him -- I
cannot leave him."

"How are you now, Jane?"

"Much better, sir; I shall be well soon."

"Taste the wine again, Jane."

I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before me,
and looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an
inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind;
he walked fast through the room and came back; he stooped towards
me as if to kiss me; but I remembered caresses were now forbidden.
I turned my face away and put his aside.

"What! -- How is this?" he exclaimed hastily. "Oh, I know! you
won't kiss the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled
and my embraces appropriated?"

"At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir."

"Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will
answer for you -- Because I have a wife already, you would reply.
-- I guess rightly?"

"Yes."

"If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must
regard me as a plotting profligate -- a base and low rake who
has been simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into
a snare deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of
self- respect. What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing
in the first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do
to draw your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet accustom
yourself to accuse and revile me, and besides, the flood-gates of
tears are opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and
you have no desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene:
you are thinking how TO ACT -- TALKING you consider is of no use.
I know you -- I am on my guard."

"Sir, I do not wish to act against you," I said; and my unsteady
voice warned me to curtail my sentence.

"Not in your sense of the word, but in mine you are scheming to
destroy me. You have as good as said that I am a married man --
as a married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now
you have refused to kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete
stranger to me: to live under this roof only as Adele's governess;
if ever I say a friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling
inclines you again to me, you will say, -- 'That man had nearly
made me his mistress: I must be ice and rock to him;' and ice and
rock you will accordingly become."

I cleared and steadied my voice to reply: "All is changed about me,
sir; I must change too -- there is no doubt of that; and to avoid
fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections
and associations, there is only one way -- Adele must have a new
governess, sir."

"Oh, Adele will go to school -- I have settled that already; nor do
I mean to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections
of Thornfield Hall -- this accursed place -- this tent of Achan --
this insolent vault, offering the ghastliness of living death to
the light of the open sky -- this narrow stone hell, with its one
real fiend, worse than a legion of such as we imagine. Jane, you
shall not stay here, nor will I. I was wrong ever to bring you to
Thornfield Hall, knowing as I did how it was haunted. I charged
them to conceal from you, before I ever saw you, all knowledge of
the curse of the place; merely because I feared Adele never would
have a governess to stay if she knew with what inmate she was housed,
and my plans would not permit me to remove the maniac elsewhere --
though I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even more retired
and hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely enough,
had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of the situation, in the
heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement.
Probably those damp walls would soon have eased me of her charge:
but to each villain his own vice; and mine is not a tendency to
indirect assassination, even of what I most hate.

"Concealing the mad-woman's neighbourhood from you, however, was
something like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down
near a upas-tree: that demon's vicinage is poisoned, and always
was. But I'll shut up Thornfield Hall: I'll nail up the front
door and board the lower windows: I'll give Mrs. Poole two hundred
a year to live here with MY WIFE, as you term that fearful hag:
Grace will do much for money, and she shall have her son, the keeper
at Grimsby Retreat, to bear her company and be at hand to give her
aid in the paroxysms, when MY WIFE is prompted by her familiar to
burn people in their beds at night, to stab them, to bite
their flesh from their bones, and so on -- "

"Sir," I interrupted him, "you are inexorable for that unfortunate
lady: you speak of her with hate -- with vindictive antipathy.
It is cruel -- she cannot help being mad."

"Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you
don't know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it
is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you
think I should hate you?"