Books: Jane Eyre

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"Listen, Diana," said one of the absorbed students; "Franz and
old Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a
dream from which he has awakened in terror -- listen!" And in a
low voice she read something, of which not one word was intelligible
to me; for it was in an unknown tongue -- neither French nor Latin.
Whether it were Greek or German I could not tell.

"That is strong," she said, when she had finished: "I relish it."
The other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister,
repeated, while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been
read. At a later day, I knew the language and the book; therefore,
I will here quote the line: though, when I first heard it, it was
only like a stroke on sounding brass to me -- conveying no meaning:-

"'Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.' Good!
good!" she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. "There
you have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The
line is worth a hundred pages of fustian. 'Ich wage die Gedanken
in der Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines
Grimms.' I like it!"

Both were again silent.

"Is there ony country where they talk i' that way?" asked the old
woman, looking up from her knitting.

"Yes, Hannah -- a far larger country than England, where they talk
in no other way."

"Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t' one
t'other: and if either o' ye went there, ye could tell what they
said, I guess?"

"We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all --
for we are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don't speak
German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us."

"And what good does it do you?"

"We mean to teach it some time -- or at least the elements, as they
say; and then we shall get more money than we do now."

"Varry like: but give ower studying; ye've done enough for to-night."

"I think we have: at least I'm tired. Mary, are you?"

"Mortally: after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language
with no master but a lexicon."

"It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious
Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home."

"Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a
little gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah:
will you have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?"

The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw
a passage: soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she
presently came back.

"Ah, childer!" said she, "it fair troubles me to go into yond'
room now: it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back
in a corner."

She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before,
looked sad now.

"But he is in a better place," continued Hannah: "we shouldn't
wish him here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death
nor he had."

"You say he never mentioned us?" inquired one of the ladies.

"He hadn't time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father.
He had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify;
and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o' ye to be
sent for, he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a
heaviness in his head the next day -- that is, a fortnight sin' --
and he went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a'most stark when
your brother went into t' chamber and fand him. Ah, childer!
that's t' last o' t' old stock -- for ye and Mr. St. John is like
of different soart to them 'at's gone; for all your mother wor mich
i' your way, and a'most as book-learned. She wor the pictur' o'
ye, Mary: Diana is more like your father."

I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant
(for such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were
fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of
distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade
darker than the other, and there was a difference in their style
of wearing it; Mary's pale brown locks were parted and braided
smooth: Diana's duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls.
The clock struck ten.

"Ye'll want your supper, I am sure," observed Hannah; "and so will
Mr. St. John when he comes in."

And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they
seemed about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had
been so intent on watching them, their appearance and conversation
had excited in me so keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own
wretched position: now it recurred to me. More desolate, more
desperate than ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible
did it appear to touch the inmates of this house with concern on
my behalf; to make them believe in the truth of my wants and woes
-- to induce them to vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As I
groped out the door, and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that
last idea to be a mere chimera. Hannah opened.

"What do you want?" she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she
surveyed me by the light of the candle she held.

"May I speak to your mistresses?" I said.

"You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do
you come from?"

"I am a stranger."

"What is your business here at this hour?"

"I want a night's shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel
of bread to eat."

Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face.
"I'll give you a piece of bread," she said, after a pause; "but we
can't take in a vagrant to lodge. It isn't likely."

"Do let me speak to your mistresses."

"No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving
about now; it looks very ill."

"But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?"

"Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind
you don't do wrong, that's all. Here is a penny; now go -- "

"A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther.
Don't shut the door:- oh, don't, for God's sake!"

"I must; the rain is driving in -- "

"Tell the young ladies. Let me see them- "

"Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you
wouldn't make such a noise. Move off."

"But I must die if I am turned away."

"Not you. I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring you
about folk's houses at this time o' night. If you've any followers
-- housebreakers or such like -- anywhere near, you may tell them
we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and
dogs, and guns." Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped
the door to and bolted it within.

This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering -- a throe
of true despair -- rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I
was; not another step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I
groaned -- I wrung my hands -- I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this
spectre of death! Oh, this last hour, approaching in such horror!
Alas, this isolation -- this banishment from my kind! Not only the
anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone -- at least
for a moment; but the last I soon endeavoured to regain.

"I can but die," I said, "and I believe in God. Let me try to wait
His will in silence."

These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all
my misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain
there -- dumb and still.

"All men must die," said a voice quite close at hand; "but all
are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as
yours would be if you perished here of want."

"Who or what speaks?" I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound,
and incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A
form was near -- what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled
vision prevented me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock,
the new-comer appealed to the door.

"Is it you, Mr. St. John?" cried Hannah.

"Yes -- yes; open quickly."

"Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is!
Come in -- your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe
there are bad folks about. There has been a beggar-woman --
I declare she is not gone yet! -- laid down there. Get up! for
shame! Move off, I say!"

"Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done
your duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was
near, and listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar
case -- I must at least examine into it. Young woman, rise, and
pass before me into the house."

With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that
clean, bright kitchen -- on the very hearth -- trembling, sickening;
conscious of an aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and
weather-beaten. The two ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the
old servant, were all gazing at me.

"St. John, who is it?" I heard one ask.

"I cannot tell: I found her at the door," was the reply.

"She does look white," said Hannah.

"As white as clay or death," was responded. "She will fall: let
her sit."

And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I
still possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak.

"Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some.
But she is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless!"

"A mere spectre!"

"Is she ill, or only famished?"

"Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece
of bread."

Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between
me and the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it
in milk, and put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw
there was pity in it, and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing.
In her simple words, too, the same balm-like emotion spoke: "Try
to eat."

"Yes -- try," repeated Mary gently; and Mary's hand removed my
sodden bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me:
feebly at first, eagerly soon.

"Not too much at first -- restrain her," said the brother; "she
has had enough." And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of
bread.

"A little more, St. John -- look at the avidity in her eyes."

"No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now -- ask her
her name."

I felt I could speak, and I answered -- "My name is Jane Elliott."
Anxious as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume
an ALIAS.

"And where do you live? Where are your friends?"

I was silent.

"Can we send for any one you know?"

I shook my head.

"What account can you give of yourself?"

Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house,
and once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer
outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put
off the mendicant -- to resume my natural manner and character.
I began once more to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded
an account -- which at present I was far too weak to render
-- I said after a brief pause -

"Sir, I can give you no details to-night."

"But what, then," said he, "do you expect me to do for you?"

"Nothing," I replied. My strength sufficed for but short
answers. Diana took the word -

"Do you mean," she asked, "that we have now given you what aid you
require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy
night?"

I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance,
instinct both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage.
Answering her compassionate gaze with a smile, I said -- "I will
trust you. If I were a masterless and stray dog, I know that you
would not turn me from your hearth to-night: as it is, I really
have no fear. Do with me and for me as you like; but excuse me
from much discourse -- my breath is short -- I feel a spasm when
I speak." All three surveyed me, and all three were silent.

"Hannah," said Mr. St. John, at last, "let her sit there at
present, and ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her
the remainder of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go
into the parlour and talk the matter over."

They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned -- I could
not tell which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as
I sat by the genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions
to Hannah. Ere long, with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount
a staircase; my dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry
bed received me. I thanked God -- experienced amidst unutterable
exhaustion a glow of grateful joy -- and slept.

CHAPTER XXIX

The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is
very dim in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in that
interval; but few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew
I was in a small room and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed
to have grown; I lay on it motionless as a stone; and to have torn
me from it would have been almost to kill me. I took no note of
the lapse of time -- of the change from morning to noon, from noon
to evening. I observed when any one entered or left the apartment:
I could even tell who they were; I could understand what was said
when the speaker stood near to me; but I could not answer; to
open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible. Hannah, the
servant, was my most frequent visitor. Her coming disturbed me. I
had a feeling that she wished me away: that she did not understand
me or my circumstances; that she was prejudiced against me. Diana
and Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day. They
would whisper sentences of this sort at my bedside -

"It is very well we took her in."

"Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the
morning had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has
gone through?"

"Strange hardships, I imagine -- poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer?"

"She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of
speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took off,
though splashed and wet, were little worn and fine."

"She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather
like it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy her
physiognomy would be agreeable."

Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at
the hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or
aversion to, myself. I was comforted.

Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of
lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted
fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature,
he was sure, would manage best, left to herself. He said every nerve
had been overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep
torpid a while. There was no disease. He imagined my recovery would
be rapid enough when once commenced. These opinions he delivered
in a few words, in a quiet, low voice; and added, after a pause, in
the tone of a man little accustomed to expansive comment, "Rather
an unusual physiognomy; certainly, not indicative of vulgarity or
degradation."

"Far otherwise," responded Diana. "To speak truth, St. John, my
heart rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able
to benefit her permanently."

"That is hardly likely," was the reply. "You will find she is
some young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends,
and has probably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed
in restoring her to them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines
of force in her face which make me sceptical of her tractability."
He stood considering me some minutes; then added, "She looks
sensible, but not at all handsome."

"She is so ill, St. John."

"Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of
beauty are quite wanting in those features."

On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move,
rise in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry
toast, about, as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with
relish: the food was good -- void of the feverish flavour which
had hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed. When she left me, I
felt comparatively strong and revived: ere long satiety of repose
and desire for action stirred me. I wished to rise; but what could
I put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept
on the ground and fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed to appear
before my benefactors so clad. I was spared the humiliation.

On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry.
My black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog
were removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it
was quite decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and
rendered presentable. There were the means of washing in the room,
and a comb and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process,
and resting every five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself.
My clothes hung loose on me; for I was much wasted, but I covered
deficiencies with a shawl, and once more, clean and respectable looking
-- no speck of the dirt, no trace of the disorder I so hated, and
which seemed so to degrade me, left -- I crept down a stone staircase
with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow low passage, and found
my way presently to the kitchen.

It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a
generous fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known,
are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never
been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm
as weeds among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed,
at the first: latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when
she saw me come in tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled.

"What, you have got up!" she said. "You are better, then. You
may sit you down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will."

She pointed to the rocking-chair: I took it. She bustled about,
examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye. Turning
to me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly -

"Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?"

I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out
of the question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her,
I answered quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness -

"You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar. I am no beggar; any
more than yourself or your young ladies."

After a pause she said, "I dunnut understand that: you've like no
house, nor no brass, I guess?"

"The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money)
does not make a beggar in your sense of the word."

"Are you book-learned?" she inquired presently.

"Yes, very."

"But you've never been to a boarding-school?"

"I was at a boarding-school eight years."

She opened her eyes wide. "Whatever cannot ye keep yourself for,
then?"

"I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again. What
are you going to do with these gooseberries?" I inquired, as she
brought out a basket of the fruit.

"Mak' 'em into pies."

"Give them to me and I'll pick them."

"Nay; I dunnut want ye to do nought."

"But I must do something. Let me have them."

She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over
my dress, "lest," as she said, "I should mucky it."

"Ye've not been used to sarvant's wark, I see by your hands," she
remarked. "Happen ye've been a dressmaker?"

"No, you are wrong. And now, never mind what I have been: don't
trouble your head further about me; but tell me the name of the
house where we are."

"Some calls it Marsh End, and some calls it Moor House."

"And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John?"

"Nay; he doesn't live here: he is only staying a while. When he
is at home, he is in his own parish at Morton."

"That village a few miles off?

"Aye."

"And what is he?"

"He is a parson."

I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage,
when I had asked to see the clergyman. "This, then, was his father's
residence?"

"Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather,
and gurt (great) grandfather afore him."

"The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?"

"Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name."

"And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?"

"Yes."

"Their father is dead?"

"Dead three weeks sin' of a stroke."

"They have no mother?"

"The mistress has been dead this mony a year."

"Have you lived with the family long?"

"I've lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three."

"That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant.
I will say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to
call me a beggar."

She again regarded me with a surprised stare. "I believe," she
said, "I was quite mista'en in my thoughts of you: but there is
so mony cheats goes about, you mun forgie me."

"And though," I continued, rather severely, "you wished to turn me
from the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog."

"Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o' th'
childer nor of mysel: poor things! They've like nobody to tak'
care on 'em but me. I'm like to look sharpish."

I maintained a grave silence for some minutes.

"You munnut think too hardly of me," she again remarked.

"But I do think hardly of you," I said; "and I'll tell you why --
not so much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me
as an impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach
that I had no 'brass' and no house. Some of the best people that
ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian,
you ought not to consider poverty a crime."

"No more I ought," said she: "Mr. St. John tells me so too; and
I see I wor wrang -- but I've clear a different notion on you now
to what I had. You look a raight down dacent little crater."

"That will do -- I forgive you now. Shake hands."

She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier
smile illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were friends.

Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit,
and she made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry
details about her deceased master and mistress, and "the childer,"
as she called the young people.

Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a gentleman, and
of as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh End had belonged
to the Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she affirmed,
"aboon two hundred year old -- for all it looked but a small,
humble place, naught to compare wi' Mr. Oliver's grand hall down
i' Morton Vale. But she could remember Bill Oliver's father a
journeyman needlemaker; and th' Rivers wor gentry i' th' owd days
o' th' Henrys, as onybody might see by looking into th' registers
i' Morton Church vestry." Still, she allowed, "the owd maister was
like other folk -- naught mich out o' t' common way: stark mad o'
shooting, and farming, and sich like." The mistress was different.
She was a great reader, and studied a deal; and the "bairns" had
taken after her. There was nothing like them in these parts, nor
ever had been; they had liked learning, all three, almost from
the time they could speak; and they had always been "of a mak' of
their own." Mr. St. John, when he grew up, would go to college
and be a parson; and the girls, as soon as they left school, would
seek places as governesses: for they had told her their father had
some years ago lost a great deal of money by a man he had trusted
turning bankrupt; and as he was now not rich enough to give them
fortunes, they must provide for themselves. They had lived very
little at home for a long while, and were only come now to stay a
few weeks on account of their father's death; but they did so like
Marsh End and Morton, and all these moors and hills about. They
had been in London, and many other grand towns; but they always
said there was no place like home; and then they were so agreeable
with each other -- never fell out nor "threaped." She did not know
where there was such a family for being united.

Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the
two ladies and their brother were now.

"Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half-an-hour
to tea."

They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they
entered by the kitchen door. Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely
bowed and passed through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few
words, kindly and calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing
me well enough to be able to come down; Diana took my hand: she
shook her head at me.

"You should have waited for my leave to descend," she said. "You
still look very pale -- and so thin! Poor child! -- poor girl!"

Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove.
She possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole
face seemed to me full of charm. Mary's countenance was equally
intelligent -- her features equally pretty; but her expression
was more reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant.
Diana looked and spoke with a certain authority: she had a will,
evidently. It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an
authority supported like hers, and to bend, where my conscience
and self-respect permitted, to an active will.