Books: Jane Eyre

C >> Charlotte Bronte >> Jane Eyre

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

"And what business have you here?" she continued. "It is not your
place. Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home
we like to be free, even to license -- but you are a visitor, and
must go into the parlour."

"I am very well here."

"Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with
flour."

"Besides, the fire is too hot for you," interposed Mary.

"To be sure," added her sister. "Come, you must be obedient." And
still holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner
room.

"Sit there," she said, placing me on the sofa, "while we take
our things off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we
exercise in our little moorland home -- to prepare our own meals
when we are so inclined, or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing,
or ironing."

She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat
opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I examined first, the
parlour, and then its occupant.

The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet
comfortable, because clean and neat. The old-fashioned chairs were
very bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass. A
few strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days
decorated the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained
some books and an ancient set of china. There was no superfluous
ornament in the room -- not one modern piece of furniture, save a
brace of workboxes and a lady's desk in rosewood, which stood on
a side-table: everything -- including the carpet and curtains --
looked at once well worn and well saved.

Mr. St. John -- sitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on
the walls, keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his
lips mutely sealed -- was easy enough to examine. Had he been
a statue instead of a man, he could not have been easier. He was
young -- perhaps from twenty-eight to thirty -- tall, slender;
his face riveted the eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in
outline: quite a straight, classic nose; quite an Athenian mouth
and chin. It is seldom, indeed, an English face comes so near the
antique models as did his. He might well be a little shocked at
the irregularity of my lineaments, his own being so harmonious.
His eyes were large and blue, with brown lashes; his high forehead,
colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by careless locks
of fair hair.

This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom
it describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a
yielding, an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent
as he now sat, there was something about his nostril, his mouth,
his brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either
restless, or hard, or eager. He did not speak to me one word, nor
even direct to me one glance, till his sisters returned. Diana,
as she passed in and out, in the course of preparing tea, brought
me a little cake, baked on the top of the oven.

"Eat that now," she said: "you must be hungry. Hannah says you
have had nothing but some gruel since breakfast."

I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr.
Rivers now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took
a seat, fixed his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me. There
was an unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness
in his gaze now, which told that intention, and not diffidence,
had hitherto kept it averted from the stranger.

"You are very hungry," he said.

"I am, sir." It is my way -- it always was my way, by instinct --
ever to meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness.

"It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for
the last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to
the cravings of your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though
still not immoderately."

"I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir," was my very
clumsily-contrived, unpolished answer.

"No," he said coolly: "when you have indicated to us the residence
of your friends, we can write to them, and you may be restored to
home."

"That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being
absolutely without home and friends."

The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was no
suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity. I speak
particularly of the young ladies. St. John's eyes, though clear
enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult
to fathom. He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search
other people's thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the
which combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more
calculated to embarrass than to encourage.

"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you are completely isolated
from every connection?"

"I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I
possess to admittance under any roof in England."

"A most singular position at your age!"

Here I saw his glance directed to my hands, which were folded on
the table before me. I wondered what he sought there: his words
soon explained the quest.

"You have never been married? You are a spinster?"

Diana laughed. "Why, she can't he above seventeen or eighteen
years old, St. John," said she.

"I am near nineteen: but I am not married. No."

I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating
recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage. They all
saw the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me
by turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but
the colder and sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble
he had excited forced out tears as well as colour.

"Where did you last reside?" he now asked.

"You are too inquisitive, St. John," murmured Mary in a low voice;
but he leaned over the table and required an answer by a second
firm and piercing look.

"The name of the place where, and of the person with whom I lived,
is my secret," I replied concisely.

"Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both
from St. John and every other questioner," remarked Diana.

"Yet if I know nothing about you or your history, I cannot help
you," he said. "And you need help, do you not?"

"I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true philanthropist
will put me in the way of getting work which I can do, and the
remuneration for which will keep me, if but in the barest necessaries
of life."

"I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to
aid you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest. First,
then, tell me what you have been accustomed to do, and what you
CAN do."

I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the beverage;
as much so as a giant with wine: it gave new tone to my unstrung
nerves, and enabled me to address this penetrating young judge
steadily.

"Mr. Rivers," I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he
looked at me, openly and without diffidence, "you and your sisters
have done me a great service -- the greatest man can do his fellow-
being; you have rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from death.
This benefit conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my gratitude,
and a claim, to a certain extent, on my confidence. I will tell
you as much of the history of the wanderer you have harboured,
as I can tell without compromising my own peace of mind -- my own
security, moral and physical, and that of others.

"I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman. My parents died
before I could know them. I was brought up a dependant; educated
in a charitable institution. I will even tell you the name of the
establishment, where I passed six years as a pupil, and two as a
teacher -- Lowood Orphan Asylum, -shire: you will have heard of
it, Mr. Rivers? -- the Rev. Robert Brocklehurst is the treasurer."

"I have heard of Mr. Brocklehurst, and I have seen the school."

"I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess.
I obtained a good situation, and was happy. This place I was
obliged to leave four days before I came here. The reason of my
departure I cannot and ought not to explain: it would be useless,
dangerous, and would sound incredible. No blame attached to me:
I am as free from culpability as any one of you three. Miserable
I am, and must be for a time; for the catastrophe which drove me
from a house I had found a paradise was of a strange and direful
nature. I observed but two points in planning my departure -- speed,
secrecy: to secure these, I had to leave behind me everything I
possessed except a small parcel; which, in my hurry and trouble of
mind, I forgot to take out of the coach that brought me to Whitcross.
To this neighbourhood, then, I came, quite destitute. I slept two
nights in the open air, and wandered about two days without crossing
a threshold: but twice in that space of time did I taste food;
and it was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and despair almost
to the last gasp, that you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to perish of
want at your door, and took me under the shelter of your roof. I
know all your sisters have done for me since -- for I have not
been insensible during my seeming torpor -- and I owe to their
spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt as to your
evangelical charity."

"Don't make her talk any more now, St. John," said Diana, as I
paused; "she is evidently not yet fit for excitement. Come to the
sofa and sit down now, Miss Elliott."

I gave an involuntary half start at hearing the alias: I had
forgotten my new name. Mr. Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape,
noticed it at once.

"You said your name was Jane Elliott?" he observed.

"I did say so; and it is the name by which I think it expedient to
be called at present, but it is not my real name, and when I hear
it, it sounds strange to me."

"Your real name you will not give?"

"No: I fear discovery above all things; and whatever disclosure
would lead to it, I avoid."

"You are quite right, I am sure," said Diana. "Now do, brother,
let her be at peace a while."

But when St. John had mused a few moments he recommenced as
imperturbably and with as much acumen as ever.

"You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality -- you
would wish, I see, to dispense as soon as may be with my sisters'
compassion, and, above all, with my CHARITY (I am quite sensible
of the distinction drawn, nor do I resent it -- it is just): you
desire to be independent of us?"

"I do: I have already said so. Show me how to work, or how to seek
work: that is all I now ask; then let me go, if it be but to the
meanest cottage; but till then, allow me to stay here: I dread
another essay of the horrors of homeless destitution."

"Indeed you SHALL stay here," said Diana, putting her white hand on
my head. "You SHALL," repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative
sincerity which seemed natural to her.

"My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you," said Mr.
St. John, "as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing
a half-frozen bird, some wintry wind might have driven through
their casement. I feel more inclination to put you in the way of
keeping yourself, and shall endeavour to do so; but observe, my
sphere is narrow. I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish:
my aid must be of the humblest sort. And if you are inclined to
despise the day of small things, seek some more efficient succour
than such as I can offer."

"She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest
she can do," answered Diana for me; "and you know, St. John, she
has no choice of helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty
people as you."

"I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a
servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better," I answered.

"Right," said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. "If such is your spirit,
I promise to aid you, in my own time and way."

He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea.
I soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as
my present strength would permit.

CHAPTER XXX

The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked
them. In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could
sit up all day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana
and Mary in all their occupations; converse with them as much as
they wished, and aid them when and where they would allow me. There
was a reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted
by me for the first time -- the pleasure arising from perfect
congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles.

I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed,
delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced. They loved their
sequestered home. I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure,
with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls,
its avenue of aged firs -- all grown aslant under the stress of
mountain winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly -- and where
no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom -- found a charm
both potent and permanent. They clung to the purple moors behind
and around their dwelling -- to the hollow vale into which the
pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, and which
wound between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the
wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of
heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with
their little mossy-faced lambs:- they clung to this scene, I say,
with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment. I could comprehend the
feeling, and share both its strength and truth. I saw the fascination
of the locality. I felt the consecration of its loneliness: my eye
feasted on the outline of swell and sweep -- on the wild colouring
communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by heath-bell, by
flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow granite
crag. These details were just to me what they were to them -- so
many pure and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast and the
soft breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise
and sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me,
in these regions, the same attraction as for them -- wound round
my faculties the same spell that entranced theirs.

Indoors we agreed equally well. They were both more accomplished
and better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the
path of knowledge they had trodden before me. I devoured the books
they lent me: then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them
in the evening what I had perused during the day. Thought fitted
thought; opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly.

If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana.
Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous.
In her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty
of flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension.
I could talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first
gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at
Diana's feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately
to her and Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which
I had but touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I liked to
learn of her: I saw the part of instructress pleased and suited
her; that of scholar pleased and suited me no less. Our natures
dovetailed: mutual affection -- of the strongest kind -- was the
result. They discovered I could draw: their pencils and colour-boxes
were immediately at my service. My skill, greater in this one
point than theirs, surprised and charmed them. Mary would sit and
watch me by the hour together: then she would take lessons; and
a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made. Thus occupied,
and mutually entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks like
days.

As to Mr. St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and
rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him. One
reason of the distance yet observed between us was, that he
was comparatively seldom at home: a large proportion of his time
appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the scattered
population of his parish.

No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions: rain
or fair, he would, when his hours of morning study were over, take
his hat, and, followed by his father's old pointer, Carlo, go out
on his mission of love or duty -- I scarcely know in which light
he regarded it. Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable,
his sisters would expostulate. He would then say, with a peculiar
smile, more solemn than cheerful --

"And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside
from these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for
the future I propose to myself?"

Diana and Mary's general answer to this question was a sigh, and
some minutes of apparently mournful meditation.

But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to
friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and
even of a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours,
blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy
that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the
reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist.
Often, of an evening, when he sat at the window, his desk and papers
before him, he would cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his
hand, and deliver himself up to I know not what course of thought;
but that it was perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent
flash and changeful dilation of his eye.

I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of
delight it was to his sisters. He expressed once, and but once in
my hearing, a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and
an inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary walls he called
his home; but there was more of gloom than pleasure in the tone
and words in which the sentiment was manifested; and never did he
seem to roam the moors for the sake of their soothing silence --
never seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights they
could yield.

Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had
an opportunity of gauging his mind. I first got an idea of its
calibre when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton. I wish
I could describe that sermon: but it is past my power. I cannot
even render faithfully the effect it produced on me.

It began calm -- and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice
went, it was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly
restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted
the nervous language. This grew to force -- compressed, condensed,
controlled. The heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the
power of the preacher: neither were softened. Throughout there
was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness;
stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines -- election, predestination,
reprobation -- were frequent; and each reference to these points
sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom. When he had done,
instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse,
I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to me -- I
know not whether equally so to others -- that the eloquence to which
I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs
of disappointment -- where moved troubling impulses of insatiate
yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John Rivers
-- pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was -- had not yet
found that peace of God which passeth all understanding: he had no
more found it, I thought, than had I with my concealed and racking
regrets for my broken idol and lost elysium -- regrets to which I
have latterly avoided referring, but which possessed me and tyrannised
over me ruthlessly.

Meantime a month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor
House, and return to the far different life and scene which awaited
them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England
city, where each held a situation in families by whose wealthy
and haughty members they were regarded only as humble dependants,
and who neither knew nor sought out their innate excellences, and
appreciated only their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated
the skill of their cook or the taste of their waiting-woman. Mr.
St. John had said nothing to me yet about the employment he had
promised to obtain for me; yet it became urgent that I should have
a vocation of some kind. One morning, being left alone with him a
few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to approach the window-recess
-- which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of study
-- and I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what
words to frame my inquiry -- for it is at all times difficult to
break the ice of reserve glassing over such natures as his -- when
he saved me the trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue.

Looking up as I drew near -- "You have a question to ask of me?"
he said.

"Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can
offer myself to undertake?"

"I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you
seemed both useful and happy here -- as my sisters had evidently
become attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure
-- I deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till
their approaching departure from Marsh End should render yours
necessary."

"And they will go in three days now?" I said.

"Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton:
Hannah will accompany me; and this old house will be shut up."

I waited a few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject
first broached: but he seemed to have entered another train of
reflection: his look denoted abstraction from me and my business.
I was obliged to recall him to a theme which was of necessity one
of close and anxious interest to me.

"What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers? I hope this
delay will not have increased the difficulty of securing it."

"Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to
give, and you to accept."

He again paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue. I grew
impatient: a restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting
glance fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as
effectually as words could have done, and with less trouble.

"You need be in no hurry to hear," he said: "let me frankly tell
you, I have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest. Before I
explain, recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if
I helped you, it must be as the blind man would help the lame. I
am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father's debts, all
the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange, the
row of scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil, with the
yew-trees and holly-bushes in front. I am obscure: Rivers is an
old name; but of the three sole descendants of the race, two earn
the dependant's crust among strangers, and the third considers
himself an alien from his native country -- not only for life, but
in death. Yes, and deems, and is bound to deem, himself honoured by
the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation
from fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the
Head of that church-militant of whose humblest members he is one,
shall give the word, 'Rise, follow Me!'"

St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with
a quiet, deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating
radiance of glance. He resumed -

"And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a
service of poverty and obscurity. YOU may even think it degrading
-- for I see now your habits have been what the world calls refined:
your tastes lean to the ideal, and your society has at least been
amongst the educated; but I consider that no service degrades which
can better our race. I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed
the soil where the Christian labourer's task of tillage is appointed
him -- the scantier the meed his toil brings -- the higher the honour.
His, under such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and
the first pioneers of the Gospel were the Apostles -- their captain
was Jesus, the Redeemer, Himself."

"Well?" I said, as he again paused -- "proceed."

He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely
to read my face, as if its features and lines were characters
on a page. The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially
expressed in his succeeding observations.

"I believe you will accept the post I offer you," said he, "and
hold it for a while: not permanently, though: any more than I
could permanently keep the narrow and narrowing -- the tranquil,
hidden office of English country incumbent; for in your nature
is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a
different kind."