Books: Jane Eyre

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Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside
my palette. Once more he looked at the portrait.

"She IS lovely," he murmured. "She is well named the Rose of the
World, indeed!"

"And may I not paint one like it for you?"

"CUI BONO? No."

He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was
accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard
from being sullied. What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it
was impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye.
He took it up with a snatch; he looked at the edge; then shot a
glance at me, inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible:
a glance that seemed to take and make note of every point in
my shape, face, and dress; for it traversed all, quick, keen as
lightning. His lips parted, as if to speak: but he checked the
coming sentence, whatever it was.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"Nothing in the world," was the reply; and, replacing the paper,
I saw him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It
disappeared in his glove; and, with one hasty nod and "good-afternoon,"
he vanished.

"Well!" I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, "that
caps the globe, however!"

I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a
few dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil.
I pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable,
and being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and
soon forgot it.

CHAPTER XXXIII

When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling
storm continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh
and blinding falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost
impassable. I had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to
prevent the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and
after sitting nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled
fury of the tempest, I lit a candle, took down "Marmion," and beginning -

"Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone;
The massive towers, the donjon keep,
The flanking walls that round them sweep,
In yellow lustre shone" -

I soon forgot storm in music.

I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was
St. John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen
hurricane -- the howling darkness -- and stood before me: the
cloak that covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was
almost in consternation, so little had I expected any guest from
the blocked-up vale that night.

"Any ill news?" I demanded. "Has anything happened?"

"No. How very easily alarmed you are!" he answered, removing his
cloak and hanging it up against the door, towards which he again
coolly pushed the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped
the snow from his boots.

"I shall sully the purity of your floor," said he, "but you must
excuse me for once." Then he approached the fire. "I have had
hard work to get here, I assure you," he observed, as he warmed his
hands over the flame. "One drift took me up to the waist; happily
the snow is quite soft yet."

"But why are you come?" I could not forbear saying.

"Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since
you ask it, I answer simply to have a little talk with you; I got
tired of my mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday
I have experienced the excitement of a person to whom a tale has
been half- told, and who is impatient to hear the sequel."

He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and
really I began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane,
however, his was a very cool and collected insanity: I had never
seen that handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled
marble than it did just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from
his forehead and let the firelight shine free on his pale brow and
cheek as pale, where it grieved me to discover the hollow trace of
care or sorrow now so plainly graved. I waited, expecting he would
say something I could at least comprehend; but his hand was now at
his chin, his finger on his lip: he was thinking. It struck me
that his hand looked wasted like his face. A perhaps uncalled-for
gush of pity came over my heart: I was moved to say -

"I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you: it is too bad
that you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about
your own health."

"Not at all," said he: "I care for myself when necessary. I am
well now. What do you see amiss in me?"

This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed
that my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous.
I was silenced.

He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still his
eye dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate; thinking it urgent to say
something, I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from
the door, which was behind him.

"No, no!" he responded shortly and somewhat testily.

"Well," I reflected, "if you won't talk, you may be still; I'll
let you alone now, and return to my book."

So I snuffed the candle and resumed the perusal of "Marmion." He
soon stirred; my eye was instantly drawn to his movements; he only
took out a morocco pocket-book, thence produced a letter, which he
read in silence, folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation.
It was vain to try to read with such an inscrutable fixture before
me; nor could I, in impatience, consent to be dumb; he might rebuff
me if he liked, but talk I would.

"Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?"

"Not since the letter I showed you a week ago."

"There has not been any change made about your own arrangements?
You will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected?"

"I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me." Baffled
so far, I changed my ground. I bethought myself to talk about the
school and my scholars.

"Mary Garrett's mother is better, and Mary came back to the school
this morning, and I shall have four new girls next week from the
Foundry Close -- they would have come to-day but for the snow."

"Indeed!"

"Mr. Oliver pays for two."

"Does he?"

"He means to give the whole school a treat at Christmas."

"I know."

"Was it your suggestion?"

"No."

"Whose, then?"

"His daughter's, I think."

"It is like her: she is so good-natured."

"Yes."

Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes.
It aroused him; he uncrossed his legs, sat erect, turned to me.

"Leave your book a moment, and come a little nearer the fire," he
said.

Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end, I complied.

"Half-an-hour ago," he pursued, "I spoke of my impatience to hear
the sequel of a tale: on reflection, I find the matter will be
better managed by my assuming the narrator's part, and converting
you into a listener. Before commencing, it is but fair to warn
you that the story will sound somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but
stale details often regain a degree of freshness when they pass
through new lips. For the rest, whether trite or novel, it is
short.

"Twenty years ago, a poor curate -- never mind his name at this
moment -- fell in love with a rich man's daughter; she fell in love
with him, and married him, against the advice of all her friends,
who consequently disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before
two years passed, the rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly
side by side under one slab. (I have seen their grave; it formed
part of the pavement of a huge churchyard surrounding the grim,
soot-black old cathedral of an overgrown manufacturing town in
-shire.) They left a daughter, which, at its very birth, Charity
received in her lap -- cold as that of the snow-drift I almost stuck
fast in to-night. Charity carried the friendless thing to the house
of its rich maternal relations; it was reared by an aunt-in-law,
called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead. You start --
did you hear a noise? I daresay it is only a rat scrambling along
the rafters of the adjoining schoolroom: it was a barn before
I had it repaired and altered, and barns are generally haunted by
rats. -- To proceed. Mrs. Reed kept the orphan ten years: whether
it was happy or not with her, I cannot say, never having been told;
but at the end of that time she transferred it to a place you know
-- being no other than Lowood School, where you so long resided
yourself. It seems her career there was very honourable: from a
pupil, she became a teacher, like yourself -- really it strikes me
there are parallel points in her history and yours -- she left it
to be a governess: there, again, your fates were analogous; she
undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr. Rochester."

"Mr. Rivers!" I interrupted.

"I can guess your feelings," he said, "but restrain them for a while:
I have nearly finished; hear me to the end. Of Mr. Rochester's
character I know nothing, but the one fact that he professed to
offer honourable marriage to this young girl, and that at the very
altar she discovered he had a wife yet alive, though a lunatic.
What his subsequent conduct and proposals were is a matter of pure
conjecture; but when an event transpired which rendered inquiry
after the governess necessary, it was discovered she was gone -- no
one could tell when, where, or how. She had left Thornfield Hall
in the night; every research after her course had been vain: the
country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of information
could be gathered respecting her. Yet that she should be found is
become a matter of serious urgency: advertisements have been put
in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr.
Briggs, a solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted.
Is it not an odd tale?"

"Just tell me this," said I, "and since you know so much, you
surely can tell it me -- what of Mr. Rochester? How and where is
he? What is he doing? Is he well?"

"I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester: the letter never
mentions him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I
have adverted to. You should rather ask the name of the governess
-- the nature of the event which requires her appearance."

"Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then? Did no one see Mr.
Rochester?"

"I suppose not."

"But they wrote to him?"

"Of course."

"And what did he say? Who has his letters?"

"Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not
from Mr. Rochester, but from a lady: it is signed 'Alice Fairfax.'"

I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true:
he had in all probability left England and rushed in reckless
desperation to some former haunt on the Continent. And what opiate
for his severe sufferings -- what object for his strong passions
-- had he sought there? I dared not answer the question. Oh, my
poor master -- once almost my husband -- whom I had often called
"my dear Edward!"

"He must have been a bad man," observed Mr. Rivers.

"You don't know him -- don't pronounce an opinion upon him," I
said, with warmth.

"Very well," he answered quietly: "and indeed my head is otherwise
occupied than with him: I have my tale to finish. Since you won't
ask the governess's name, I must tell it of my own accord. Stay!
I have it here -- it is always more satisfactory to see important
points written down, fairly committed to black and white."

And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought
through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip
of paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its
stains of ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin
of the portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes: and
I read, traced in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words
"JANE EYRE" -- the work doubtless of some moment of abstraction.

"Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:" he said, "the advertisements
demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott. -- I confess I had my
suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once
resolved into certainty. You own the name and renounce the alias?"

"Yes -- yes; but where is Mr. Briggs? He perhaps knows more of
Mr. Rochester than you do."

"Briggs is in London. I should doubt his knowing anything at all
about Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested.
Meantime, you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do
not inquire why Mr. Briggs sought after you -- what he wanted with
you."

"Well, what did he want?"

"Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead;
that he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich
-- merely that -- nothing more."

"I! -- rich?"

"Yes, you, rich -- quite an heiress."

Silence succeeded.

"You must prove your identity of course," resumed St. John presently:
"a step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on
immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds;
Briggs has the will and the necessary documents."

Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be
lifted in a moment from indigence to wealth -- a very fine thing;
but not a matter one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at
once. And then there are other chances in life far more thrilling
and rapture-giving: THIS is solid, an affair of the actual world,
nothing ideal about it: all its associations are solid and sober,
and its manifestations are the same. One does not jump, and spring,
and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune; one begins
to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base
of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain
ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.

Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words,
Death, Funeral. My uncle I had heard was dead -- my only relative;
ever since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the
hope of one day seeing him: now, I never should. And then this
money came only to me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to
my isolated self. It was a grand boon doubtless; and independence
would be glorious -- yes, I felt that -- that thought swelled my
heart.

"You unbend your forehead at last," said Mr. Rivers. "I thought
Medusa had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone.
Perhaps now you will ask how much you are worth?"

"How much am I worth?"

"Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak of -- twenty thousand
pounds, I think they say -- but what is that?"

"Twenty thousand pounds?"

Here was a new stunner -- I had been calculating on four or five
thousand. This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr.
St. John, whom I had never heard laugh before, laughed now.

"Well," said he, "if you had committed a murder, and I had told
you your crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast."

"It is a large sum -- don't you think there is a mistake?"

"No mistake at all."

"Perhaps you have read the figures wrong -- it may be two thousand!"

"It is written in letters, not figures, -- twenty thousand."

I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical
powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions
for a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose now and put his cloak on.

"If it were not such a very wild night," he said, "I would send
Hannah down to keep you company: you look too desperately miserable
to be left alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the
drifts so well as I: her legs are not quite so long: so I must
e'en leave you to your sorrows. Good-night."

He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me. "Stop
one minute!" I cried.

"Well?"

"It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how
he knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way
place, had the power to aid in my discovery."

"Oh! I am a clergyman," he said; "and the clergy are often appealed
to about odd matters." Again the latch rattled.

"No; that does not satisfy me!" I exclaimed: and indeed there
was something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which, instead
of allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever.

"It is a very strange piece of business," I added; "I must know
more about it."

"Another time."

"No; to-night! -- to-night!" and as he turned from the door, I
placed myself between it and him. He looked rather embarrassed.

"You certainly shall not go till you have told me all," I said.

"I would rather not just now."

"You shall! -- you must!"

"I would rather Diana or Mary informed you."

Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax:
gratified it must be, and that without delay; and I told him so.

"But I apprised you that I was a hard man," said he, "difficult to
persuade."

"And I am a hard woman, -- impossible to put off."

"And then," he pursued, "I am cold: no fervour infects me."

"Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has
thawed all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has
streamed on to my floor, and made it like a trampled street. As
you hope ever to be forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and
misdemeanour of spoiling a sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to
know."

"Well, then," he said, "I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your
perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides,
you must know some day, -- as well now as later. Your name is Jane
Eyre?"

"Of course: that was all settled before."

"You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake? -- that I
was christened St. John Eyre Rivers?"

"No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your
initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but
I never asked for what name it stood. But what then? Surely -- "

I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to
express, the thought that rushed upon me -- that embodied itself,
-- that, in a second, stood out a strong, solid probability.
Circumstances knit themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order:
the chain that had been lying hitherto a formless lump of links
was drawn out straight, -- every ring was perfect, the connection
complete. I knew, by instinct, how the matter stood, before St.
John had said another word; but I cannot expect the reader to have
the same intuitive perception, so I must repeat his explanation.

"My mother's name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman,
who married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq.,
merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira. Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre's
solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle's
death, and to say that he had left his property to his brother the
clergyman's orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a
quarrel, never forgiven, between him and my father. He wrote again
a few weeks since, to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking
if we knew anything of her. A name casually written on a slip of
paper has enabled me to find her out. You know the rest." Again
he was going, but I set my back against the door.

"Do let me speak," I said; "let me have one moment to draw breath
and reflect." I paused -- he stood before me, hat in hand,
looking composed enough. I resumed -

"Your mother was my father's sister?"

"Yes."

"My aunt, consequently?"

He bowed.

"My uncle John was your uncle John? You, Diana, and Mary are his
sister's children, as I am his brother's child?"

"Undeniably."

"You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows
from the same source?"

"We are cousins; yes."

I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be
proud of, -- one I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities
were such, that, when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had
inspired me with genuine affection and admiration. The two girls,
on whom, kneeling down on the wet ground, and looking through the
low, latticed window of Moor House kitchen, I had gazed with so
bitter a mixture of interest and despair, were my near kinswomen;
and the young and stately gentleman who had found me almost dying
at his threshold was my blood relation. Glorious discovery to a
lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed! -- wealth to the heart! --
a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing, bright,
vivid, and exhilarating; -- not like the ponderous gift of gold:
rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight.
I now clapped my hands in sudden joy -- my pulse bounded, my veins
thrilled.

"Oh, I am glad! -- I am glad!" I exclaimed.

St. John smiled. "Did I not say you neglected essential points
to pursue trifles?" he asked. "You were serious when I told you
you had got a fortune; and now, for a matter of no moment, you are
excited."

"What can you mean? It may be of no moment to you; you have
sisters and don't care for a cousin; but I had nobody; and now
three relations, -- or two, if you don't choose to be counted, --
are born into my world full-grown. I say again, I am glad!"

I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with
the thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend,
settle them:- thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be,
and that ere long. I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky
thick with ascending stars, -- every one lit me to a purpose or
delight. Those who had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had
loved barrenly, I could now benefit. They were under a yoke, --
I could free them: they were scattered, -- I could reunite them:
the independence, the affluence which was mine, might be theirs too.
Were we not four? Twenty thousand pounds shared equally would be
five thousand each, justice -- enough and to spare: justice would
be done, -- mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did not weigh
on me: now it was not a mere bequest of coin, -- it was a legacy
of life, hope, enjoyment.

How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm,
I cannot tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a
chair behind me, and was gently attempting to make me sit down on
it. He also advised me to be composed; I scorned the insinuation
of helplessness and distraction, shook off his hand, and began to
walk about again.

"Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow," I said, "and tell them to come
home directly. Diana said they would both consider themselves rich
with a thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very
well."

"Tell me where I can get you a glass of water," said St. John; "you
must really make an effort to tranquillise your feelings."

"Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you?
Will it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and
settle down like an ordinary mortal?"

"You wander: your head becomes confused. I have been too abrupt
in communicating the news; it has excited you beyond your strength."

"Mr. Rivers! you quite put me out of patience: I am rational enough;
it is you who misunderstand, or rather who affect to misunderstand."

"Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should
comprehend better."

"Explain! What is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that
twenty thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between
the nephew and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand
to each? What I want is, that you should write to your sisters
and tell them of the fortune that has accrued to them."

"To you, you mean."

"I have intimated my view of the case: I am incapable of taking any
other. I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly
ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and
connections. I like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House;
I like Diana and Mary, and I will attach myself for life to Diana
and Mary. It would please and benefit me to have five thousand
pounds; it would torment and oppress me to have twenty thousand;
which, moreover, could never be mine in justice, though it might
in law. I abandon to you, then, what is absolutely superfluous to
me. Let there be no opposition, and no discussion about it; let
us agree amongst each other, and decide the point at once."

"This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider
such a matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid."

"Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy: you see the
justice of the case?"

"I DO see a certain justice; but it is contrary to all custom.
Besides, the entire fortune is your right: my uncle gained it by
his own efforts; he was free to leave it to whom he would: he left
it to you. After all, justice permits you to keep it: you may,
with a clear conscience, consider it absolutely your own."

"With me," said I, "it is fully as much a matter of feeling as
of conscience: I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had
an opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy
me for a year, I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which
I have caught a glimpse -- that of repaying, in part, a mighty
obligation, and winning to myself lifelong friends."