Books: Jane Eyre

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"You think so now," rejoined St. John, "because you do not know
what it is to possess, nor consequently to enjoy wealth: you
cannot form a notion of the importance twenty thousand pounds would
give you; of the place it would enable you to take in society;
of the prospects it would open to you: you cannot -- "

"And you," I interrupted, "cannot at all imagine the craving I have
for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had
brothers or sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not
reluctant to admit me and own me, are you?"

"Jane, I will be your brother -- my sisters will be your sisters
-- without stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights."

"Brother? Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters?
Yes; slaving amongst strangers! I, wealthy -- gorged with gold I
never earned and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality
and fraternisation! Close union! Intimate attachment!"

"But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness
may be realised otherwise than by the means you contemplate: you
may marry."

"Nonsense, again! Marry! I don't want to marry, and never shall
marry."

"That is saying too much: such hazardous affirmations are a proof
of the excitement under which you labour."

"It is not saying too much: I know what I feel, and how averse
are my inclinations to the bare thought of marriage. No one would
take me for love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere
money speculation. And I do not want a stranger -- unsympathising,
alien, different from me; I want my kindred: those with whom I
have full fellow-feeling. Say again you will be my brother: when
you uttered the words I was satisfied, happy; repeat them, if you
can, repeat them sincerely."

"I think I can. I know I have always loved my own sisters; and
I know on what my affection for them is grounded, -- respect for
their worth and admiration of their talents. You too have principle
and mind: your tastes and habits resemble Diana's and Mary's; your
presence is always agreeable to me; in your conversation I have
already for some time found a salutary solace. I feel I can easily
and naturally make room in my heart for you, as my third and youngest
sister."

"Thank you: that contents me for to-night. Now you had better
go; for if you stay longer, you will perhaps irritate me afresh by
some mistrustful scruple."

"And the school, Miss Eyre? It must now be shut up, I suppose?"

"No. I will retain my post of mistress till you get a substitute."

He smiled approbation: we shook hands, and he took leave.

I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and
arguments I used, to get matters regarding the legacy settled as
I wished. My task was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely
resolved -- as my cousins saw at length that my mind was really
and immutably fixed on making a just division of the property -- as
they must in their own hearts have felt the equity of the intention;
and must, besides, have been innately conscious that in my place
they would have done precisely what I wished to do -- they yielded
at length so far as to consent to put the affair to arbitration. The
judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able lawyer: both coincided
in my opinion: I carried my point. The instruments of transfer
were drawn out: St. John, Diana, Mary, and I, each became possessed
of a competency.

CHAPTER XXXIV

It was near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of
general holiday approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care
that the parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune
opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give
somewhat when we have largely received, is but to afford a vent
to the unusual ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt with
pleasure that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we
parted, that consciousness was confirmed: they manifested their
affection plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find
I had really a place in their unsophisticated hearts: I promised
them that never a week should pass in future that I did not visit
them, and give them an hour's teaching in their school.

Mr. Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty
girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the
key in my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some
half-dozen of my best scholars: as decent, respectable, modest,
and well-informed young women as could be found in the ranks of
the British peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for after
all, the British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most
self-respecting of any in Europe: since those days I have seen
paysannes and Bauerinnen; and the best of them seemed to me ignorant,
coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton girls.

"Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of
exertion?" asked Mr. Rivers, when they were gone. "Does not the
consciousness of having done some real good in your day and generation
give pleasure?"

"Doubtless."

"And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted
to the task of regenerating your race be well spent?"

"Yes," I said; "but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy
my own faculties as well as to cultivate those of other people.
I must enjoy them now; don't recall either my mind or body to the
school; I am out of it and disposed for full holiday."

He looked grave. "What now? What sudden eagerness is this you
evince? What are you going to do?"

"To be active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you to
set Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you."

"Do you want her?"

"Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home
in a week, and I want to have everything in order against their
arrival."

"I understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion.
It is better so: Hannah shall go with you."

"Tell her to be ready by to-morrow then; and here is the schoolroom
key: I will give you the key of my cottage in the morning."

He took it. "You give it up very gleefully," said he; "I don't
quite understand your light-heartedness, because I cannot tell what
employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you
are relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in life
have you now?"

"My first aim will be to CLEAN DOWN (do you comprehend the full
force of the expression?) -- to CLEAN DOWN Moor House from chamber to
cellar; my next to rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite
number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every
chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards
I shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires
in every room; and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your
sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a
beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding
of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince-pies,
and solemnising of other culinary rites, as words can convey but
an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you. My purpose,
in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of
readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my ambition
is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they come."

St. John smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied.

"It is all very well for the present," said he; "but seriously, I
trust that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look
a little higher than domestic endearments and household joys."

"The best things the world has!" I interrupted.

"No, Jane, no: this world is not the scene of fruition; do not
attempt to make it so: nor of rest; do not turn slothful."

"I mean, on the contrary, to be busy."

"Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months' grace I allow
you for the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing
yourself with this late-found charm of relationship; but THEN, I hope
you will begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly
society, and the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilised
affluence. I hope your energies will then once more trouble you
with their strength."

I looked at him with surprise. "St. John," I said, "I think you
are almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as
a queen, and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?"

"To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed
to your keeping; and of which He will surely one day demand a strict
account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiously -- I warn
you of that. And try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with
which you throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don't
cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy
and ardour for an adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite
transient objects. Do you hear, Jane?"

"Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate
cause to be happy, and I WILL be happy. Goodbye!"

Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah:
she was charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle
of a house turned topsy-turvy -- how I could brush, and dust, and
clean, and cook. And really, after a day or two of confusion worse
confounded, it was delightful by degrees to invoke order from the
chaos ourselves had made. I had previously taken a journey to S-
to purchase some new furniture: my cousins having given me CARTE
BLANCHE to effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum having been
set aside for that purpose. The ordinary sitting-room and bedrooms
I left much as they were: for I knew Diana and Mary would derive
more pleasure from seeing again the old homely tables, and chairs,
and beds, than from the spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still
some novelty was necessary, to give to their return the piquancy
with which I wished it to be invested. Dark handsome new carpets
and curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected antique
ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors,
and dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, answered the end: they
looked fresh without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom
I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery:
I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all
was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model of bright
modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a specimen of
wintry waste and desert dreariness without.

The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about
dark, and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs and below; the kitchen
was in perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in
readiness.

St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear
of the house till everything was arranged: and, indeed, the bare
idea of the commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within
its walls sufficed to scare him to estrangement. He found me
in the kitchen, watching the progress of certain cakes for tea,
then baking. Approaching the hearth, he asked, "If I was at last
satisfied with housemaid's work?" I answered by inviting him to
accompany me on a general inspection of the result of my labours.
With some difficulty, I got him to make the tour of the house.
He just looked in at the doors I opened; and when he had wandered
upstairs and downstairs, he said I must have gone through a great
deal of fatigue and trouble to have effected such considerable changes
in so short a time: but not a syllable did he utter indicating
pleasure in the improved aspect of his abode.

This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had
disturbed some old associations he valued. I inquired whether this
was the case: no doubt in a somewhat crest-fallen tone.

"Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously
respected every association: he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed
more thought on the matter than it was worth. How many minutes,
for instance, had I devoted to studying the arrangement of this
very room? -- By-the-bye, could I tell him where such a book was?"

I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and
withdrawing to his accustomed window recess, he began to read it.

Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I
began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard
and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction
for him -- its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived
only to aspire -- after what was good and great, certainly; but
still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him.
As I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone
-- at his fine lineaments fixed in study -- I comprehended all at
once that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be
a trying thing to be his wife. I understood, as by inspiration,
the nature of his love for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it
was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how he should despise
himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he
should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its
ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he
was of the material from which nature hews her heroes -- Christian
and Pagan -- her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a
steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the
fireside, too often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place.

"This parlour is not his sphere," I reflected: "the Himalayan
ridge or Caffre bush, even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp
would suit him better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic
life; it is not his element: there his faculties stagnate -- they
cannot develop or appear to advantage. It is in scenes of strife
and danger -- where courage is proved, and energy exercised, and
fortitude tasked -- that he will speak and move, the leader and
superior. A merry child would have the advantage of him on this
hearth. He is right to choose a missionary's career -- I see it
now."

"They are coming! they are coming!" cried Hannah, throwing open
the parlour door. At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully.
Out I ran. It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible.
Hannah soon had a lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the
wicket; the driver opened the door: first one well-known form,
then another, stepped out. In a minute I had my face under their
bonnets, in contact first with Mary's soft cheek, then with Diana's
flowing curls. They laughed -- kissed me -- then Hannah: patted
Carlo, who was half wild with delight; asked eagerly if all was
well; and being assured in the affirmative, hastened into the house.

They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross,
and chilled with the frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances
expanded to the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah
brought in the boxes, they demanded St. John. At this moment he
advanced from the parlour. They both threw their arms round his
neck at once. He gave each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone
a few words of welcome, stood a while to be talked to, and then,
intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the
parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.

I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give
hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed
me. They were delighted with the renovation and decorations
of their rooms; with the new drapery, and fresh carpets, and rich
tinted china vases: they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly.
I had the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met their wishes
exactly, and that what I had done added a vivid charm to their
joyous return home.

Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so
eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St.
John's taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but
in their glow of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise.
The event of the day -- that is, the return of Diana and Mary --
pleased him; but the accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult,
the garrulous glee of reception irked him: I saw he wished the calmer
morrow was come. In the very meridian of the night's enjoyment,
about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered
with the intimation that "a poor lad was come, at that unlikely
time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see his mother, who was drawing away."

"Where does she live, Hannah?"

"Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and
moss all the way."

"Tell him I will go."

"I'm sure, sir, you had better not. It's the worst road to travel
after dark that can be: there's no track at all over the bog. And
then it is such a bitter night -- the keenest wind you ever felt.
You had better send word, sir, that you will be there in the
morning."

But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without
one objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine o'clock:
he did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough he was:
but he looked happier than when he set out. He had performed
an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and
deny, and was on better terms with himself.

I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It
was Christmas week: we took to no settled employment, but spent
it in a sort of merry domestic dissipation. The air of the moors,
the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and
Mary's spirits like some life-giving elixir: they were gay from
morning till noon, and from noon till night. They could always
talk; and their discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms
for me, that I preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing
anything else. St. John did not rebuke our vivacity; but he escaped
from it: he was seldom in the house; his parish was large, the
population scattered, and he found daily business in visiting the
sick and poor in its different districts.

One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive
for some minutes, asked him, "If his plans were yet unchanged."

"Unchanged and unchangeable," was the reply. And he proceeded
to inform us that his departure from England was now definitively
fixed for the ensuing year.

"And Rosamond Oliver?" suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape
her lips involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them, than
she made a gesture as if wishing to recall them. St. John had a
book in his hand -- it was his unsocial custom to read at meals --
he closed it, and looked up,

"Rosamond Oliver," said he, "is about to be married to Mr. Granby,
one of the best connected and most estimable residents in S-,
grandson and heir to Sir Frederic Granby: I had the intelligence
from her father yesterday."

His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked at
him: he was serene as glass.

"The match must have been got up hastily," said Diana: "they cannot
have known each other long."

"But two months: they met in October at the county ball at S-. But
where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case,
where the connection is in every point desirable, delays are
unnecessary: they will be married as soon as S- Place, which Sir
Frederic gives up to them, can he refitted for their reception."

The first time I found St. John alone after this communication, I
felt tempted to inquire if the event distressed him: but he seemed
so little to need sympathy, that, so far from venturing to offer
him more, I experienced some shame at the recollection of what I
had already hazarded. Besides, I was out of practice in talking
to him: his reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness was
congealed beneath it. He had not kept his promise of treating me
like his sisters; he continually made little chilling differences
between us, which did not at all tend to the development of
cordiality: in short, now that I was acknowledged his kinswoman,
and lived under the same roof with him, I felt the distance between
us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the village
schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had once been admitted
to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity.

Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised
his head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said -

"You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won."

Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately
reply: after a moment's hesitation I answered -

"But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors
whose triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not such another
ruin you?"

"I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall
never be called upon to contend for such another. The event of the
conflict is decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!"
So saying, he returned to his papers and his silence.

As our mutual happiness (i.e., Diana's, Mary's, and mine) settled
into a quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and regular
studies, St. John stayed more at home: he sat with us in the same
room, sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana pursued
a course of encyclopaedic reading she had (to my awe and amazement)
undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore
of his own: that of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition of which
he thought necessary to his plans.

Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and
absorbed enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving
the outlandish-looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes
fixing upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious intensity of
observation: if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever
and anon, it returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what
it meant: I wondered, too, at the punctual satisfaction he never
failed to exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment,
namely, my weekly visit to Morton school; and still more was I
puzzled when, if the day was unfavourable, if there was snow, or
rain, or high wind, and his sisters urged me not to go, he would
invariably make light of their solicitude, and encourage me to
accomplish the task without regard to the elements.

"Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her," he would say:
"she can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of
snow, as well as any of us. Her constitution is both sound and
elastic; -- better calculated to endure variations of climate than
many more robust."

And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little
weather-beaten, I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur
would be to vex him: on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the
reverse was a special annoyance.

One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I
really had a cold. His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I
sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls.
As I exchanged a translation for an exercise, I happened to look his
way: there I found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful
blue eye. How long it had been searching me through and through,
and over and over, I cannot tell: so keen was it, and yet so cold,
I felt for the moment superstitious -- as if I were sitting in the
room with something uncanny.

"Jane, what are you doing?"

"Learning German."

"I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee."

"You are not in earnest?"

"In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why."

He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he
was himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt
to forget the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have
a pupil with whom he might again and again go over the elements,
and so fix them thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered
for some time between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on
me because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three.
Would I do him this favour? I should not, perhaps, have to make
the sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his
departure.

St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every
impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and
permanent. I consented. When Diana and Mary returned, the former
found her scholar transferred from her to her brother: she
laughed, and both she and Mary agreed that St. John should
never have persuaded them to such a step. He answered quietly -

"I know it."

I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting
master: he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his
expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation.
By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away
my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining
than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when
he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me
that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so
fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable,
that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other
became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he said "go," I
went; "come," I came; "do this," I did it. But I did not love my
servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.