No More Learning

)--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.

One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding
him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, as was
equally his custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who chanced to be in a
frolicsome humour (_she_ was not painfully controlled by his will; for
hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed--

"St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don't treat
her as such: you should kiss her too. "

She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt
uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St.
John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, his
eyes questioned my eyes piercingly--he kissed me. There are no such
things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical
cousin's salute belonged to one of these classes; but there may be
experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When given, he viewed
me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure I did not blush;
perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt as if this kiss
were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted the ceremony
afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which I underwent it,
seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm.

As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt daily
more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my
faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to the
adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. He wanted to
train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly to
aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was as impossible as to
mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give
to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his
own.

Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of late
it had been easy enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil sat at my
heart and drained my happiness at its source--the evil of suspense.

Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst these
changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with
me, because it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse, nor a
sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a
tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed. The craving to
know what had become of him followed me everywhere; when I was at Morton,
I re-entered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now at Moor
House, I sought my bedroom each night to brood over it.

In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about the
will, I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester's present
residence and state of health; but, as St. John had conjectured, he was
quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs. Fairfax,
entreating information on the subject. I had calculated with certainty
on this step answering my end: I felt sure it would elicit an early
answer. I was astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but when
two months wore away, and day after day the post arrived and brought
nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety.

I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed.
Renewed hope followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for some
weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word reached
me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out, and
then I felt dark indeed.

A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer
approached; Diana tried to cheer me: she said I looked ill, and wished to
accompany me to the sea-side. This St. John opposed; he said I did not
want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too
purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying
deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee, and
grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment: and I, like a fool,
never thought of resisting him--I could not resist him.

One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb was
occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment.
Hannah had told me in
the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down to take it,
almost certain that the long-looked for tidings were vouchsafed me at
last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr. Briggs on business. The
bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now, as I sat poring over
the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my
eyes filled again.

St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice
failed me: words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of
the parlour: Diana was practising her music in the drawing-room, Mary was
gardening--it was a very fine May day, clear, sunny, and breezy. My
companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me
as to its cause; he only said--

"We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed. " And
while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient,
leaning on his desk, and looking like a physician watching with the eye
of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a patient's malady.
Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something about not
being very well that morning, I resumed my task, and succeeded in
completing it. St. John put away my books and his, locked his desk, and
said--

"Now, Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me. "

"I will call Diana and Mary. "

"No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put
on your things; go out by the kitchen-door: take the road towards the
head of Marsh Glen: I will join you in a moment. "

I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings
with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute
submission and determined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the
one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic
vehemence, into the other; and as neither present circumstances
warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny, I observed careful
obedience to St. John's directions; and in ten minutes I was treading the
wild track of the glen, side by side with him.

The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with scents
of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream descending
the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured along plentiful and
clear, catching golden gleams from the sun, and sapphire tints from the
firmament. As we advanced and left the track, we trod a soft turf, mossy
fine and emerald green, minutely enamelled with a tiny white flower, and
spangled with a star-like yellow blossom: the hills, meantime, shut us
quite in; for the glen, towards its head, wound to their very core.

"Let us rest here," said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers of
a battalion of rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck
rushed down a waterfall; and where, still a little farther, the mountain
shook off turf and flower, had only heath for raiment and crag for
gem--where it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and exchanged the fresh
for the frowning--where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, and a
last refuge for silence.

I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and down
the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and returned to
traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he removed his hat, let
the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He seemed in communion with
the genius of the haunt: with his eye he bade farewell to something.

"And I shall see it again," he said aloud, "in dreams when I sleep by the
Ganges: and again in a more remote hour--when another slumber overcomes
me--on the shore of a darker stream! "

Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot's passion for his
fatherland! He sat down; for half-an-hour we never spoke; neither he to
me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced--

"Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman which
sails on the 20th of June. "

"God will protect you; for you have undertaken His work," I answered.

"Yes," said he, "there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an
infallible Master. I am not going out under human guidance, subject to
the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms: my king,
my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems strange to me that
all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner,--to join in the
same enterprise. "

"All have not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to wish
to march with the strong. "

"I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only such as
are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it. "

"Those are few in number, and difficult to discover. "

"You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up--to urge and
exhort them to the effort--to show them what their gifts are, and why
they were given--to speak Heaven's message in their ear,--to offer them,
direct from God, a place in the ranks of His chosen. "

"If they are really qualified for the task, will not their own hearts be
the first to inform them of it? "

I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me: I
trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and
rivet the spell.

"And what does _your_ heart say? " demanded St. John.

"My heart is mute,--my heart is mute," I answered, struck and thrilled.

"Then I must speak for it," continued the deep, relentless voice. "Jane,
come with me to India: come as my helpmeet and fellow-labourer. "

The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved! It was as if I had heard
a summons from Heaven--as if a visionary messenger, like him of
Macedonia, had enounced, "Come over and help us! " But I was no
apostle,--I could not behold the herald,--I could not receive his call.

"Oh, St. John! " I cried, "have some mercy! "

I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty,
knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued--

"God and nature intended you for a missionary's wife. It is not
personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for
labour, not for love. A missionary's wife you must--shall be. You shall
be mine: I claim you--not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign's
service. "

"I am not fit for it: I have no vocation," I said.

He had calculated on these first objections: he was not irritated by
them. Indeed, as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his
arms on his chest, and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for a
long and trying opposition, and had taken in a stock of patience to last
him to its close--resolved, however, that that close should be conquest
for him.

"Humility, Jane," said he, "is the groundwork of Christian virtues: you
say right that you are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it? Or who,
that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons? I,
for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I acknowledge myself
the chiefest of sinners; but I do not suffer this sense of my personal
vileness to daunt me. I know my Leader: that He is just as well as
mighty; and while He has chosen a feeble instrument to perform a great
task, He will, from the boundless stores of His providence, supply the
inadequacy of the means to the end. Think like me, Jane--trust like me.
It is the Rock of Ages I ask you to lean on: do not doubt but it will
bear the weight of your human weakness. "

"I do not understand a missionary life: I have never studied missionary
labours. "

"There I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want: I can set you
your task from hour to hour; stand by you always; help you from moment to
moment. This I could do in the beginning: soon (for I know your powers)
you would be as strong and apt as myself, and would not require my help. "

"But my powers--where are they for this undertaking? I do not feel them.
Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light
kindling--no life quickening--no voice counselling or cheering. Oh, I
wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a
rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths--the fear
of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish! "

"I have an answer for you--hear it. I have watched you ever since we
first met: I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you in
that time by sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited? In the
village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly,
labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could
perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled. In
the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read a
mind clear of the vice of Demas:--lucre had no undue power over you. In
the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares,
keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the
claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in the flame
and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability with which, at my wish,
you forsook a study in which you were interested, and adopted another
because it interested me; in the untiring assiduity with which you have
since persevered in it--in the unflagging energy and unshaken temper with
which you have met its difficulties--I acknowledge the complement of the
qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested,
faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease
to mistrust yourself--I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of
Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will
be to me invaluable. "

My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow sure
step. Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in
making the way, which had seemed blocked up, comparatively clear. My
work, which had appeared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed
itself as he proceeded, and assumed a definite form under his shaping
hand. He waited for an answer. I demanded a quarter of an hour to
think, before I again hazarded a reply.

"Very willingly," he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance up
the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still.

{He threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still:
p389. jpg}

"I _can_ do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge
that," I meditated,--"that is, if life be spared me. But I feel mine is
not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian sun. What then?
He does not care for that: when my time came to die, he would resign me,
in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me. The case is very
plain before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty
land--Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that
ever be to me? My business is to live without him now: nothing so
absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some
impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of
course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to
replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the
most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares
and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by
uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, Yes--and
yet I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon half myself: if I go
to India, I go to premature death. And how will the interval between
leaving England for India, and India for the grave, be filled? Oh, I
know well! That, too, is very clear to my vision. By straining to
satisfy St. John till my sinews ache, I _shall_ satisfy him--to the
finest central point and farthest outward circle of his expectations. If
I _do_ go with him--if I _do_ make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it
absolutely: I will throw all on the altar--heart, vitals, the entire
victim. He will never love me; but he shall approve me; I will show him
energies he has not yet seen, resources he has never suspected. Yes, I
can work as hard as he can, and with as little grudging.

"Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item--one dreadful
item. It is--that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a
husband's heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which the
stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would a
good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never grieve
me; but can I let him complete his calculations--coolly put into practice
his plans--go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the
bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would
scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I
bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice
made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will
never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him--not as his wife:
I will tell him so. "

I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column;
his face turned to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to
his feet and approached me.

"I am ready to go to India, if I may go free. "

"Your answer requires a commentary," he said; "it is not clear. "

"You have hitherto been my adopted brother--I, your adopted sister: let
us continue as such: you and I had better not marry. "

He shook his head. "Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you
were my real sister it would be different: I should take you, and seek no
wife. But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed by
marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles oppose themselves to
any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a moment--your strong
sense will guide you. "

I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to
the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife should: and
therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so. "St. John," I
returned, "I regard you as a brother--you, me as a sister: so let us
continue. "

"We cannot--we cannot," he answered, with short, sharp determination: "it
would not do. You have said you will go with me to India: remember--you
have said that. "

"Conditionally. "

"Well--well. To the main point--the departure with me from England, the
co-operation with me in my future labours--you do not object. You have
already as good as put your hand to the plough: you are too consistent to
withdraw it. You have but one end to keep in view--how the work you have
undertaken can best be done. Simplify your complicated interests,
feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all considerations in one
purpose: that of fulfilling with effect--with power--the mission of your
great Master. To do so, you must have a coadjutor: not a brother--that
is a loose tie--but a husband. I, too, do not want a sister: a sister
might any day be taken from me. I want a wife: the sole helpmeet I can
influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death. "

I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow--his hold on
my limbs.

"Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you. "

"One fitted to my purpose, you mean--fitted to my vocation. Again I tell
you it is not the insignificant private individual--the mere man, with
the man's selfish senses--I wish to mate: it is the missionary. "

"And I will give the missionary my energies--it is all he wants--but not
myself: that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For
them he has no use: I retain them. "

"You cannot--you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half
an oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of
God I advocate: it is under His standard I enlist you. I cannot accept
on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire. "

"Oh! I will give my heart to God," I said. "_You_ do not want it. "

I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed
sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the
feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now,
because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had
held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could
not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this conference:
the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his
fallibilities: I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting there
where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form before me,
I sat at the feet of a man, caring as I. The veil fell from his hardness
and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these qualities, I
felt his imperfection and took courage. I was with an equal--one with
whom I might argue--one whom, if I saw good, I might resist.

He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently
risked an upward glance at his countenance.

His eye, bent on me, expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry.
"Is she sarcastic, and sarcastic to _me_! " it seemed to say. "What does
this signify? "

"Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter," he said ere long;
"one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I
trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart to
God: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on
your Maker, the advancement of that Maker's spiritual kingdom on earth
will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be ready to do at once
whatever furthers that end. You will see what impetus would be given to
your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in marriage: the
only union that gives a character of permanent conformity to the
destinies and designs of human beings; and, passing over all minor
caprices--all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling--all scruple
about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal
inclination--you will hasten to enter into that union at once. "

"Shall I? " I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in
their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity; at his
brow, commanding but not open; at his eyes, bright and deep and
searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and fancied
myself in idea _his wife_. Oh! it would never do! As his curate, his
comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with him in that
capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that
office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and vigour;
accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his
ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man:
profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should suffer
often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be
under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free. I
should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural unenslaved
feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. There would
be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which he never came,
and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered which his austerity
could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march trample down: but as
his wife--at his side always, and always restrained, and always
checked--forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel
it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame
consumed vital after vital--_this_ would be unendurable.

"St. John! " I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation.

"Well? " he answered icily.

"I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but
not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you. "

"A part of me you must become," he answered steadily; "otherwise the
whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me
to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me?