"Is she sarcastic, and
sarcastic
to _me_!
Jane Eyre- An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë
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? How can we be
for ever together--sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage
tribes--and unwed? "
"Very well," I said shortly; "under the circumstances, quite as well as
if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like
yourself. "
"It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such:
to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And
for the rest, though you have a man's vigorous brain, you have a woman's
heart and--it would not do. "
"It would do," I affirmed with some disdain, "perfectly well. I have a
woman's heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a
comrade's constancy; a fellow-soldier's frankness, fidelity, fraternity,
if you like; a neophyte's respect and submission to his hierophant:
nothing more--don't fear. "
"It is what I want," he said, speaking to himself; "it is just what I
want. And there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane,
you would not repent marrying me--be certain of that; we _must_ be
married. I repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of
love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your
eyes. "
"I scorn your idea of love," I could not help saying, as I rose up and
stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. "I scorn the
counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you
offer it. "
He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so.
Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell:
he could command his countenance thoroughly.
"I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you," he said: "I think
I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn. "
I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien.
"Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have
been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on
which our natures are at variance--a topic we should never discuss: the
very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality were
required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin,
abandon your scheme of marriage--forget it. "
"No," said he; "it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which can
secure my great end: but I shall urge you no further at present.
To-morrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many friends there to whom
I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a fortnight--take that
space of time to consider my offer: and do not forget that if you reject
it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means, He opens to you a
noble career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my
wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and
barren obscurity. Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered with
those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels! "
He had done. Turning from me, he once more
"Looked to river, looked to hill. "
But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy
to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in
his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an austere
and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected
submission--the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has
detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to
sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into
obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with
my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and repentance.
That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to forget
even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I--who,
though I had no love, had much friendship for him--was hurt by the marked
omission: so much hurt that tears started to my eyes.
"I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane," said Diana, "during
your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in the
passage expecting you--he will make it up. "
I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be
happy than dignified; and I ran after him--he stood at the foot of the
stairs.
"Good-night, St. John," said I.
"Good-night, Jane," he replied calmly.
"Then shake hands," I added.
What a cold, loose touch, he impressed on my fingers! He was deeply
displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm, nor
tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had with him--no
cheering smile or generous word: but still the Christian was patient and
placid; and when I asked him if he forgave me, he answered that he was
not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation; that he had
nothing to forgive, not having been offended.
And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me
down.
CHAPTER XXXV
He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he would. He
deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me feel
what severe punishment a good yet stern, a conscientious yet implacable
man can inflict on one who has offended him. Without one overt act of
hostility, one upbraiding word, he contrived to impress me momently with
the conviction that I was put beyond the pale of his favour.
Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness--not
that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully in his
power to do so. Both by nature and principle, he was superior to the
mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for saying I scorned
him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as long as he
and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his look, when he
turned to me, that they were always written on the air between me and
him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to his ear, and their
echo toned every answer he gave me.
He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as usual
each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man within
him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure Christian, in
evincing with what skill he could, while acting and speaking apparently
just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of
interest and approval which had formerly communicated a certain austere
charm to his language and manner. To me, he was in reality become no
longer flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, bright, blue gem; his
tongue a speaking instrument--nothing more.
All this was torture to me--refined, lingering torture. It kept up a
slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief, which harassed
and crushed me altogether. I felt how--if I were his wife, this good
man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without drawing
from my veins a single drop of blood, or receiving on his own crystal
conscience the faintest stain of crime. Especially I felt this when I
made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth. _He_
experienced no suffering from estrangement--no yearning after
reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears
blistered the page over which we both bent, they produced no more effect
on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or metal. To
his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual: as if afraid
that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me how completely I
was banished and banned, he added the force of contrast; and this I am
sure he did not by force, but on principle.
The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden
about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that this man,
alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we were near
relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain his friendship. I
went out and approached him as he stood leaning over the little gate; I
spoke to the point at once.
"St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us be
friends. "
"I hope we are friends," was the unmoved reply; while he still watched
the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I approached.
"No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that. "
"Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and all
good. "
"I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of wishing any
one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more of
affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere
strangers. "
"Of course," he said. "Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from
regarding you as a stranger. "
This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling
enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should
immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly
than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my cousin's talent and
principle. His friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me
severely. I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it.
"Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will you
leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken? "
He now turned quite from the moon and faced me.
"When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to
India? "
"You said I could not unless I married you. "
"And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution? "
Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into
the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in
their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?
"No. St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution. "
The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet
crash down.
"Once more, why this refusal? " he asked.
"Formerly," I answered, "because you did not love me; now, I reply,
because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me.
You are killing me now. "
His lips and cheeks turned white--quite white.
"_I should kill you_--_I am killing you_? Your words are such as ought
not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an
unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem
inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even
until seventy-and-seven times. "
I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from
his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious
surface another and far deeper impression, I had burnt it in.
"Now you will indeed hate me," I said. "It is useless to attempt to
conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you. "
A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on
the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew the
steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.
"You utterly misinterpret my words," I said, at once seizing his hand: "I
have no intention to grieve or pain you--indeed, I have not. "
Most bitterly he smiled--most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine.
"And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I
presume? " said he, after a considerable pause.
"Yes, I will, as your assistant," I answered.
A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between
Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only singular gleams
scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. He
spoke at last.
"I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age
proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you
in such terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your ever
again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret--for your
sake. "
I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at
once. "Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on nonsense. You
pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked:
for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so
conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I will be your
curate, if you like, but never your wife. "
Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion
perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly--
"A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me,
then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I
will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a
coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society's
aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your
promise and deserting the band you engaged to join. "
Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or
entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard and
much too despotic for the occasion. I replied--
"There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the case. I
am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with
strangers. With you I would have ventured much, because I admire,
confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am convinced that, go
when and with whom I would, I should not live long in that climate. "
"Ah! you are afraid of yourself," he said, curling his lip.
"I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish
me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide.
Moreover, before I definitively resolve on quitting England, I will know
for certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than by
leaving it. "
"What do you mean? "
"It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on
which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere till by
some means that doubt is removed. "
"I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The interest you
cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have
crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr.
Rochester? "
It was true. I confessed it by silence.
"Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester? "
"I must find out what is become of him. "
"It remains for me, then," he said, "to remember you in my prayers, and
to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed
become a castaway. I had thought I recognised in you one of the chosen.
But God sees not as man sees: _His_ will be done--"
He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. He
was soon out of sight.
On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, looking
very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I: she put her hand
on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face.
"Jane," she said, "you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure there
is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and you have on
hands. I have watched you this half hour from the window; you must
forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I hardly
know what. St. John is a strange being--"
She paused--I did not speak: soon she resumed--
"That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting
you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notice and interest he
never showed to any one else--to what end? I wish he loved you--does he,
Jane? "
I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; "No, Die, not one whit.
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? How can we be
for ever together--sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage
tribes--and unwed? "
"Very well," I said shortly; "under the circumstances, quite as well as
if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like
yourself. "
"It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such:
to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And
for the rest, though you have a man's vigorous brain, you have a woman's
heart and--it would not do. "
"It would do," I affirmed with some disdain, "perfectly well. I have a
woman's heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a
comrade's constancy; a fellow-soldier's frankness, fidelity, fraternity,
if you like; a neophyte's respect and submission to his hierophant:
nothing more--don't fear. "
"It is what I want," he said, speaking to himself; "it is just what I
want. And there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane,
you would not repent marrying me--be certain of that; we _must_ be
married. I repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of
love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your
eyes. "
"I scorn your idea of love," I could not help saying, as I rose up and
stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. "I scorn the
counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you
offer it. "
He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so.
Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell:
he could command his countenance thoroughly.
"I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you," he said: "I think
I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn. "
I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien.
"Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have
been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on
which our natures are at variance--a topic we should never discuss: the
very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality were
required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin,
abandon your scheme of marriage--forget it. "
"No," said he; "it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which can
secure my great end: but I shall urge you no further at present.
To-morrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many friends there to whom
I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a fortnight--take that
space of time to consider my offer: and do not forget that if you reject
it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means, He opens to you a
noble career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my
wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and
barren obscurity. Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered with
those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels! "
He had done. Turning from me, he once more
"Looked to river, looked to hill. "
But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy
to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in
his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an austere
and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected
submission--the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has
detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to
sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into
obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with
my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and repentance.
That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to forget
even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I--who,
though I had no love, had much friendship for him--was hurt by the marked
omission: so much hurt that tears started to my eyes.
"I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane," said Diana, "during
your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in the
passage expecting you--he will make it up. "
I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be
happy than dignified; and I ran after him--he stood at the foot of the
stairs.
"Good-night, St. John," said I.
"Good-night, Jane," he replied calmly.
"Then shake hands," I added.
What a cold, loose touch, he impressed on my fingers! He was deeply
displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm, nor
tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had with him--no
cheering smile or generous word: but still the Christian was patient and
placid; and when I asked him if he forgave me, he answered that he was
not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation; that he had
nothing to forgive, not having been offended.
And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me
down.
CHAPTER XXXV
He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he would. He
deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me feel
what severe punishment a good yet stern, a conscientious yet implacable
man can inflict on one who has offended him. Without one overt act of
hostility, one upbraiding word, he contrived to impress me momently with
the conviction that I was put beyond the pale of his favour.
Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness--not
that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully in his
power to do so. Both by nature and principle, he was superior to the
mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for saying I scorned
him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as long as he
and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his look, when he
turned to me, that they were always written on the air between me and
him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to his ear, and their
echo toned every answer he gave me.
He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as usual
each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man within
him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure Christian, in
evincing with what skill he could, while acting and speaking apparently
just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of
interest and approval which had formerly communicated a certain austere
charm to his language and manner. To me, he was in reality become no
longer flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, bright, blue gem; his
tongue a speaking instrument--nothing more.
All this was torture to me--refined, lingering torture. It kept up a
slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief, which harassed
and crushed me altogether. I felt how--if I were his wife, this good
man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without drawing
from my veins a single drop of blood, or receiving on his own crystal
conscience the faintest stain of crime. Especially I felt this when I
made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth. _He_
experienced no suffering from estrangement--no yearning after
reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears
blistered the page over which we both bent, they produced no more effect
on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or metal. To
his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual: as if afraid
that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me how completely I
was banished and banned, he added the force of contrast; and this I am
sure he did not by force, but on principle.
The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden
about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that this man,
alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we were near
relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain his friendship. I
went out and approached him as he stood leaning over the little gate; I
spoke to the point at once.
"St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us be
friends. "
"I hope we are friends," was the unmoved reply; while he still watched
the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I approached.
"No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that. "
"Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and all
good. "
"I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of wishing any
one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more of
affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere
strangers. "
"Of course," he said. "Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from
regarding you as a stranger. "
This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling
enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should
immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly
than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my cousin's talent and
principle. His friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me
severely. I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it.
"Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will you
leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken? "
He now turned quite from the moon and faced me.
"When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to
India? "
"You said I could not unless I married you. "
"And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution? "
Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into
the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in
their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?
"No. St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution. "
The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet
crash down.
"Once more, why this refusal? " he asked.
"Formerly," I answered, "because you did not love me; now, I reply,
because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me.
You are killing me now. "
His lips and cheeks turned white--quite white.
"_I should kill you_--_I am killing you_? Your words are such as ought
not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an
unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem
inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even
until seventy-and-seven times. "
I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from
his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious
surface another and far deeper impression, I had burnt it in.
"Now you will indeed hate me," I said. "It is useless to attempt to
conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you. "
A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on
the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew the
steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.
"You utterly misinterpret my words," I said, at once seizing his hand: "I
have no intention to grieve or pain you--indeed, I have not. "
Most bitterly he smiled--most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine.
"And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I
presume? " said he, after a considerable pause.
"Yes, I will, as your assistant," I answered.
A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between
Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only singular gleams
scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. He
spoke at last.
"I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age
proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you
in such terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your ever
again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret--for your
sake. "
I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at
once. "Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on nonsense. You
pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked:
for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so
conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I will be your
curate, if you like, but never your wife. "
Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion
perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly--
"A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me,
then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I
will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a
coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society's
aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your
promise and deserting the band you engaged to join. "
Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or
entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard and
much too despotic for the occasion. I replied--
"There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the case. I
am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with
strangers. With you I would have ventured much, because I admire,
confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am convinced that, go
when and with whom I would, I should not live long in that climate. "
"Ah! you are afraid of yourself," he said, curling his lip.
"I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish
me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide.
Moreover, before I definitively resolve on quitting England, I will know
for certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than by
leaving it. "
"What do you mean? "
"It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on
which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere till by
some means that doubt is removed. "
"I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The interest you
cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have
crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr.
Rochester? "
It was true. I confessed it by silence.
"Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester? "
"I must find out what is become of him. "
"It remains for me, then," he said, "to remember you in my prayers, and
to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed
become a castaway. I had thought I recognised in you one of the chosen.
But God sees not as man sees: _His_ will be done--"
He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. He
was soon out of sight.
On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, looking
very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I: she put her hand
on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face.
"Jane," she said, "you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure there
is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and you have on
hands. I have watched you this half hour from the window; you must
forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I hardly
know what. St. John is a strange being--"
She paused--I did not speak: soon she resumed--
"That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting
you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notice and interest he
never showed to any one else--to what end? I wish he loved you--does he,
Jane? "
I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; "No, Die, not one whit.
