As I was going
upstairs
to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs.
Jane Eyre- An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë
"
He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set
off. Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I
was content to be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I
leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I meditated
much at my ease.
"I suppose," thought I, "judging from the plainness of the servant and
carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better;
I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with
them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if
she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her;
I will do my best; it is a pity that doing one's best does not always
answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and
succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always
spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second
Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to stay with her! let the
worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. How far are we on our
road now, I wonder? "
I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by
the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude,
much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort
of common; but there were houses scattered all over the district; I felt
we were in a different region to Lowood, more populous, less picturesque;
more stirring, less romantic.
The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk
all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two
hours; at last he turned in his seat and said--
"You're noan so far fro' Thornfield now. "
Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower
against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow
galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About
ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we
passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly ascended a
drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed from
one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the
front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went in.
"Will you walk this way, ma'am? " said the girl; and I followed her across
a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose
double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting
as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours
inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable picture presented
itself to my view.
A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high-
backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little
elderly lady, in widow's cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron;
exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and
milder looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely
at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the beau-ideal of
domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for a new governess
could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to overwhelm, no
stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady got up and
promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.
"How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John
drives so slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire. "
"Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose? " said I.
"Yes, you are right: do sit down. "
She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and
untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so much
trouble.
"Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with
cold. Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are
the keys of the storeroom. "
And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and
delivered them to the servant.
"Now, then, draw nearer to the fire," she continued. "You've brought
your luggage with you, haven't you, my dear? "
"Yes, ma'am. "
"I'll see it carried into your room," she said, and bustled out.
"She treats me like a visitor," thought I. "I little expected such a
reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is not like
what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult
too soon. "
She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a
book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now
brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather
confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever before
received, and, that too, shown by my employer and superior; but as she
did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out of her place,
I thought it better to take her civilities quietly.
"Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night? " I asked,
when I had partaken of what she offered me.
"What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf," returned the good lady,
approaching her ear to my mouth.
I repeated the question more distinctly.
"Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your
future pupil. "
"Indeed! Then she is not your daughter? "
"No,--I have no family. "
I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss
Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to ask
too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time.
"I am so glad," she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took
the cat on her knee; "I am so glad you are come; it will be quite
pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at
any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late
years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in
winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in the best quarters. I say
alone--Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very
decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can't
converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due
distance, for fear of losing one's authority. I'm sure last winter (it
was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it
rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the
house, from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy
with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me
sometimes; but I don't think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt
it confining. In spring and summer one got on better: sunshine and long
days make such a difference; and then, just at the commencement of this
autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child makes a house
alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite gay. "
My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew
my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish that she
might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated.
"But I'll not keep you sitting up late to-night," said she; "it is on the
stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all day: you must feel
tired. If you have got your feet well warmed, I'll show you your
bedroom. I've had the room next to mine prepared for you; it is only a
small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than one of the
large front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but they are
so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in them myself. "
I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued
with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her
candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to see if the
hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the
way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window
was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the
bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a
house. A very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery,
suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was glad, when
finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small dimensions, and
furnished in ordinary, modern style.
When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my
door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie
impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and
that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, I
remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I was
now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart,
and I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where thanks were
due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my further path, and
the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me
before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that night; my
solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I slept soon and
soundly: when I awoke it was broad day.
The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in
between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and a
carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood,
that my spirits rose at the view. Externals have a great effect on the
young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that
was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils.
My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to
hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely define what they expected,
but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at
an indefinite future period.
I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain--for I had no
article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity--I was still
by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful
of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I
ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want
of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer;
I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry
mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed in figure; I
felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so
irregular and so marked. And why had I these aspirations and these
regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say
it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too.
However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black
frock--which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to
a nicety--and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do
respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil
would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my
chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and neat on the
toilet table, I ventured forth.
Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of
oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some
pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in a
cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at a
bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of
oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. Everything
appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little
accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, stood
open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the
early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields;
advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the
mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though
considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not a nobleman's seat:
battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front
stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants
were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a
great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where
an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at
once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation. Farther off
were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so
like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and
lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I
had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of
Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled
up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district stood
nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the
house and gates.
I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet
listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the
wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was for
one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady
appeared at the door.
"What! out already? " said she. "I see you are an early riser. " I went
up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand.
"How do you like Thornfield? " she asked. I told her I liked it very
much.
"Yes," she said, "it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out
of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come and
reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: great
houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor. "
"Mr. Rochester! " I exclaimed. "Who is he? "
"The owner of Thornfield," she responded quietly. "Did you not know he
was called Rochester? "
Of course I did not--I had never heard of him before; but the old lady
seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with
which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.
"I thought," I continued, "Thornfield belonged to you. "
"To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the
housekeeper--the manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the
Rochesters by the mother's side, or at least my husband was; he was a
clergyman, incumbent of Hay--that little village yonder on the hill--and
that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester's mother
was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on
the connection--in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in
the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and I
expect nothing more. "
"And the little girl--my pupil! "
"She is Mr. Rochester's ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for
her. He intended to have her brought up in ---shire, I believe. Here
she comes, with her 'bonne,' as she calls her nurse. " The enigma then
was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame; but
a dependant like myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on the
contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her and
me was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part: so much
the better--my position was all the freer.
As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her
attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not
at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or
eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a
redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist.
"Good morning, Miss Adela," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Come and speak to the
lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day. " She
approached.
"C'est la ma gouverante! " said she, pointing to me, and addressing her
nurse; who answered--
"Mais oui, certainement. "
"Are they foreigners? " I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.
"The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I
believe, never left it till within six months ago. When she first came
here she could speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a
little: I don't understand her, she mixes it so with French; but you will
make out her meaning very well, I dare say. "
Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French
lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot
as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt
a portion of French by heart daily--applying myself to take pains with my
accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my
teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in
the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle
Adela. She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her
governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to
her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were
seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her
large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.
"Ah! " cried she, in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr.
Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She
will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English.
Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a
chimney that smoked--how it did smoke! --and I was sick, and so was
Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a
pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another
place. I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf. And
Mademoiselle--what is your name? "
"Eyre--Jane Eyre. "
"Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning,
before it was quite daylight, at a great city--a huge city, with very
dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came
from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land,
and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a
beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel. We
stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a
great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many
children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I
fed with crumbs. "
"Can you understand her when she runs on so fast? " asked Mrs. Fairfax.
I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent
tongue of Madame Pierrot.
"I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two
about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them? "
"Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty
clean town you spoke of? "
"I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama
used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many
gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them,
or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you
hear me sing now? "
She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of
her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed
herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her,
shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced
singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady,
who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid;
desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest
robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove
to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little his desertion has
affected her.
The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose
the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy
warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was:
at least I thought so.
Adele sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the _naivete_ of her
age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, "Now,
Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry. "
Assuming an attitude, she began, "La Ligue des Rats: fable de La
Fontaine. " She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to
punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness
of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and which proved she had been
carefully trained.
"Was it your mama who taught you that piece? " I asked.
"Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: 'Qu' avez vous donc? lui
dit un de ces rats; parlez! ' She made me lift my hand--so--to remind me
to raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you? "
"No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you
say, with whom did you live then? "
"With Madame Frederic and her husband: she took care of me, but she is
nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a
house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would
like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr.
Rochester before I knew Madame Frederic, and he was always kind to me and
gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his word,
for he has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again himself,
and I never see him. "
After breakfast, Adele and I withdrew to the library, which room, it
appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom.
Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one
bookcase left open containing everything that could be needed in the way
of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, poetry,
biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that
these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and,
indeed, they contented me amply for the present; compared with the scanty
pickings I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to
offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and information. In this
room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite new and of superior tone;
also an easel for painting and a pair of globes.
I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she
had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be
injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to
her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning had
advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then proposed
to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little sketches for her
use.
As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax
called to me: "Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose," said
she. She was in a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in
when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple
chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast
window rich in slanted glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs.
Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a
sideboard.
"What a beautiful room! " I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never
before seen any half so imposing.
"Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in
a little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments that
are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault. "
She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it
with a Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad
steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy
place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was
merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread
with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers;
both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath
which glowed in rich contrast crimson couches and ottomans; while the
ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian
glass, ruby red; and between the windows large mirrors repeated the
general blending of snow and fire.
"In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax! " said I. "No dust, no
canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they
were inhabited daily. "
"Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester's visits here are rare, they are
always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to
find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his
arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness. "
"Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man? "
"Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman's tastes and habits, and he
expects to have things managed in conformity to them. "
"Do you like him? Is he generally liked? "
"Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the
land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the
Rochesters time out of mind. "
"Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he
liked for himself? "
"I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is
considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never
lived much amongst them. "
"But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character? "
"Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar,
perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the
world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much
conversation with him. "
"In what way is he peculiar? "
"I don't know--it is not easy to describe--nothing striking, but you feel
it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest
or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don't thoroughly
understand him, in short--at least, I don't: but it is of no consequence,
he is a very good master. "
This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and
mine. There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a
character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons
or things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my queries
puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in
her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor--nothing more: she inquired
and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish to gain a more
definite notion of his identity.
When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of
the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I
went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I
thought especially grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though dark
and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture
once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been
removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by
their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in
oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and
cherubs' heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs,
high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned
tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by
fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All these relics
gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the
past: a shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of
these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night's repose on
one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of
oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick
work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and
strangest human beings,--all which would have looked strange, indeed, by
the pallid gleam of moonlight.
"Do the servants sleep in these rooms? " I asked.
"No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever
sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at
Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt. "
"So I think: you have no ghost, then? "
"None that I ever heard of," returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.
"Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories? "
"I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a
violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the
reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now. "
"Yes--'after life's fitful fever they sleep well,'" I muttered. "Where
are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax? " for she was moving away.
"On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence? " I
followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a
ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on a
level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning over
the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out
like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of
the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber;
the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, greener with
moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the gates, the road,
the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon
bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No
feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I
turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way
down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that
arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene
of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and
over which I had been gazing with delight.
Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by drift
of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the
narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this
led, separating the front and back rooms of the third storey: narrow,
low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and looking,
with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some
Bluebeard's castle.
While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a
region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct,
formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it
began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It
passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every
lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed
out the door whence the accents issued.
"Mrs. Fairfax! " I called out: for I now heard her descending the great
stairs. "Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it? "
"Some of the servants, very likely," she answered: "perhaps Grace Poole. "
"Did you hear it? " I again inquired.
"Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms.
Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together. "
The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an
odd murmur.
"Grace! " exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.
I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic,
as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high
noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious
cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should
have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a
fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.
The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,--a woman of between
thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard,
plain face: any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely
be conceived.
"Too much noise, Grace," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Remember directions! " Grace
curtseyed silently and went in.
"She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid's work,"
continued the widow; "not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but
she does well enough. By-the-bye, how have you got on with your new
pupil this morning? "
The conversation, thus turned on Adele, continued till we reached the
light and cheerful region below. Adele came running to meet us in the
hall, exclaiming--
"Mesdames, vous etes servies! " adding, "J'ai bien faim, moi! "
We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax's room.
CHAPTER XII
The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to
Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer acquaintance
with the place and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out to be what she
appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of competent education
and average intelligence. My pupil was a lively child, who had been
spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes wayward; but as she was
committed entirely to my care, and no injudicious interference from any
quarter ever thwarted my plans for her improvement, she soon forgot her
little freaks, and became obedient and teachable. She had no great
talents, no marked traits of character, no peculiar development of
feeling or taste which raised her one inch above the ordinary level of
childhood; but neither had she any deficiency or vice which sunk her
below it. She made reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious,
though perhaps not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay
prattle, and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of
attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.
This, _par parenthese_, will be thought cool language by persons who
entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the
duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an
idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to
echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a
conscientious solicitude for Adele's welfare and progress, and a quiet
liking for her little self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a
thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society
proportionate to the tranquil regard she had for me, and the moderation
of her mind and character.
Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then,
when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the
gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played
with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed
the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having
reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and
along dim sky-line--that then I longed for a power of vision which might
overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions
full of life I had heard of but never seen--that then I desired more of
practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind,
of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach.
I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adele; but I
believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and
what I believed in I wished to behold.
Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I
could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to
pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of
the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and
solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright
visions rose before it--and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to
let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled
it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward
ear to a tale that was never ended--a tale my imagination created, and
narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire,
feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence.
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with
tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot
find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and
millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many
rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life
which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but
women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and
a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from
too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would
suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures
to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and
knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is
thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or
learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.
When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole's laugh: the same
peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had thrilled
me: I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There
were days when she was quite silent; but there were others when I could
not account for the sounds she made. Sometimes I saw her: she would come
out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a tray in her hand, go down
to the kitchen and shortly return, generally (oh, romantic reader,
forgive me for telling the plain truth! ) bearing a pot of porter. Her
appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral
oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no point to which interest
could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into conversation, but
she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply usually cut short
every effort of that sort.
The other members of the household, viz. , John and his wife, Leah the
housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people; but in no
respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and sometimes I
asked her questions about her native country; but she was not of a
descriptive or narrative turn, and generally gave such vapid and confused
answers as were calculated rather to check than encourage inquiry.
October, November, December passed away. One afternoon in January, Mrs.
Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adele, because she had a cold; and, as
Adele seconded the request with an ardour that reminded me how precious
occasional holidays had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it,
deeming that I did well in showing pliability on the point. It was a
fine, calm day, though very cold; I was tired of sitting still in the
library through a whole long morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a
letter which was waiting to be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak
and volunteered to carry it to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a
pleasant winter afternoon walk. Having seen Adele comfortably seated in
her little chair by Mrs. Fairfax's parlour fireside, and given her her
best wax doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a
drawer) to play with, and a story-book for change of amusement; and
having replied to her "Revenez bientot, ma bonne amie, ma chere Mdlle.
Jeannette," with a kiss I set out.
The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast
till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the
species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was
three o'clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the
charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding and
pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild
roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now
possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but whose best winter
delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of
air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an
evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as
still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path.
Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now
browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the
hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.
This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the middle,
I sat down on a stile which led thence into a field. Gathering my mantle
about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel the cold,
though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice covering the
causeway, where a little brooklet, now congealed, had overflowed after a
rapid thaw some days since. From my seat I could look down on
Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall was the principal object in
the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose against the west. I
lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, and sank crimson and
clear behind them. I then turned eastward.
On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but
brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost in trees,
sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a mile distant,
but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs of life.
My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could
not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks
threading their passes. That evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of
the nearest streams, the sough of the most remote.
A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so
far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, which
effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid mass of a
crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong on the
foreground, efface the aerial distance of azure hill, sunny horizon, and
blended clouds where tint melts into tint.
The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the lane
yet hid it, but it approached. I was just leaving the stile; yet, as the
path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In those days I was young,
and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories
of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they
recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what
childhood could give. As this horse approached, and as I watched for it
to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie's tales,
wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a "Gytrash," which, in
the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and
sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon
me.
It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp,
tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems
glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct
object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie's Gytrash--a
lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however,
quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes,
in my face, as I half expected it would. The horse followed,--a tall
steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the human being, broke the
spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and
goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of
beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form. No
Gytrash was this,--only a traveller taking the short cut to Millcote. He
passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned: a sliding sound and an
exclamation of "What the deuce is to do now? " and a clattering tumble,
arrested my attention. Man and horse were down; they had slipped on the
sheet of ice which glazed the causeway. The dog came bounding back, and
seeing his master in a predicament, and hearing the horse groan, barked
till the evening hills echoed the sound, which was deep in proportion to
his magnitude. He snuffed round the prostrate group, and then he ran up
to me; it was all he could do,--there was no other help at hand to
summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to the traveller, by this time
struggling himself free of his steed. His efforts were so vigorous, I
thought he could not be much hurt; but I asked him the question--
"Are you injured, sir? "
I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was pronouncing
some formula which prevented him from replying to me directly.
"Can I do anything? " I asked again.
"You must just stand on one side," he answered as he rose, first to his
knees, and then to his feet. I did; whereupon began a heaving, stamping,
clattering process, accompanied by a barking and baying which removed me
effectually some yards' distance; but I would not be driven quite away
till I saw the event. This was finally fortunate; the horse was
re-established, and the dog was silenced with a "Down, Pilot! " The
traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and leg, as if trying whether they
were sound; apparently something ailed them, for he halted to the stile
whence I had just risen, and sat down.
I was in the mood for being useful, or at least officious, I think, for I
now drew near him again.
"If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch some one either from
Thornfield Hall or from Hay. "
"Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones,--only a sprain;" and
again he stood up and tried his foot, but the result extorted an
involuntary "Ugh! "
Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I
could see him plainly. His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur
collared and steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced
the general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest. He
had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and
gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth,
but had not reached middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt
no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, heroic-
looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus
questioning him against his will, and offering my services unasked. I
had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one. I
had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry,
fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape,
I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have
sympathy with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would
fire, lightning, or anything else that is bright but antipathetic.
If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me when I
addressed him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with
thanks, I should have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew
inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my
ease: I retained my station when he waved to me to go, and announced--
"I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary
lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse. "
He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes in my
direction before.
"I should think you ought to be at home yourself," said he, "if you have
a home in this neighbourhood: where do you come from? "
"From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when it is
moonlight: I will run over to Hay for you with pleasure, if you wish it:
indeed, I am going there to post a letter. "
"You live just below--do you mean at that house with the battlements? "
pointing to Thornfield Hall, on which the moon cast a hoary gleam,
bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods that, by contrast with
the western sky, now seemed one mass of shadow.
"Yes, sir. "
"Whose house is it? "
"Mr. Rochester's.
He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set
off. Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I
was content to be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I
leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I meditated
much at my ease.
"I suppose," thought I, "judging from the plainness of the servant and
carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better;
I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with
them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if
she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her;
I will do my best; it is a pity that doing one's best does not always
answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and
succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always
spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second
Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to stay with her! let the
worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. How far are we on our
road now, I wonder? "
I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by
the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude,
much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort
of common; but there were houses scattered all over the district; I felt
we were in a different region to Lowood, more populous, less picturesque;
more stirring, less romantic.
The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk
all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two
hours; at last he turned in his seat and said--
"You're noan so far fro' Thornfield now. "
Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower
against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow
galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About
ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we
passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly ascended a
drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed from
one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the
front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went in.
"Will you walk this way, ma'am? " said the girl; and I followed her across
a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose
double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting
as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours
inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable picture presented
itself to my view.
A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high-
backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little
elderly lady, in widow's cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron;
exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and
milder looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely
at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the beau-ideal of
domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for a new governess
could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to overwhelm, no
stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady got up and
promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.
"How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John
drives so slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire. "
"Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose? " said I.
"Yes, you are right: do sit down. "
She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and
untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so much
trouble.
"Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with
cold. Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are
the keys of the storeroom. "
And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and
delivered them to the servant.
"Now, then, draw nearer to the fire," she continued. "You've brought
your luggage with you, haven't you, my dear? "
"Yes, ma'am. "
"I'll see it carried into your room," she said, and bustled out.
"She treats me like a visitor," thought I. "I little expected such a
reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is not like
what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult
too soon. "
She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a
book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now
brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather
confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever before
received, and, that too, shown by my employer and superior; but as she
did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out of her place,
I thought it better to take her civilities quietly.
"Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night? " I asked,
when I had partaken of what she offered me.
"What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf," returned the good lady,
approaching her ear to my mouth.
I repeated the question more distinctly.
"Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your
future pupil. "
"Indeed! Then she is not your daughter? "
"No,--I have no family. "
I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss
Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to ask
too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time.
"I am so glad," she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took
the cat on her knee; "I am so glad you are come; it will be quite
pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at
any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late
years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in
winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in the best quarters. I say
alone--Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very
decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can't
converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due
distance, for fear of losing one's authority. I'm sure last winter (it
was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it
rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the
house, from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy
with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me
sometimes; but I don't think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt
it confining. In spring and summer one got on better: sunshine and long
days make such a difference; and then, just at the commencement of this
autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child makes a house
alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite gay. "
My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew
my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish that she
might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated.
"But I'll not keep you sitting up late to-night," said she; "it is on the
stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all day: you must feel
tired. If you have got your feet well warmed, I'll show you your
bedroom. I've had the room next to mine prepared for you; it is only a
small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than one of the
large front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but they are
so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in them myself. "
I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued
with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her
candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to see if the
hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the
way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window
was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the
bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a
house. A very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery,
suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was glad, when
finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small dimensions, and
furnished in ordinary, modern style.
When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my
door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie
impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and
that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, I
remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I was
now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart,
and I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where thanks were
due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my further path, and
the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me
before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that night; my
solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I slept soon and
soundly: when I awoke it was broad day.
The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in
between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and a
carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood,
that my spirits rose at the view. Externals have a great effect on the
young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that
was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils.
My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to
hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely define what they expected,
but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at
an indefinite future period.
I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain--for I had no
article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity--I was still
by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful
of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I
ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want
of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer;
I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry
mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed in figure; I
felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so
irregular and so marked. And why had I these aspirations and these
regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say
it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too.
However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black
frock--which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to
a nicety--and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do
respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil
would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my
chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and neat on the
toilet table, I ventured forth.
Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of
oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some
pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in a
cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at a
bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of
oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. Everything
appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little
accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, stood
open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the
early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields;
advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the
mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though
considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not a nobleman's seat:
battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front
stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants
were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a
great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where
an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at
once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation. Farther off
were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so
like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and
lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I
had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of
Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled
up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district stood
nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the
house and gates.
I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet
listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the
wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was for
one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady
appeared at the door.
"What! out already? " said she. "I see you are an early riser. " I went
up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand.
"How do you like Thornfield? " she asked. I told her I liked it very
much.
"Yes," she said, "it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out
of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come and
reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: great
houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor. "
"Mr. Rochester! " I exclaimed. "Who is he? "
"The owner of Thornfield," she responded quietly. "Did you not know he
was called Rochester? "
Of course I did not--I had never heard of him before; but the old lady
seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with
which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.
"I thought," I continued, "Thornfield belonged to you. "
"To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the
housekeeper--the manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the
Rochesters by the mother's side, or at least my husband was; he was a
clergyman, incumbent of Hay--that little village yonder on the hill--and
that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester's mother
was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on
the connection--in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in
the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and I
expect nothing more. "
"And the little girl--my pupil! "
"She is Mr. Rochester's ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for
her. He intended to have her brought up in ---shire, I believe. Here
she comes, with her 'bonne,' as she calls her nurse. " The enigma then
was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame; but
a dependant like myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on the
contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her and
me was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part: so much
the better--my position was all the freer.
As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her
attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not
at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or
eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a
redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist.
"Good morning, Miss Adela," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Come and speak to the
lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day. " She
approached.
"C'est la ma gouverante! " said she, pointing to me, and addressing her
nurse; who answered--
"Mais oui, certainement. "
"Are they foreigners? " I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.
"The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I
believe, never left it till within six months ago. When she first came
here she could speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a
little: I don't understand her, she mixes it so with French; but you will
make out her meaning very well, I dare say. "
Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French
lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot
as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt
a portion of French by heart daily--applying myself to take pains with my
accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my
teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in
the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle
Adela. She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her
governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to
her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were
seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her
large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.
"Ah! " cried she, in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr.
Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She
will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English.
Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a
chimney that smoked--how it did smoke! --and I was sick, and so was
Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a
pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another
place. I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf. And
Mademoiselle--what is your name? "
"Eyre--Jane Eyre. "
"Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning,
before it was quite daylight, at a great city--a huge city, with very
dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came
from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land,
and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a
beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel. We
stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a
great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many
children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I
fed with crumbs. "
"Can you understand her when she runs on so fast? " asked Mrs. Fairfax.
I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent
tongue of Madame Pierrot.
"I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two
about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them? "
"Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty
clean town you spoke of? "
"I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama
used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many
gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them,
or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you
hear me sing now? "
She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of
her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed
herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her,
shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced
singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady,
who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid;
desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest
robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove
to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little his desertion has
affected her.
The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose
the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy
warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was:
at least I thought so.
Adele sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the _naivete_ of her
age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, "Now,
Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry. "
Assuming an attitude, she began, "La Ligue des Rats: fable de La
Fontaine. " She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to
punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness
of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and which proved she had been
carefully trained.
"Was it your mama who taught you that piece? " I asked.
"Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: 'Qu' avez vous donc? lui
dit un de ces rats; parlez! ' She made me lift my hand--so--to remind me
to raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you? "
"No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you
say, with whom did you live then? "
"With Madame Frederic and her husband: she took care of me, but she is
nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a
house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would
like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr.
Rochester before I knew Madame Frederic, and he was always kind to me and
gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his word,
for he has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again himself,
and I never see him. "
After breakfast, Adele and I withdrew to the library, which room, it
appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom.
Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one
bookcase left open containing everything that could be needed in the way
of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, poetry,
biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that
these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and,
indeed, they contented me amply for the present; compared with the scanty
pickings I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to
offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and information. In this
room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite new and of superior tone;
also an easel for painting and a pair of globes.
I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she
had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be
injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to
her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning had
advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then proposed
to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little sketches for her
use.
As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax
called to me: "Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose," said
she. She was in a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in
when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple
chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast
window rich in slanted glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs.
Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a
sideboard.
"What a beautiful room! " I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never
before seen any half so imposing.
"Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in
a little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments that
are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault. "
She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it
with a Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad
steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy
place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was
merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread
with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers;
both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath
which glowed in rich contrast crimson couches and ottomans; while the
ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian
glass, ruby red; and between the windows large mirrors repeated the
general blending of snow and fire.
"In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax! " said I. "No dust, no
canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they
were inhabited daily. "
"Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester's visits here are rare, they are
always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to
find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his
arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness. "
"Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man? "
"Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman's tastes and habits, and he
expects to have things managed in conformity to them. "
"Do you like him? Is he generally liked? "
"Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the
land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the
Rochesters time out of mind. "
"Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he
liked for himself? "
"I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is
considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never
lived much amongst them. "
"But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character? "
"Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar,
perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the
world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much
conversation with him. "
"In what way is he peculiar? "
"I don't know--it is not easy to describe--nothing striking, but you feel
it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest
or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don't thoroughly
understand him, in short--at least, I don't: but it is of no consequence,
he is a very good master. "
This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and
mine. There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a
character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons
or things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my queries
puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in
her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor--nothing more: she inquired
and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish to gain a more
definite notion of his identity.
When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of
the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I
went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I
thought especially grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though dark
and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture
once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been
removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by
their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in
oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and
cherubs' heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs,
high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned
tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by
fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All these relics
gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the
past: a shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of
these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night's repose on
one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of
oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick
work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and
strangest human beings,--all which would have looked strange, indeed, by
the pallid gleam of moonlight.
"Do the servants sleep in these rooms? " I asked.
"No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever
sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at
Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt. "
"So I think: you have no ghost, then? "
"None that I ever heard of," returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.
"Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories? "
"I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a
violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the
reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now. "
"Yes--'after life's fitful fever they sleep well,'" I muttered. "Where
are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax? " for she was moving away.
"On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence? " I
followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a
ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on a
level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning over
the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out
like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of
the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber;
the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, greener with
moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the gates, the road,
the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon
bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No
feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I
turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way
down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that
arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene
of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and
over which I had been gazing with delight.
Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by drift
of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the
narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this
led, separating the front and back rooms of the third storey: narrow,
low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and looking,
with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some
Bluebeard's castle.
While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a
region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct,
formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it
began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It
passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every
lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed
out the door whence the accents issued.
"Mrs. Fairfax! " I called out: for I now heard her descending the great
stairs. "Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it? "
"Some of the servants, very likely," she answered: "perhaps Grace Poole. "
"Did you hear it? " I again inquired.
"Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms.
Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together. "
The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an
odd murmur.
"Grace! " exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.
I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic,
as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high
noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious
cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should
have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a
fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.
The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,--a woman of between
thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard,
plain face: any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely
be conceived.
"Too much noise, Grace," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Remember directions! " Grace
curtseyed silently and went in.
"She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid's work,"
continued the widow; "not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but
she does well enough. By-the-bye, how have you got on with your new
pupil this morning? "
The conversation, thus turned on Adele, continued till we reached the
light and cheerful region below. Adele came running to meet us in the
hall, exclaiming--
"Mesdames, vous etes servies! " adding, "J'ai bien faim, moi! "
We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax's room.
CHAPTER XII
The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to
Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer acquaintance
with the place and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out to be what she
appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of competent education
and average intelligence. My pupil was a lively child, who had been
spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes wayward; but as she was
committed entirely to my care, and no injudicious interference from any
quarter ever thwarted my plans for her improvement, she soon forgot her
little freaks, and became obedient and teachable. She had no great
talents, no marked traits of character, no peculiar development of
feeling or taste which raised her one inch above the ordinary level of
childhood; but neither had she any deficiency or vice which sunk her
below it. She made reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious,
though perhaps not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay
prattle, and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of
attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.
This, _par parenthese_, will be thought cool language by persons who
entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the
duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an
idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to
echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a
conscientious solicitude for Adele's welfare and progress, and a quiet
liking for her little self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a
thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society
proportionate to the tranquil regard she had for me, and the moderation
of her mind and character.
Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then,
when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the
gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played
with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed
the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having
reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and
along dim sky-line--that then I longed for a power of vision which might
overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions
full of life I had heard of but never seen--that then I desired more of
practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind,
of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach.
I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adele; but I
believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and
what I believed in I wished to behold.
Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I
could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to
pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of
the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and
solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright
visions rose before it--and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to
let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled
it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward
ear to a tale that was never ended--a tale my imagination created, and
narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire,
feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence.
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with
tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot
find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and
millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many
rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life
which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but
women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and
a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from
too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would
suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures
to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and
knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is
thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or
learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.
When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole's laugh: the same
peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had thrilled
me: I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There
were days when she was quite silent; but there were others when I could
not account for the sounds she made. Sometimes I saw her: she would come
out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a tray in her hand, go down
to the kitchen and shortly return, generally (oh, romantic reader,
forgive me for telling the plain truth! ) bearing a pot of porter. Her
appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral
oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no point to which interest
could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into conversation, but
she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply usually cut short
every effort of that sort.
The other members of the household, viz. , John and his wife, Leah the
housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people; but in no
respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and sometimes I
asked her questions about her native country; but she was not of a
descriptive or narrative turn, and generally gave such vapid and confused
answers as were calculated rather to check than encourage inquiry.
October, November, December passed away. One afternoon in January, Mrs.
Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adele, because she had a cold; and, as
Adele seconded the request with an ardour that reminded me how precious
occasional holidays had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it,
deeming that I did well in showing pliability on the point. It was a
fine, calm day, though very cold; I was tired of sitting still in the
library through a whole long morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a
letter which was waiting to be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak
and volunteered to carry it to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a
pleasant winter afternoon walk. Having seen Adele comfortably seated in
her little chair by Mrs. Fairfax's parlour fireside, and given her her
best wax doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a
drawer) to play with, and a story-book for change of amusement; and
having replied to her "Revenez bientot, ma bonne amie, ma chere Mdlle.
Jeannette," with a kiss I set out.
The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast
till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the
species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was
three o'clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the
charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding and
pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild
roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now
possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but whose best winter
delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of
air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an
evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as
still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path.
Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now
browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the
hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.
This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the middle,
I sat down on a stile which led thence into a field. Gathering my mantle
about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel the cold,
though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice covering the
causeway, where a little brooklet, now congealed, had overflowed after a
rapid thaw some days since. From my seat I could look down on
Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall was the principal object in
the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose against the west. I
lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, and sank crimson and
clear behind them. I then turned eastward.
On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but
brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost in trees,
sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a mile distant,
but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs of life.
My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could
not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks
threading their passes. That evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of
the nearest streams, the sough of the most remote.
A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so
far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, which
effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid mass of a
crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong on the
foreground, efface the aerial distance of azure hill, sunny horizon, and
blended clouds where tint melts into tint.
The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the lane
yet hid it, but it approached. I was just leaving the stile; yet, as the
path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In those days I was young,
and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories
of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they
recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what
childhood could give. As this horse approached, and as I watched for it
to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie's tales,
wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a "Gytrash," which, in
the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and
sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon
me.
It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp,
tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems
glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct
object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie's Gytrash--a
lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however,
quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes,
in my face, as I half expected it would. The horse followed,--a tall
steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the human being, broke the
spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and
goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of
beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form. No
Gytrash was this,--only a traveller taking the short cut to Millcote. He
passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned: a sliding sound and an
exclamation of "What the deuce is to do now? " and a clattering tumble,
arrested my attention. Man and horse were down; they had slipped on the
sheet of ice which glazed the causeway. The dog came bounding back, and
seeing his master in a predicament, and hearing the horse groan, barked
till the evening hills echoed the sound, which was deep in proportion to
his magnitude. He snuffed round the prostrate group, and then he ran up
to me; it was all he could do,--there was no other help at hand to
summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to the traveller, by this time
struggling himself free of his steed. His efforts were so vigorous, I
thought he could not be much hurt; but I asked him the question--
"Are you injured, sir? "
I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was pronouncing
some formula which prevented him from replying to me directly.
"Can I do anything? " I asked again.
"You must just stand on one side," he answered as he rose, first to his
knees, and then to his feet. I did; whereupon began a heaving, stamping,
clattering process, accompanied by a barking and baying which removed me
effectually some yards' distance; but I would not be driven quite away
till I saw the event. This was finally fortunate; the horse was
re-established, and the dog was silenced with a "Down, Pilot! " The
traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and leg, as if trying whether they
were sound; apparently something ailed them, for he halted to the stile
whence I had just risen, and sat down.
I was in the mood for being useful, or at least officious, I think, for I
now drew near him again.
"If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch some one either from
Thornfield Hall or from Hay. "
"Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones,--only a sprain;" and
again he stood up and tried his foot, but the result extorted an
involuntary "Ugh! "
Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I
could see him plainly. His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur
collared and steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced
the general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest. He
had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and
gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth,
but had not reached middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt
no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, heroic-
looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus
questioning him against his will, and offering my services unasked. I
had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one. I
had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry,
fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape,
I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have
sympathy with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would
fire, lightning, or anything else that is bright but antipathetic.
If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me when I
addressed him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with
thanks, I should have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew
inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my
ease: I retained my station when he waved to me to go, and announced--
"I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary
lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse. "
He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes in my
direction before.
"I should think you ought to be at home yourself," said he, "if you have
a home in this neighbourhood: where do you come from? "
"From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when it is
moonlight: I will run over to Hay for you with pleasure, if you wish it:
indeed, I am going there to post a letter. "
"You live just below--do you mean at that house with the battlements? "
pointing to Thornfield Hall, on which the moon cast a hoary gleam,
bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods that, by contrast with
the western sky, now seemed one mass of shadow.
"Yes, sir. "
"Whose house is it? "
"Mr. Rochester's.
