No More Learning

)

"I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes," she added. "It will
be a change for me to visit you now and then; and I like a change. Mr.
Rivers, I have been _so_ gay during my stay at S-. Last night, or rather
this morning, I was dancing till two o'clock. The ---th regiment are
stationed there since the riots; and the officers are the most agreeable
men in the world: they put all our young knife-grinders and scissor
merchants to shame. "

It seemed to me that Mr. St. John's under lip protruded, and his upper
lip curled a moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed,
and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the
laughing girl gave him this information. He lifted his gaze, too, from
the daisies, and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a searching, a meaning
gaze it was. She answered it with a second laugh, and laughter well
became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright eyes.

As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo. "Poor
Carlo loves me," said she. "_He_ is not stern and distant to his
friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent. "

As she patted the dog's head, bending with native grace before his young
and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master's face. I saw his
solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless emotion.
Flushed and kindled thus, he looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she
for a woman. His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of
despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and made a
vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty. But he curbed it, I think,
as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed. He responded neither by
word nor movement to the gentle advances made him.

"Papa says you never come to see us now," continued Miss Oliver, looking
up. "You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall. He is alone this evening,
and not very well: will you return with me and visit him? "

"It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver," answered St.
John.

"Not a seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour when
papa most wants company: when the works are closed and he has no business
to occupy him. Now, Mr. Rivers, _do_ come. Why are you so very shy, and
so very sombre? " She filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of
her own.

"I forgot! " she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if
shocked at herself. "I am so giddy and thoughtless! _Do_ excuse me. It
had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for
joining in my chatter. Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor House is
shut up, and you are so lonely. I am sure I pity you. Do come and see
papa. "

"Not to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night. "

Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew the effort
it cost him thus to refuse.

"Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay any
longer: the dew begins to fall. Good evening! "

She held out her hand. He just touched it. "Good evening! " he repeated,
in a voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned, but in a moment
returned.

"Are you well? " she asked. Well might she put the question: his face was
blanched as her gown.

"Quite well," he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She went
one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she tripped
fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, never turned
at all.

This spectacle of another's suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts from
exclusive meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had designated her brother
"inexorable as death. " She had not exaggerated.




CHAPTER XXXII


I continued the labours of the village-school as actively and faithfully
as I could. It was truly hard work at first. Some time elapsed before,
with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature.
Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they seemed to me
hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike: but I soon found I
was mistaken. There was a difference amongst them as amongst the
educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this difference
rapidly developed itself. Their amazement at me, my language, my rules,
and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping
rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls enough. Many showed themselves
obliging, and amiable too; and I discovered amongst them not a few
examples of natural politeness, and innate self-respect, as well as of
excellent capacity, that won both my goodwill and my admiration. These
soon took a pleasure in doing their work well, in keeping their persons
neat, in learning their tasks regularly, in acquiring quiet and orderly
manners. The rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even
surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it: besides, I began
personally to like some of the best girls; and they liked me. I had
amongst my scholars several farmers' daughters: young women grown,
almost. These could already read, write, and sew; and to them I taught
the elements of grammar, geography, history, and the finer kinds of
needlework. I found estimable characters amongst them--characters
desirous of information and disposed for improvement--with whom I passed
many a pleasant evening hour in their own homes. Their parents then (the
farmer and his wife) loaded me with attentions. There was an enjoyment
in accepting their simple kindness, and in repaying it by a
consideration--a scrupulous regard to their feelings--to which they were
not, perhaps, at all times accustomed, and which both charmed and
benefited them; because, while it elevated them in their own eyes, it
made them emulous to merit the deferential treatment they received.

I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went out, I
heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with friendly
smiles. To live amidst general regard, though it be but the regard of
working people, is like "sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet;" serene
inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At this period of my life,
my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than sank with dejection:
and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of this calm, this useful
existence--after a day passed in honourable exertion amongst my scholars,
an evening spent in drawing or reading contentedly alone--I used to rush
into strange dreams at night: dreams many-coloured, agitated, full of the
ideal, the stirring, the stormy--dreams where, amidst unusual scenes,
charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still
again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and
then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye,
touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him--the hope of
passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first
force and fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how
situated. Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering;
and then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and
heard the burst of passion. By nine o'clock the next morning I was
punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady
duties of the day.

Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call at the
school was generally made in the course of her morning ride. She would
canter up to the door on her pony, followed by a mounted livery servant.
Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her purple habit, with
her Amazon's cap of black velvet placed gracefully above the long curls
that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders, can scarcely be
imagined: and it was thus she would enter the rustic building, and glide
through the dazzled ranks of the village children. She generally came at
the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving his daily catechising
lesson. Keenly, I fear, did the eye of the visitress pierce the young
pastor's heart. A sort of instinct seemed to warn him of her entrance,
even when he did not see it; and when he was looking quite away from the
door, if she appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marble-seeming
features, though they refused to relax, changed indescribably, and in
their very quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervour, stronger
than working muscle or darting glance could indicate.

Of course, she knew her power: indeed, he did not, because he could not,
conceal it from her. In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she went
up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even fondly in his
face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn. He seemed to say, with
his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips, "I love
you, and I know you prefer me. It is not despair of success that keeps
me dumb. If I offered my heart, I believe you would accept it. But that
heart is already laid on a sacred altar: the fire is arranged round it.
It will soon be no more than a sacrifice consumed. "

And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would
soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily from
his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic
and so martyr-like. St. John, no doubt, would have given the world to
follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him; but he would not give
one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of her love, one
hope of the true, eternal Paradise. Besides, he could not bind all that
he had in his nature--the rover, the aspirant, the poet, the priest--in
the limits of a single passion. He could not--he would not--renounce his
wild field of mission warfare for the parlours and the peace of Vale
Hall. I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once, despite his
reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence.

Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage. I
had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise:
she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly
selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely
spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured; vain (she could not help it,
when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness),
but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of the pride of wealth;
ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively, and unthinking: she was
very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex like me;
but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive. A very
different sort of mind was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters
of St. John. Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adele; except
that, for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer
affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult
acquaintance.

She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr. Rivers,
only, certainly, she allowed, "not one-tenth so handsome, though I was a
nice neat little soul enough, but he was an angel. " I was, however,
good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was a _lusus naturae_, she
affirmed, as a village schoolmistress: she was sure my previous history,
if known, would make a delightful romance.

One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless
yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and the
table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French books,
a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then my
drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a pretty
little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars, and sundry views from
nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surrounding moors. She
was first transfixed with surprise, and then electrified with delight.

"Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a
love--what a miracle I was! I drew better than her master in the first
school in S-. Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show to papa? "

"With pleasure," I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at the
idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had then on a
dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only ornament
was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with all the
wild grace of natural curls. I took a sheet of fine card-board, and drew
a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of colouring it; and,
as it was getting late then, I told her she must come and sit another
day.

She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself
accompanied her next evening--a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and
grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright
flower near a hoary turret. He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud
personage; but he was very kind to me. The sketch of Rosamond's portrait
pleased him highly: he said I must make a finished picture of it. He
insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend the evening at Vale
Hall.

I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant
evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee and
pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable; and when he
entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong terms
his approbation of what I had done in Morton school, and said he only
feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place, and
would soon quit it for one more suitable.

"Indeed," cried Rosamond, "she is clever enough to be a governess in a
high family, papa. "

I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in the
land. Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers--of the Rivers family--with great
respect. He said it was a very old name in that neighbourhood; that the
ancestors of the house were wealthy; that all Morton had once belonged to
them; that even now he considered the representative of that house might,
if he liked, make an alliance with the best. He accounted it a pity that
so fine and talented a young man should have formed the design of going
out as a missionary; it was quite throwing a valuable life away. It
appeared, then, that her father would throw no obstacle in the way of
Rosamond's union with St. John. Mr. Oliver evidently regarded the young
clergyman's good birth, old name, and sacred profession as sufficient
compensation for the want of fortune.

It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after
helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a
penny for her aid. All about me was spotless and bright--scoured floor,
polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs. I had also made myself neat, and
had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would.

The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got my
palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier
occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver's miniature. The head was
finished already: there was but the background to tint and the drapery to
shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips--a soft curl
here and there to the tresses--a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash
under the azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the execution of these nice
details, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting St. John
Rivers.

"I am come to see how you are spending your holiday," he said. "Not, I
hope, in thought? No, that is well: while you draw you will not feel
lonely. You see, I mistrust you still, though you have borne up
wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening solace," and
he laid on the table a new publication--a poem: one of those genuine
productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days--the
golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era are less
favoured. But courage! I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I
know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power
over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence,
their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful
angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble
ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius banished?
No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they
not only live, but reign and redeem: and without their divine influence
spread everywhere, you would be in hell--the hell of your own meanness.

While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of "Marmion" (for
"Marmion" it was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall
figure sprang erect again with a start: he said nothing. I looked up at
him: he shunned my eye. I knew his thoughts well, and could read his
heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler than he: I had then
temporarily the advantage of him, and I conceived an inclination to do
him some good, if I could.

"With all his firmness and self-control," thought I, "he tasks himself
too far: locks every feeling and pang within--expresses, confesses,
imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk a little about
this sweet Rosamond, whom he thinks he ought not to marry: I will make
him talk. "

I said first, "Take a chair, Mr. Rivers. " But he answered, as he always
did, that he could not stay. "Very well," I responded, mentally, "stand
if you like; but you shall not go just yet, I am determined: solitude is
at least as bad for you as it is for me. I'll try if I cannot discover
the secret spring of your confidence, and find an aperture in that marble
breast through which I can shed one drop of the balm of sympathy. "

"Is this portrait like? " I asked bluntly.

"Like! Like whom? I did not observe it closely. "

"You did, Mr. Rivers. "

He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness: he looked at me
astonished. "Oh, that is nothing yet," I muttered within. "I don't mean
to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I'm prepared to go to
considerable lengths. " I continued, "You observed it closely and
distinctly; but I have no objection to your looking at it again," and I
rose and placed it in his hand.

"A well-executed picture," he said; "very soft, clear colouring; very
graceful and correct drawing. "

"Yes, yes; I know all that.
But what of the resemblance? Who is it
like? "

Mastering some hesitation, he answered, "Miss Oliver, I presume. "

"Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I will
promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this very
picture, provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable to you. I
don't wish to throw away my time and trouble on an offering you would
deem worthless. "

He continued to gaze at the picture: the longer he looked, the firmer he
held it, the more he seemed to covet it. "It is like! " he murmured; "the
eye is well managed: the colour, light, expression, are perfect. It
smiles! "

"Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting? Tell
me that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India, would
it be a consolation to have that memento in your possession? or would the
sight of it bring recollections calculated to enervate and distress? "

He now furtively raised his eyes: he glanced at me, irresolute,
disturbed: he again surveyed the picture.

"That I should like to have it is certain: whether it would be judicious
or wise is another question. "

Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that her
father was not likely to oppose the match, I--less exalted in my views
than St. John--had been strongly disposed in my own heart to advocate
their union. It seemed to me that, should he become the possessor of Mr.
Oliver's large fortune, he might do as much good with it as if he went
and laid his genius out to wither, and his strength to waste, under a
tropical sun. With this persuasion I now answered--

"As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were to
take to yourself the original at once. "

By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the table before
him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over it. I
discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my audacity. I saw
even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed
unapproachable--to hear it thus freely handled--was beginning to be felt
by him as a new pleasure--an unhoped-for relief. Reserved people often
really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than
the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and to
"burst" with boldness and good-will into "the silent sea" of their souls
is often to confer on them the first of obligations.

"She likes you, I am sure," said I, as I stood behind his chair, "and her
father respects you. Moreover, she is a sweet girl--rather thoughtless;
but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself and her. You
ought to marry her. "

"_Does_ she like me? " he asked.

"Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you
continually: there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so
often. "

"It is very pleasant to hear this," he said--"very: go on for another
quarter of an hour. " And he actually took out his watch and laid it upon
the table to measure the time.

"But where is the use of going on," I asked, "when you are probably
preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to
fetter your heart? "

"Don't imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am
doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and
overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and
with such labour prepared--so assiduously sown with the seeds of good
intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a
nectarous flood--the young germs swamped--delicious poison cankering
them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at
Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver's feet: she is talking to me with
her sweet voice--gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has
copied so well--smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine--I am
hers--this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say
nothing--my heart is full of delight--my senses are entranced--let the
time I marked pass in peace. "

I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I stood
silent. Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the watch, laid
the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth.

"Now," said he, "that little space was given to delirium and delusion. I
rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck
voluntarily under her yoke of flowers. I tasted her cup. The pillow was
burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a bitter taste: her
promises are hollow--her offers false: I see and know all this. "

I gazed at him in wonder.

"It is strange," pursued he, "that while I love Rosamond Oliver so
wildly--with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of
which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating--I experience at
the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a
good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should
discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months'
rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know. "

"Strange indeed! " I could not help ejaculating.

"While something in me," he went on, "is acutely sensible to her charms,
something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they are such
that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to--co-operate in nothing
I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female apostle? Rosamond
a missionary's wife? No! "

"But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme. "

"Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on
earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band
who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their
race--of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance--of substituting
peace for war--freedom for bondage--religion for superstition--the hope
of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer
than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to
live for. "

After a considerable pause, I said--"And Miss Oliver? Are her
disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you? "

"Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than a
month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will forget me; and
will marry, probably, some one who will make her far happier than I
should do. "

"You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are
wasting away. "

"No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects, yet
unsettled--my departure, continually procrastinated. Only this morning,
I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I have been so
long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three months to come
yet; and perhaps the three months may extend to six. "

"You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the
schoolroom. "

Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not imagined
that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in
this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong,
discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed
the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of
confidence, and won a place by their heart's very hearthstone.

"You are original," said he, "and not timid. There is something brave in
your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to assure
you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think them more
profound and potent than they are. You give me a larger allowance of
sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I colour, and when I shade
before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I know
it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I declare, the convulsion
of the soul. _That_ is just as fixed as a rock, firm set in the depths
of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am--a cold hard man. "

I smiled incredulously.

"You have taken my confidence by storm," he continued, "and now it is
much at your service. I am simply, in my original state--stripped of
that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human deformity--a
cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection only, of all the
sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason, and not feeling, is my
guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher, to do more
than others, insatiable. I honour endurance, perseverance, industry,
talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and
mount to lofty eminence. I watch your career with interest, because I
consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic woman: not
because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through, or what you
still suffer. "

"You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher," I said.

"No. There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers: I
believe; and I believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet. I am not a
pagan, but a Christian philosopher--a follower of the sect of Jesus. As
His disciple I adopt His pure, His merciful, His benignant doctrines. I
advocate them: I am sworn to spread them. Won in youth to religion, she
has cultivated my original qualities thus:--From the minute germ, natural
affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy. From
the wild stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared a due sense of
the Divine justice. Of the ambition to win power and renown for my
wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread my Master's kingdom;
to achieve victories for the standard of the cross. So much has religion
done for me; turning the original materials to the best account; pruning
and training nature. But she could not eradicate nature: nor will it be
eradicated 'till this mortal shall put on immortality. '"

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

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

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

"_Cui bono_? No. "

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

"What is the matter? " I asked.

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

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

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




CHAPTER XXXIII


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

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

I soon forgot storm in music.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately? "

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

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

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

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

"Indeed! "

"Mr. Oliver pays for two. "

"Does he? "

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

"I know. "

"Was it your suggestion? "

"No. "

"Whose, then? "

"His daughter's, I think. "

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

"Yes. "

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

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

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

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

"Twenty years ago, a poor curate--never mind his name at this moment--fell
in love with a rich man's daughter; she fell in love with him, and
married him, against the advice of all her friends, who consequently
disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before two years passed, the
rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by side under one slab.
(I have seen their grave; it formed part of the pavement of a huge
churchyard surrounding the grim, soot-black old cathedral of an overgrown
manufacturing town in ---shire.