No More Learning

I could see a clock, a white deal table, some chairs. The
candle, whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on the table; and by its
light an elderly woman, somewhat rough-looking, but scrupulously clean,
like all about her, was knitting a stocking.

I noticed these objects cursorily only--in them there was nothing
extraordinary. A group of more interest appeared near the hearth,
sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it. Two young,
graceful women--ladies in every point--sat, one in a low rocking-chair,
the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning of crape and
bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair necks and
faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of one
girl--in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat.

A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who were
they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at the
table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy and
cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet, as I
gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot call
them handsome--they were too pale and grave for the word: as they each
bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A stand
between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to which
they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the smaller
books they held in their hands, like people consulting a dictionary to
aid them in the task of translation. This scene was as silent as if all
the figures had been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture: so
hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock
tick in its obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish the
click-click of the woman's knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice
broke the strange stillness at last, it was audible enough to me.

"Listen, Diana," said one of the absorbed students; "Franz and old Daniel
are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a dream from which
he has awakened in terror--listen! " And in a low voice she read
something, of which not one word was intelligible to me; for it was in an
unknown tongue--neither French nor Latin. Whether it were Greek or
German I could not tell.

"That is strong," she said, when she had finished: "I relish it. " The
other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister, repeated,
while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read. At a later
day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will here quote the
line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on
sounding brass to me--conveying no meaning:--

"'Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht. ' Good! good! "
she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. "There you have a
dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line is worth a
hundred pages of fustian. 'Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale meines
Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms. ' I like it! "

Both were again silent.

"Is there ony country where they talk i' that way? " asked the old woman,
looking up from her knitting.

"Yes, Hannah--a far larger country than England, where they talk in no
other way. "

"Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t' one t'other:
and if either o' ye went there, ye could tell what they said, I guess? "

"We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all--for we
are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don't speak German, and we
cannot read it without a dictionary to help us. "

"And what good does it do you? "

"We mean to teach it some time--or at least the elements, as they say;
and then we shall get more money than we do now. "

"Varry like: but give ower studying; ye've done enough for to-night. "

"I think we have: at least I'm tired. Mary, are you? "

"Mortally: after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language with no
master but a lexicon. "

"It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious Deutsch.
I wonder when St. John will come home. "

"Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a little gold
watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah: will you have
the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour? "

The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage:
soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back.

"Ah, childer! " said she, "it fair troubles me to go into yond' room now:
it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a corner. "

She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before, looked
sad now.

"But he is in a better place," continued Hannah: "we shouldn't wish him
here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had. "

"You say he never mentioned us? " inquired one of the ladies.

"He hadn't time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father. He had
been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify; and when
Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o' ye to be sent for, he fair
laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his head the
next day--that is, a fortnight sin'--and he went to sleep and niver
wakened: he wor a'most stark when your brother went into t' chamber and
fand him. Ah, childer! that's t' last o' t' old stock--for ye and Mr.
St. John is like of different soart to them 'at's gone; for all your
mother wor mich i' your way, and a'most as book-learned. She wor the
pictur' o' ye, Mary: Diana is more like your father. "

I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for
such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were fair
complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of distinction
and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker than the
other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing it; Mary's
pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana's duskier tresses
covered her neck with thick curls. The clock struck ten.

"Ye'll want your supper, I am sure," observed Hannah; "and so will Mr.
St. John when he comes in. "

And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed
about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so intent
on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited in me so
keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched position: now it
recurred to me. More desolate, more desperate than ever, it seemed from
contrast. And how impossible did it appear to touch the inmates of this
house with concern on my behalf; to make them believe in the truth of my
wants and woes--to induce them to vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As
I groped out the door, and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last
idea to be a mere chimera. Hannah opened.

"What do you want? " she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she surveyed
me by the light of the candle she held.

"May I speak to your mistresses? " I said.

"You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do you come
from? "

"I am a stranger. "

"What is your business here at this hour? "

"I want a night's shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel of
bread to eat. "

Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face. "I'll
give you a piece of bread," she said, after a pause; "but we can't take
in a vagrant to lodge. It isn't likely. "

"Do let me speak to your mistresses. "

"No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about
now; it looks very ill. "

"But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do? "

"Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you don't do
wrong, that's all. Here is a penny; now go--"

"A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther. Don't
shut the door:--oh, don't, for God's sake! "

"I must; the rain is driving in--"

"Tell the young ladies. Let me see them--"

"Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn't
make such a noise. Move off. "

"But I must die if I am turned away. "

"Not you. I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring you about
folk's houses at this time o' night. If you've any
followers--housebreakers or such like--anywhere near, you may tell them
we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and
guns. " Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and
bolted it within.

This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering--a throe of true
despair--rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another
step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned--I wrung my
hands--I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death! Oh, this
last hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this isolation--this
banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of
fortitude was gone--at least for a moment; but the last I soon
endeavoured to regain.

"I can but die," I said, "and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His
will in silence. "

These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my
misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain there--dumb
and still.

"All men must die," said a voice quite close at hand; "but all are not
condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be
if you perished here of want. "

"Who or what speaks? " I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and
incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A form was
near--what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented
me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock, the new-comer appealed
to the door.

"Is it you, Mr. St. John? " cried Hannah.

"Yes--yes; open quickly. "

"Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is! Come
in--your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad
folks about. There has been a beggar-woman--I declare she is not gone
yet! --laid down there. Get up! for shame! Move off, I say! "

"Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done your
duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was near, and
listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar case--I must at
least examine into it. Young woman, rise, and pass before me into the
house. "

{Hush, Hannah; I have a word to say to the woman: p323. jpg}

With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that clean,
bright kitchen--on the very hearth--trembling, sickening; conscious of an
aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weather-beaten. The two
ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were all gazing at
me.

"St. John, who is it? " I heard one ask.

"I cannot tell: I found her at the door," was the reply.

"She does look white," said Hannah.

"As white as clay or death," was responded. "She will fall: let her
sit. "

And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I still
possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak.

"Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some. But she
is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless! "

"A mere spectre! "

"Is she ill, or only famished? "

"Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece of
bread. "

Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me and
the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk, and
put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in it,
and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In her simple words, too,
the same balm-like emotion spoke: "Try to eat. "

"Yes--try," repeated Mary gently; and Mary's hand removed my sodden
bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me: feebly at
first, eagerly soon.

"Not too much at first--restrain her," said the brother; "she has had
enough. " And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of bread.

"A little more, St. John--look at the avidity in her eyes. "

"No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now--ask her her
name. "

I felt I could speak, and I answered--"My name is Jane Elliott. " Anxious
as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume an _alias_.

"And where do you live? Where are your friends? "

I was silent.

"Can we send for any one you know? "

I shook my head.

"What account can you give of yourself? "

Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and
once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer outcast,
vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put off the
mendicant--to resume my natural manner and character. I began once more
to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an account--which at
present I was far too weak to render--I said after a brief pause--

"Sir, I can give you no details to-night. "

"But what, then," said he, "do you expect me to do for you? "

"Nothing," I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers. Diana
took the word--

"Do you mean," she asked, "that we have now given you what aid you
require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy night? "

I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance, instinct
both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage. Answering her
compassionate gaze with a smile, I said--"I will trust you. If I were a
masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not turn me from your
hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no fear. Do with me and for me
as you like; but excuse me from much discourse--my breath is short--I
feel a spasm when I speak.
" All three surveyed me, and all three were
silent.

"Hannah," said Mr. St. John, at last, "let her sit there at present, and
ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the remainder of that
milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into the parlour and talk the
matter over. "

They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned--I could not tell
which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the
genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah. Ere
long, with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my
dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me. I
thanked God--experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful
joy--and slept.




CHAPTER XXIX


The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is very
dim in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in that interval; but
few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew I was in a small
room and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to have grown; I lay on
it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me from it would have been
almost to kill me. I took no note of the lapse of time--of the change
from morning to noon, from noon to evening. I observed when any one
entered or left the apartment: I could even tell who they were; I could
understand what was said when the speaker stood near to me; but I could
not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible.
Hannah, the servant, was my most frequent visitor. Her coming disturbed
me. I had a feeling that she wished me away: that she did not understand
me or my circumstances; that she was prejudiced against me. Diana and
Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day. They would whisper
sentences of this sort at my bedside--

"It is very well we took her in. "

"Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the morning
had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has gone through? "

"Strange hardships, I imagine--poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer? "

"She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of
speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took off, though
splashed and wet, were little worn and fine. "

"She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like
it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy
would be agreeable. "

Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the
hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or aversion to,
myself. I was comforted.

Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of
lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted
fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he was
sure, would manage best, left to herself. He said every nerve had been
overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep torpid a while.
There was no disease. He imagined my recovery would be rapid enough when
once commenced. These opinions he delivered in a few words, in a quiet,
low voice; and added, after a pause, in the tone of a man little
accustomed to expansive comment, "Rather an unusual physiognomy;
certainly, not indicative of vulgarity or degradation. "

"Far otherwise," responded Diana. "To speak truth, St. John, my heart
rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able to benefit
her permanently. "

"That is hardly likely," was the reply. "You will find she is some young
lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and has probably
injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in restoring her to
them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines of force in her face
which make me sceptical of her tractability. " He stood considering me
some minutes; then added, "She looks sensible, but not at all handsome. "

"She is so ill, St. John. "

"Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of beauty
are quite wanting in those features. "

On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move, rise
in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry toast, about,
as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with relish: the food was
good--void of the feverish flavour which had hitherto poisoned what I had
swallowed. When she left me, I felt comparatively strong and revived:
ere long satiety of repose and desire for action stirred me. I wished to
rise; but what could I put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in
which I had slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed
to appear before my benefactors so clad. I was spared the humiliation.

On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My
black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were
removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was quite
decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered
presentable. There were the means of washing in the room, and a comb and
brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and resting every five
minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My clothes hung loose on me;
for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and once
more, clean and respectable looking--no speck of the dirt, no trace of
the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to degrade me, left--I crept
down a stone staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow low
passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen.

It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a generous
fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known, are most
difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened
or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.
Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first: latterly she had
begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in tidy and
well-dressed, she even smiled.

"What, you have got up! " she said. "You are better, then. You may sit
you down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will. "

She pointed to the rocking-chair: I took it. She bustled about,
examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye. Turning to
me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly--

"Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here? "

I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of the
question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I answered
quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness--

"You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar. I am no beggar; any more
than yourself or your young ladies. "

After a pause she said, "I dunnut understand that: you've like no house,
nor no brass, I guess? "

"The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money) does not
make a beggar in your sense of the word. "

"Are you book-learned? " she inquired presently.

"Yes, very. "

"But you've never been to a boarding-school? "

"I was at a boarding-school eight years. "

She opened her eyes wide. "Whatever cannot ye keep yourself for, then? "

"I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again. What are you
going to do with these gooseberries? " I inquired, as she brought out a
basket of the fruit.

"Mak' 'em into pies. "

"Give them to me and I'll pick them. "

"Nay; I dunnut want ye to do nought. "

"But I must do something. Let me have them. "

She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over my
dress, "lest," as she said, "I should mucky it. "

"Ye've not been used to sarvant's wark, I see by your hands," she
remarked. "Happen ye've been a dressmaker? "

"No, you are wrong. And now, never mind what I have been: don't trouble
your head further about me; but tell me the name of the house where we
are. "

"Some calls it Marsh End, and some calls it Moor House. "

"And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John? "

"Nay; he doesn't live here: he is only staying a while. When he is at
home, he is in his own parish at Morton. "

"That village a few miles off?

"Aye. "

"And what is he? "

"He is a parson. "

I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage, when I
had asked to see the clergyman. "This, then, was his father's
residence? "

"Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather, and
gurt (great) grandfather afore him. "

"The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers? "

"Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name. "

"And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers? "

"Yes. "

"Their father is dead? "

"Dead three weeks sin' of a stroke. "

"They have no mother? "

"The mistress has been dead this mony a year. "

"Have you lived with the family long? "

"I've lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three. "

"That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I will
say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call me a
beggar. "

She again regarded me with a surprised stare. "I believe," she said, "I
was quite mista'en in my thoughts of you: but there is so mony cheats
goes about, you mun forgie me. "

"And though," I continued, rather severely, "you wished to turn me from
the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog. "

"Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o' th'
childer nor of mysel: poor things! They've like nobody to tak' care on
'em but me. I'm like to look sharpish. "

I maintained a grave silence for some minutes.

"You munnut think too hardly of me," she again remarked.

"But I do think hardly of you," I said; "and I'll tell you why--not so
much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an
impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I
had no 'brass' and no house. Some of the best people that ever lived
have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not
to consider poverty a crime. "

"No more I ought," said she: "Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I see I
wor wrang--but I've clear a different notion on you now to what I had.
You look a raight down dacent little crater. "

"That will do--I forgive you now. Shake hands. "

She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier smile
illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were friends.

Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit, and she
made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details
about her deceased master and mistress, and "the childer," as she called
the young people.

Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a gentleman, and of
as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh End had belonged to the
Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she affirmed, "aboon two
hundred year old--for all it looked but a small, humble place, naught to
compare wi' Mr. Oliver's grand hall down i' Morton Vale. But she could
remember Bill Oliver's father a journeyman needlemaker; and th' Rivers
wor gentry i' th' owd days o' th' Henrys, as onybody might see by looking
into th' registers i' Morton Church vestry. " Still, she allowed, "the
owd maister was like other folk--naught mich out o' t' common way: stark
mad o' shooting, and farming, and sich like. " The mistress was
different. She was a great reader, and studied a deal; and the "bairns"
had taken after her. There was nothing like them in these parts, nor
ever had been; they had liked learning, all three, almost from the time
they could speak; and they had always been "of a mak' of their own. " Mr.
St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a parson; and the
girls, as soon as they left school, would seek places as governesses: for
they had told her their father had some years ago lost a great deal of
money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt; and as he was now not
rich enough to give them fortunes, they must provide for themselves. They
had lived very little at home for a long while, and were only come now to
stay a few weeks on account of their father's death; but they did so like
Marsh End and Morton, and all these moors and hills about. They had been
in London, and many other grand towns; but they always said there was no
place like home; and then they were so agreeable with each other--never
fell out nor "threaped. " She did not know where there was such a family
for being united.

Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two
ladies and their brother were now.

"Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half-an-hour
to tea. "

They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they entered by
the kitchen door. Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely bowed and passed
through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few words, kindly and calmly
expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be able to
come down; Diana took my hand: she shook her head at me.

"You should have waited for my leave to descend," she said. "You still
look very pale--and so thin! Poor child! --poor girl! "

Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove. She
possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face
seemed to me full of charm. Mary's countenance was equally
intelligent--her features equally pretty; but her expression was more
reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant. Diana looked and
spoke with a certain authority: she had a will, evidently. It was my
nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers,
and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an active
will.

"And what business have you here? " she continued. "It is not your place.
Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we like to be
free, even to license--but you are a visitor, and must go into the
parlour. "

"I am very well here. "

"Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with flour. "

"Besides, the fire is too hot for you," interposed Mary.

"To be sure," added her sister. "Come, you must be obedient. " And still
holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner room.

"Sit there," she said, placing me on the sofa, "while we take our things
off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we exercise in our
little moorland home--to prepare our own meals when we are so inclined,
or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or ironing. "

She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat
opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I examined first, the
parlour, and then its occupant.

The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet
comfortable, because clean and neat. The old-fashioned chairs were very
bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass. A few
strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days decorated
the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained some books and
an ancient set of china. There was no superfluous ornament in the
room--not one modern piece of furniture, save a brace of workboxes and a
lady's desk in rosewood, which stood on a side-table:
everything--including the carpet and curtains--looked at once well worn
and well saved.

Mr. St.