No More Learning

I had not, it seems, the
originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trode
the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the
beaten centre. I had--as I deserved to have--the fate of all other
spoonies. Happening to call one evening when Celine did not expect me, I
found her out; but it was a warm night, and I was tired with strolling
through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air
consecrated so lately by her presence. No,--I exaggerate; I never
thought there was any consecrating virtue about her: it was rather a sort
of pastille perfume she had left; a scent of musk and amber, than an
odour of sanctity. I was just beginning to stifle with the fumes of
conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, when I bethought myself to
open the window and step out on to the balcony. It was moonlight and
gaslight besides, and very still and serene. The balcony was furnished
with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar,--I will take one
now, if you will excuse me. "

Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a cigar;
having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah incense on
the freezing and sunless air, he went on--

"I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was
_croquant_--(overlook the barbarism)--_croquant_ chocolate comfits, and
smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along
the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in an
elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, and
distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the 'voiture' I
had given Celine. She was returning: of course my heart thumped with
impatience against the iron rails I leant upon. The carriage stopped, as
I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that is the very word for an
opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a cloak--an unnecessary
encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June evening--I knew her instantly
by her little foot, seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she
skipped from the carriage-step. Bending over the balcony, I was about to
murmur 'Mon ange'--in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the
ear of love alone--when a figure jumped from the carriage after her;
cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement,
and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched _porte
cochere_ of the hotel.

"You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not
ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to
experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall
waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in
which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes
and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the
bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell
you--and you may mark my words--you will come some day to a craggy pass
in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into
whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on
crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer
current--as I am now.

"I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and
stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield, its
antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its grey
facade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet
how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like a great
plague-house? How I do still abhor--"

He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck his
boot against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to have him in
its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance.

We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before us.
Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a glare such as I
never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire, impatience, disgust,
detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the large
pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which should
be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed: something hard and
cynical: self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and petrified
his countenance: he went on--

"During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with
my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk--a hag like one of
those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. 'You like
Thornfield? ' she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the air
a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the house-front,
between the upper and lower row of windows, 'Like it if you can! Like it
if you dare! '

"'I will like it,' said I; 'I dare like it;' and" (he subjoined moodily)
"I will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness, to
goodness--yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been,
than I am; as Job's leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the
habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will esteem
but straw and rotten wood. "

Adele here ran before him with her shuttlecock. "Away! " he cried
harshly; "keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie! " Continuing
then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the point
whence he had abruptly diverged--

"Did you leave the balcony, sir," I asked, "when Mdlle. Varens entered? "

I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question, but, on
the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes
towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. "Oh, I had
forgotten Celine! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in
accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake
of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, glided
within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart's core.
Strange! " he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the point. "Strange
that I should choose you for the confidant of all this, young lady;
passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if it were the
most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of his
opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you! But the last
singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before: you, with
your gravity, considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient
of secrets. Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in
communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection:
it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm
it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I
converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me. "
After this digression he proceeded--

"I remained in the balcony. 'They will come to her boudoir, no doubt,'
thought I: 'let me prepare an ambush. ' So putting my hand in through the
open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening through
which I could take observations; then I closed the casement, all but a
chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to lovers' whispered vows:
then I stole back to my chair; and as I resumed it the pair came in. My
eye was quickly at the aperture. Celine's chamber-maid entered, lit a
lamp, left it on the table, and withdrew. The couple were thus revealed
to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there was 'the Varens,'
shining in satin and jewels,--my gifts of course,--and there was her
companion in an officer's uniform; and I knew him for a young roue of a
vicomte--a brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in
society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him so
absolutely. On recognising him, the fang of the snake Jealousy was
instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for Celine sank
under an extinguisher. A woman who could betray me for such a rival was
not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, however, than I,
who had been her dupe.

"They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous,
mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary
than enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on the table; this being
perceived, brought my name under discussion. Neither of them possessed
energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but they insulted me as coarsely as
they could in their little way: especially Celine, who even waxed rather
brilliant on my personal defects--deformities she termed them. Now it
had been her custom to launch out into fervent admiration of what she
called my '_beaute male_:' wherein she differed diametrically from you,
who told me point-blank, at the second interview, that you did not think
me handsome. The contrast struck me at the time and--"

Adele here came running up again.

"Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and
wishes to see you. "

"Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in upon
them; liberated Celine from my protection; gave her notice to vacate her
hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded screams,
hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an appointment with
the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de Boulogne. Next morning I had
the pleasure of encountering him; left a bullet in one of his poor
etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a chicken in the pip, and then
thought I had done with the whole crew. But unluckily the Varens, six
months before, had given me this filette Adele, who, she affirmed, was my
daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim
paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more like me than she.
Some years after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her child,
and ran away to Italy with a musician or singer. I acknowledged no
natural claim on Adele's part to be supported by me, nor do I now
acknowledge any, for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite
destitute, I e'en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris,
and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an
English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but now you
know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French opera-girl, you
will perhaps think differently of your post and protegee: you will be
coming to me some day with notice that you have found another place--that
you beg me to look out for a new governess, &c. --Eh? "

"No: Adele is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours: I
have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense,
parentless--forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir--I shall
cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoilt
pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a
lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend? "

"Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; and
you too: it darkens. "

But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adele and Pilot--ran a race
with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When we went
in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept
her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking
even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to
stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a superficiality of
character, inherited probably from her mother, hardly congenial to an
English mind. Still she had her merits; and I was disposed to appreciate
all that was good in her to the utmost. I sought in her countenance and
features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none: no trait, no turn
of expression announced relationship. It was a pity: if she could but
have been proved to resemble him, he would have thought more of her.

It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the night,
that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me. As he had
said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of
the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman's passion for a French dancer,
and her treachery to him, were every-day matters enough, no doubt, in
society; but there was something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of
emotion which had suddenly seized him when he was in the act of
expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his newly revived
pleasure in the old hall and its environs. I meditated wonderingly on
this incident; but gradually quitting it, as I found it for the present
inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my master's manner to
myself. The confidence he had thought fit to repose in me seemed a
tribute to my discretion: I regarded and accepted it as such. His
deportment had now for some weeks been more uniform towards me than at
the first. I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits of chilling
hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly, the encounter seemed welcome; he
had always a word and sometimes a smile for me: when summoned by formal
invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a cordiality of reception
that made me feel I really possessed the power to amuse him, and that
these evening conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as for my
benefit.

I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with relish.
It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a mind
unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do not
mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their
interest from the great scale on which they were acted, the strange
novelty by which they were characterised); and I had a keen delight in
receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he
portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he
disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion.

The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly
frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to
him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master:
yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it
was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest
added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred: my thin
crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled
up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength.

And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and
many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I
best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the
brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could not,
for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud, sardonic, harsh
to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his
great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others. He
was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once, when sent for to read
to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with his head bent on his
folded arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl
blackened his features. But I believed that his moodiness, his
harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say _former_, for now he
seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate. I
believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles,
and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education
instilled, or destiny encouraged. I thought there were excellent
materials in him; though for the present they hung together somewhat
spoiled and tangled. I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief,
whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it.

Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I could
not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, and told
how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be happy at
Thornfield.

"Why not? " I asked myself. "What alienates him from the house? Will he
leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer than
a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight weeks. If he
does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent spring,
summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem! "

I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any rate,
I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious,
which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had kept my candle
burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were depressed. I rose
and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was hushed.

I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward
tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two.
Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had swept
the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery outside. I said, "Who
is there? " Nothing answered. I was chilled with fear.

All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the kitchen-
door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up to the
threshold of Mr. Rochester's chamber: I had seen him lying there myself
in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down. Silence
composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again through
the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it was not
fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely approached my
ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a marrow-freezing incident
enough.

This was a demoniac laugh--low, suppressed, and deep--uttered, as it
seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was
near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my
bedside--or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked round, and
could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural sound was
reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My first impulse
was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry out, "Who is
there? "

Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery
towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut
in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was still.

"Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil? " thought I.
Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs. Fairfax. I
hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the door
with a trembling hand. There was a candle burning just outside, and on
the matting in the gallery. I was surprised at this circumstance: but
still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with
smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and left, to find whence
these blue wreaths issued, I became further aware of a strong smell of
burning.

Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr. Rochester's,
and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no more of Mrs.
Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the laugh: in an instant, I
was within the chamber. Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the
curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr. Rochester
lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep.

"Wake! wake! " I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the
smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the very sheets
were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide
and the other deep, and both were filled with water. I heaved them up,
deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my
own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God's aid, succeeded in
extinguishing the flames which were devouring it.

The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I flung
from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of the
shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last.
Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him
fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of
water.

"Is there a flood? " he cried.

"No, sir," I answered; "but there has been a fire: get up, do; you are
quenched now; I will fetch you a candle. "

"In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre? " he
demanded. "What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the
room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me? "

"I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven's name, get up. Somebody
has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and what it is. "

"There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait two
minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be--yes, here
is my dressing-gown. Now run! "

I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery. He
took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened and
scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water.

"What is it? and who did it? " he asked. I briefly related to him what
had transpired: the strange laugh I had heard in the gallery: the step
ascending to the third storey; the smoke,--the smell of fire which had
conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters there, and
how I had deluged him with all the water I could lay hands on.

{"What is it and who did it? " he asked: p140. jpg}

He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more concern
than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had concluded.

"Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax? " I asked.

"Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What can she
do? Let her sleep unmolested. "

"Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife. "

"Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not warm
enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and sit down in
the arm-chair: there,--I will put it on. Now place your feet on the
stool, to keep them out of the wet. I am going to leave you a few
minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you are till I return;
be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the second storey. Don't
move, remember, or call any one. "

He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very
softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible,
shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left in total
darkness.
I listened for some noise, but heard nothing. A very long
time elapsed. I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of the cloak; and then
I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to rouse the house. I was
on the point of risking Mr. Rochester's displeasure by disobeying his
orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery wall, and I
heard his unshod feet tread the matting. "I hope it is he," thought I,
"and not something worse. "

He re-entered, pale and very gloomy. "I have found it all out," said he,
setting his candle down on the washstand; "it is as I thought. "

"How, sir? "

He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the ground.
At the end of a few minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar tone--

"I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your chamber
door. "

"No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground. "

"But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I should
think, or something like it? "

"Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,--she
laughs in that way. She is a singular person. "

"Just so. Grace Poole--you have guessed it. She is, as you say,
singular--very. Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am
glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the
precise details of to-night's incident. You are no talking fool: say
nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs" (pointing to
the bed): "and now return to your own room. I shall do very well on the
sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It is near four:--in two
hours the servants will be up. "

"Good-night, then, sir," said I, departing.

He seemed surprised--very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to
go.

"What! " he exclaimed, "are you quitting me already, and in that way? "

"You said I might go, sir. "

"But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of
acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion.
Why, you have saved my life! --snatched me from a horrible and
excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual strangers!
At least shake hands. "

He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, them in
both his own.

"You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a
debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been
tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation: but
you: it is different;--I feel your benefits no burden, Jane. "

He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,--but
his voice was checked.

"Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation,
in the case. "

"I knew," he continued, "you would do me good in some way, at some
time;--I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression
and smile did not"--(again he stopped)--"did not" (he proceeded hastily)
"strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of
natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth
in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, goodnight! "

Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.

"I am glad I happened to be awake," I said: and then I was going.

"What! you _will_ go? "

"I am cold, sir. "

"Cold? Yes,--and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go! " But he still
retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of an
expedient.

"I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir," said I.

"Well, leave me:" he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone.

I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I
was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled
under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a
shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale,
wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but I
could not reach it, even in fancy--a counteracting breeze blew off land,
and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium: judgment
would warn passion. Too feverish to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned.




CHAPTER XVI


I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed
this sleepless night: I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to
meet his eye. During the early part of the morning, I momentarily
expected his coming; he was not in the frequent habit of entering the
schoolroom, but he did step in for a few minutes sometimes, and I had the
impression that he was sure to visit it that day.

But the morning passed just as usual: nothing happened to interrupt the
quiet course of Adele's studies; only soon after breakfast, I heard some
bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester's chamber, Mrs. Fairfax's
voice, and Leah's, and the cook's--that is, John's wife--and even John's
own gruff tones. There were exclamations of "What a mercy master was not
burnt in his bed! " "It is always dangerous to keep a candle lit at
night. " "How providential that he had presence of mind to think of the
water-jug! " "I wonder he waked nobody! " "It is to be hoped he will not
take cold with sleeping on the library sofa," &c.

To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to
rights; and when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I saw
through the open door that all was again restored to complete order; only
the bed was stripped of its hangings. Leah stood up in the window-seat,
rubbing the panes of glass dimmed with smoke. I was about to address
her, for I wished to know what account had been given of the affair: but,
on advancing, I saw a second person in the chamber--a woman sitting on a
chair by the bedside, and sewing rings to new curtains. That woman was
no other than Grace Poole.

There she sat, staid and taciturn-looking, as usual, in her brown stuff
gown, her check apron, white handkerchief, and cap. She was intent on
her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on her hard
forehead, and in her commonplace features, was nothing either of the
paleness or desperation one would have expected to see marking the
countenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose intended
victim had followed her last night to her lair, and (as I believed),
charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate. I was
amazed--confounded. She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no start,
no increase or failure of colour betrayed emotion, consciousness of
guilt, or fear of detection. She said "Good morning, Miss," in her usual
phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking up another ring and more tape,
went on with her sewing.

"I will put her to some test," thought I: "such absolute impenetrability
is past comprehension. "

"Good morning, Grace," I said. "Has anything happened here? I thought I
heard the servants all talking together a while ago. "

"Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep with
his candle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately, he awoke
before the bed-clothes or the wood-work caught, and contrived to quench
the flames with the water in the ewer. "

"A strange affair! " I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her
fixedly--"Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move? "

She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of
consciousness in their expression. She seemed to examine me warily; then
she answered--

"The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be likely
to hear. Mrs. Fairfax's room and yours are the nearest to master's; but
Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get elderly, they often
sleep heavy. " She paused, and then added, with a sort of assumed
indifference, but still in a marked and significant tone--"But you are
young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper: perhaps you may have heard
a noise? "

"I did," said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still polishing
the panes, could not hear me, "and at first I thought it was Pilot: but
Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a strange one. "

She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her
needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect composure--

"It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he
was in such danger: You must have been dreaming. "

"I was not dreaming," I said, with some warmth, for her brazen coolness
provoked me. Again she looked at me; and with the same scrutinising and
conscious eye.

"Have you told master that you heard a laugh? " she inquired.

"I have not had the opportunity of speaking to him this morning. "

"You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the
gallery? " she further asked.

She appeared to be cross-questioning me, attempting to draw from me
information unawares. The idea struck me that if she discovered I knew
or suspected her guilt, she would be playing of some of her malignant
pranks on me; I thought it advisable to be on my guard.

"On the contrary," said I, "I bolted my door. "

"Then you are not in the habit of bolting your door every night before
you get into bed? "

"Fiend! she wants to know my habits, that she may lay her plans
accordingly! " Indignation again prevailed over prudence: I replied
sharply, "Hitherto I have often omitted to fasten the bolt: I did not
think it necessary. I was not aware any danger or annoyance was to be
dreaded at Thornfield Hall: but in future" (and I laid marked stress on
the words) "I shall take good care to make all secure before I venture to
lie down. "

"It will be wise so to do," was her answer: "this neighbourhood is as
quiet as any I know, and I never heard of the hall being attempted by
robbers since it was a house; though there are hundreds of pounds' worth
of plate in the plate-closet, as is well known. And you see, for such a
large house, there are very few servants, because master has never lived
here much; and when he does come, being a bachelor, he needs little
waiting on: but I always think it best to err on the safe side; a door is
soon fastened, and it is as well to have a drawn bolt between one and any
mischief that may be about. A deal of people, Miss, are for trusting all
to Providence; but I say Providence will not dispense with the means,
though He often blesses them when they are used discreetly. " And here
she closed her harangue: a long one for her, and uttered with the
demureness of a Quakeress.

I still stood absolutely dumfoundered at what appeared to me her
miraculous self-possession and most inscrutable hypocrisy, when the cook
entered.

"Mrs. Poole," said she, addressing Grace, "the servants' dinner will soon
be ready: will you come down? "

"No; just put my pint of porter and bit of pudding on a tray, and I'll
carry it upstairs. "

"You'll have some meat? "

"Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that's all. "

"And the sago? "

"Never mind it at present: I shall be coming down before teatime: I'll
make it myself. "

The cook here turned to me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for me:
so I departed.

I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax's account of the curtain conflagration during
dinner, so much was I occupied in puzzling my brains over the enigmatical
character of Grace Poole, and still more in pondering the problem of her
position at Thornfield and questioning why she had not been given into
custody that morning, or, at the very least, dismissed from her master's
service. He had almost as much as declared his conviction of her
criminality last night: what mysterious cause withheld him from accusing
her? Why had he enjoined me, too, to secrecy? It was strange: a bold,
vindictive, and haughty gentleman seemed somehow in the power of one of
the meanest of his dependants; so much in her power, that even when she
lifted her hand against his life, he dared not openly charge her with the
attempt, much less punish her for it.

Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to think
that tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr. Rochester in
her behalf; but, hard-favoured and matronly as she was, the idea could
not be admitted. "Yet," I reflected, "she has been young once; her youth
would be contemporary with her master's: Mrs. Fairfax told me once, she
had lived here many years. I don't think she can ever have been pretty;
but, for aught I know, she may possess originality and strength of
character to compensate for the want of personal advantages. Mr.
Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric: Grace is eccentric
at least. What if a former caprice (a freak very possible to a nature so
sudden and headstrong as his) has delivered him into her power, and she
now exercises over his actions a secret influence, the result of his own
indiscretion, which he cannot shake off, and dare not disregard? " But,
having reached this point of conjecture, Mrs. Poole's square, flat
figure, and uncomely, dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my
mind's eye, that I thought, "No; impossible! my supposition cannot be
correct. Yet," suggested the secret voice which talks to us in our own
hearts, "you are not beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves
you: at any rate, you have often felt as if he did; and last
night--remember his words; remember his look; remember his voice! "

I well remembered all; language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment
vividly renewed. I was now in the schoolroom; Adele was drawing; I bent
over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start.

"Qu' avez-vous, mademoiselle? " said she. "Vos doigts tremblent comme la
feuille, et vos joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des cerises! "

"I am hot, Adele, with stooping! " She went on sketching; I went on
thinking.

I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been conceiving
respecting Grace Poole; it disgusted me. I compared myself with her, and
found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was quite a lady; and
she spoke truth--I was a lady. And now I looked much better than I did
when Bessie saw me; I had more colour and more flesh, more life, more
vivacity, because I had brighter hopes and keener enjoyments.

"Evening approaches," said I, as I looked towards the window. "I have
never heard Mr. Rochester's voice or step in the house to-day; but surely
I shall see him before night: I feared the meeting in the morning; now I
desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown
impatient. "

When dusk actually closed, and when Adele left me to go and play in the
nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for the
bell to ring below; I listened for Leah coming up with a message; I
fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester's own tread, and I turned to the
door, expecting it to open and admit him. The door remained shut;
darkness only came in through the window. Still it was not late; he
often sent for me at seven and eight o'clock, and it was yet but six.
Surely I should not be wholly disappointed to-night, when I had so many
things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace
Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if
he really believed it was she who had made last night's hideous attempt;
and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret. It little mattered
whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of vexing and
soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure
instinct always prevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of
provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my
skill. Retaining every minute form of respect, every propriety of my
station, I could still meet him in argument without fear or uneasy
restraint; this suited both him and me.

A tread creaked on the stairs at last. Leah made her appearance; but it
was only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax's room. Thither
I repaired, glad at least to go downstairs; for that brought me, I
imagined, nearer to Mr. Rochester's presence.

"You must want your tea," said the good lady, as I joined her; "you ate
so little at dinner. I am afraid," she continued, "you are not well to-
day: you look flushed and feverish. "

"Oh, quite well! I never felt better. "

"Then you must prove it by evincing a good appetite; will you fill the
teapot while I knit off this needle? " Having completed her task, she
rose to draw down the blind, which she had hitherto kept up, by way, I
suppose, of making the most of daylight, though dusk was now fast
deepening into total obscurity.

"It is fair to-night," said she, as she looked through the panes, "though
not starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a favourable day for
his journey. "

"Journey! --Is Mr. Rochester gone anywhere? I did not know he was out. "

"Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted! He is gone to the Leas,
Mr. Eshton's place, ten miles on the other side Millcote. I believe
there is quite a party assembled there; Lord Ingram, Sir George Lynn,
Colonel Dent, and others. "

"Do you expect him back to-night? "

"No--nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a
week or more: when these fine, fashionable people get together, they are
so surrounded by elegance and gaiety, so well provided with all that can
please and entertain, they are in no hurry to separate. Gentlemen
especially are often in request on such occasions; and Mr. Rochester is
so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he is a general
favourite: the ladies are very fond of him; though you would not think
his appearance calculated to recommend him particularly in their eyes:
but I suppose his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his wealth and good
blood, make amends for any little fault of look. "

"Are there ladies at the Leas? "

"There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters--very elegant young ladies
indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanche and Mary Ingram, most
beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanche, six or seven
years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a
Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave.