Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (40 page)

“Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as he had: but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a suttee.”

“Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a reconciling kiss?”

“No: I would rather be excused.”

Here I heard myself apostrophised as a “hard little thing;” and it was added, “any other woman would have been melted to marrow at hearing such stanzas crooned in her praise.”

I assured him I was naturally hard — very flinty, and that he would often find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show him divers rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks elapsed: he should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made, while there was yet time to rescind it.

“Would I be quiet and talk rationally?”

“I would be quiet if he liked, and as to talking rationally, I flattered myself I was doing that now.”

He fretted, pished, and pshawed.  “Very good,” I thought; “you may fume and fidget as you please: but this is the best plan to pursue with you, I am certain.  I like you more than I can say; but I’ll not sink into a bathos of sentiment: and with this needle of repartee I’ll keep you from the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover, maintain by its pungent aid that distance between you and myself most conducive to our real mutual advantage.”

From less to more, I worked him up to considerable irritation; then, after he had retired, in dudgeon, quite to the other end of the room, I got up, and saying, “I wish you good-night, sir,” in my natural and wonted respectful manner, I slipped out by the side-door and got away.

The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of probation; and with the best success.  He was kept, to be sure, rather cross and crusty; but on the whole I could see he was excellently entertained, and that a lamb-like submission and turtle-dove sensibility, while fostering his despotism more, would have pleased his judgment, satisfied his common-sense, and even suited his taste less.

In other people’s presence I was, as formerly, deferential and quiet; any other line of conduct being uncalled for: it was only in the evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him.  He continued to send for me punctually the moment the clock struck seven; though when I appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as “love” and “darling” on his lips: the best words at my service were “provoking puppet,” “malicious elf,” “sprite,” “changeling,” &c.  For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a pinch on the arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the ear.  It was all right: at present I decidedly preferred these fierce favours to anything more tender.  Mrs. Fairfax, I saw, approved me: her anxiety on my account vanished; therefore I was certain I did well.  Meantime, Mr. Rochester affirmed I was wearing him to skin and bone, and threatened awful vengeance for my present conduct at some period fast coming.  I laughed in my sleeve at his menaces.  “I can keep you in reasonable check now,” I reflected; “and I don’t doubt to be able to do it hereafter: if one expedient loses its virtue, another must be devised.”

Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather have pleased than teased him.  My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven.  He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun.  I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.

CHAPTER XXV

The month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being numbered.  There was no putting off the day that advanced — the bridal day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. 
I
, at least, had nothing more to do: there were my trunks, packed, locked, corded, ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber; to-morrow, at this time, they would be far on their road to London: and so should I (D.V.), — or rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a person whom as yet I knew not.  The cards of address alone remained to nail on: they lay, four little squares, in the drawer.  Mr. Rochester had himself written the direction, “Mrs. Rochester, — - Hotel, London,” on each: I could not persuade myself to affix them, or to have them affixed.  Mrs. Rochester!  She did not exist: she would not be born till to-morrow, some time after eight o’clock a.m.; and I would wait to be assured she had come into the world alive before I assigned to her all that property.  It was enough that in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the pearl-coloured robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped portmanteau.  I shut the closet to conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained; which, at this evening hour — nine o’clock — gave out certainly a most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment.  “I will leave you by yourself, white dream,” I said.  “I am feverish: I hear the wind blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it.”

It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not only the anticipation of the great change — the new life which was to commence to-morrow: both these circumstances had their share, doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me forth at this late hour into the darkening grounds: but a third cause influenced my mind more than they.

I had at heart a strange and anxious thought.  Something had happened which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen the event but myself: it had taken place the preceding night.  Mr. Rochester that night was absent from home; nor was he yet returned: business had called him to a small estate of two or three farms he possessed thirty miles off — business it was requisite he should settle in person, previous to his meditated departure from England.  I waited now his return; eager to disburthen my mind, and to seek of him the solution of the enigma that perplexed me.  Stay till he comes, reader; and, when I disclose my secret to him, you shall share the confidence.

I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which all day had blown strong and full from the south, without, however, bringing a speck of rain.  Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it seemed to augment its rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew steadfastly one way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back their boughs once in an hour; so continuous was the strain bending their branchy heads northward — the clouds drifted from pole to pole, fast following, mass on mass: no glimpse of blue sky had been visible that July day.

It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering through space.  Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of the chestnut-tree; it stood up black and riven: the trunk, split down the centre, gasped ghastly.  The cloven halves were not broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; though community of vitality was destroyed — the sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter’s tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth: as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree — a ruin, but an entire ruin.

“You did right to hold fast to each other,” I said: as if the monster-splinters were living things, and could hear me.  “I think, scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots: you will never have green leaves more — never more see birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate: each of you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay.”  As I looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud.  The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water, poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again.

Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathered up the apples with which the grass round the tree roots was thickly strewn; then I employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe; I carried them into the house and put them away in the store-room.  Then I repaired to the library to ascertain whether the fire was lit, for, though summer, I knew on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would like to see a cheerful hearth when he came in: yes, the fire had been kindled some time, and burnt well.  I placed his arm-chair by the chimney-corner: I wheeled the table near it: I let down the curtain, and had the candles brought in ready for lighting.  More restless than ever, when I had completed these arrangements I could not sit still, nor even remain in the house: a little time-piece in the room and the old clock in the hall simultaneously struck ten.

“How late it grows!” I said.  “I will run down to the gates: it is moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on the road.  He may be coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense.”

The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the gates; but the road as far as I could see, to the right hand and the left, was all still and solitary: save for the shadows of clouds crossing it at intervals as the moon looked out, it was but a long pale line, unvaried by one moving speck.

A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked — a tear of disappointment and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away.  I lingered; the moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of dense cloud: the night grew dark; rain came driving fast on the gale.

“I wish he would come!  I wish he would come!” I exclaimed, seized with hypochondriac foreboding.  I had expected his arrival before tea; now it was dark: what could keep him?  Had an accident happened?  The event of last night again recurred to me.  I interpreted it as a warning of disaster.  I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised; and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its meridian, and must now decline.

“Well, I cannot return to the house,” I thought; “I cannot sit by the fireside, while he is abroad in inclement weather: better tire my limbs than strain my heart; I will go forward and meet him.”

I set out; I walked fast, but not far: ere I had measured a quarter of a mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs; a horseman came on, full gallop; a dog ran by his side.  Away with evil presentiment!  It was he: here he was, mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot.  He saw me; for the moon had opened a blue field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright: he took his hat off, and waved it round his head.  I now ran to meet him.

“There!” he exclaimed, as he stretched out his hand and bent from the saddle: “You can’t do without me, that is evident.  Step on my boot-toe; give me both hands: mount!”

I obeyed: joy made me agile: I sprang up before him.  A hearty kissing I got for a welcome, and some boastful triumph, which I swallowed as well as I could.  He checked himself in his exultation to demand, “But is there anything the matter, Janet, that you come to meet me at such an hour?  Is there anything wrong?”

“No, but I thought you would never come.  I could not bear to wait in the house for you, especially with this rain and wind.”

“Rain and wind, indeed!  Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid; pull my cloak round you: but I think you are feverish, Jane: both your cheek and hand are burning hot.  I ask again, is there anything the matter?”

“Nothing now; I am neither afraid nor unhappy.”

“Then you have been both?”

“Rather: but I’ll tell you all about it by-and-bye, sir; and I daresay you will only laugh at me for my pains.”

“I’ll laugh at you heartily when to-morrow is past; till then I dare not: my prize is not certain.  This is you, who have been as slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose?  I could not lay a finger anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms.  You wandered out of the fold to seek your shepherd, did you, Jane?”

“I wanted you: but don’t boast.  Here we are at Thornfield: now let me get down.”

He landed me on the pavement.  As John took his horse, and he followed me into the hall, he told me to make haste and put something dry on, and then return to him in the library; and he stopped me, as I made for the staircase, to extort a promise that I would not be long: nor was I long; in five minutes I rejoined him.  I found him at supper.

“Take a seat and bear me company, Jane: please God, it is the last meal but one you will eat at Thornfield Hall for a long time.”

I sat down near him, but told him I could not eat.  “Is it because you have the prospect of a journey before you, Jane?  Is it the thoughts of going to London that takes away your appetite?”

“I cannot see my prospects clearly to-night, sir; and I hardly know what thoughts I have in my head.  Everything in life seems unreal.”

“Except me: I am substantial enough — touch me.”

“You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream.”

He held out his hand, laughing.  “Is that a dream?” said he, placing it close to my eyes.  He had a rounded, muscular, and vigorous hand, as well as a long, strong arm.

“Yes; though I touch it, it is a dream,” said I, as I put it down from before my face.  “Sir, have you finished supper?”

“Yes, Jane.”

I rang the bell and ordered away the tray.  When we were again alone, I stirred the fire, and then took a low seat at my master’s knee.

“It is near midnight,” I said.

“Yes: but remember, Jane, you promised to wake with me the night before my wedding.”

“I did; and I will keep my promise, for an hour or two at least: I have no wish to go to bed.”

“Are all your arrangements complete?”

“All, sir.”

“And on my part likewise,” he returned, “I have settled everything; and we shall leave Thornfield to-morrow, within half-an-hour after our return from church.”

“Very well, sir.”

“With what an extraordinary smile you uttered that word — ‘very well,’ Jane!  What a bright spot of colour you have on each cheek! and how strangely your eyes glitter!  Are you well?”

“I believe I am.”

“Believe!  What is the matter?  Tell me what you feel.”

“I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel.  I wish this present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next may come charged?”

“This is hypochondria, Jane.  You have been over-excited, or over-fatigued.”

“Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?”

“Calm? — no: but happy — to the heart’s core.”

I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was ardent and flushed.

“Give me your confidence, Jane,” he said: “relieve your mind of any weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me.  What do you fear? — that I shall not prove a good husband?”

“It is the idea farthest from my thoughts.”

“Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter? — of the new life into which you are passing?”

“No.”

“You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity perplex and pain me.  I want an explanation.”

“Then, sir, listen.  You were from home last night?”

“I was: I know that; and you hinted a while ago at something which had happened in my absence: — nothing, probably, of consequence; but, in short, it has disturbed you.  Let me hear it.  Mrs. Fairfax has said something, perhaps? or you have overheard the servants talk? — your sensitive self-respect has been wounded?”