Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (41 page)

“No, sir.”  It struck twelve — I waited till the time-piece had concluded its silver chime, and the clock its hoarse, vibrating stroke, and then I proceeded.

“All day yesterday I was very busy, and very happy in my ceaseless bustle; for I am not, as you seem to think, troubled by any haunting fears about the new sphere, et cetera: I think it a glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, because I love you.  No, sir, don’t caress me now — let me talk undisturbed.  Yesterday I trusted well in Providence, and believed that events were working together for your good and mine: it was a fine day, if you recollect — the calmness of the air and sky forbade apprehensions respecting your safety or comfort on your journey.  I walked a little while on the pavement after tea, thinking of you; and I beheld you in imagination so near me, I scarcely missed your actual presence.  I thought of the life that lay before me —
your
life, sir — an existence more expansive and stirring than my own: as much more so as the depths of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows of its own strait channel.  I wondered why moralists call this world a dreary wilderness: for me it blossomed like a rose.  Just at sunset, the air turned cold and the sky cloudy: I went in, Sophie called me upstairs to look at my wedding-dress, which they had just brought; and under it in the box I found your present — the veil which, in your princely extravagance, you sent for from London: resolved, I suppose, since I would not have jewels, to cheat me into accepting something as costly.  I smiled as I unfolded it, and devised how I would tease you about your aristocratic tastes, and your efforts to masque your plebeian bride in the attributes of a peeress.  I thought how I would carry down to you the square of unembroidered blond I had myself prepared as a covering for my low-born head, and ask if that was not good enough for a woman who could bring her husband neither fortune, beauty, nor connections.  I saw plainly how you would look; and heard your impetuous republican answers, and your haughty disavowal of any necessity on your part to augment your wealth, or elevate your standing, by marrying either a purse or a coronet.”

“How well you read me, you witch!” interposed Mr. Rochester: “but what did you find in the veil besides its embroidery?  Did you find poison, or a dagger, that you look so mournful now?”

“No, no, sir; besides the delicacy and richness of the fabric, I found nothing save Fairfax Rochester’s pride; and that did not scare me, because I am used to the sight of the demon.  But, sir, as it grew dark, the wind rose: it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows now — wild and high — but ‘with a sullen, moaning sound’ far more eerie.  I wished you were at home.  I came into this room, and the sight of the empty chair and fireless hearth chilled me.  For some time after I went to bed, I could not sleep — a sense of anxious excitement distressed me.  The gale still rising, seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful under-sound; whether in the house or abroad I could not at first tell, but it recurred, doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made out it must be some dog howling at a distance.  I was glad when it ceased.  On sleeping, I continued in dreams the idea of a dark and gusty night.  I continued also the wish to be with you, and experienced a strange, regretful consciousness of some barrier dividing us.  During all my first sleep, I was following the windings of an unknown road; total obscurity environed me; rain pelted me; I was burdened with the charge of a little child: a very small creature, too young and feeble to walk, and which shivered in my cold arms, and wailed piteously in my ear.  I thought, sir, that you were on the road a long way before me; and I strained every nerve to overtake you, and made effort on effort to utter your name and entreat you to stop — but my movements were fettered, and my voice still died away inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew farther and farther every moment.”

“And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am close to you?  Little nervous subject!  Forget visionary woe, and think only of real happiness!  You say you love me, Janet: yes — I will not forget that; and you cannot deny it. 
Those
words did not die inarticulate on your lips.  I heard them clear and soft: a thought too solemn perhaps, but sweet as music — ‘I think it is a glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, Edward, because I love you.’  Do you love me, Jane? — repeat it.”

“I do, sir — I do, with my whole heart.”

“Well,” he said, after some minutes’ silence, “it is strange; but that sentence has penetrated my breast painfully.  Why?  I think because you said it with such an earnest, religious energy, and because your upward gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and devotion: it is too much as if some spirit were near me.  Look wicked, Jane: as you know well how to look: coin one of your wild, shy, provoking smiles; tell me you hate me — tease me, vex me; do anything but move me: I would rather be incensed than saddened.”

“I will tease you and vex you to your heart’s content, when I have finished my tale: but hear me to the end.”

“I thought, Jane, you had told me all.  I thought I had found the source of your melancholy in a dream.”

I shook my head.  “What! is there more?  But I will not believe it to be anything important.  I warn you of incredulity beforehand.  Go on.”

The disquietude of his air, the somewhat apprehensive impatience of his manner, surprised me: but I proceeded.

“I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, the retreat of bats and owls.  I thought that of all the stately front nothing remained but a shell-like wall, very high and very fragile-looking.  I wandered, on a moonlight night, through the grass-grown enclosure within: here I stumbled over a marble hearth, and there over a fallen fragment of cornice.  Wrapped up in a shawl, I still carried the unknown little child: I might not lay it down anywhere, however tired were my arms — however much its weight impeded my progress, I must retain it.  I heard the gallop of a horse at a distance on the road; I was sure it was you; and you were departing for many years and for a distant country.  I climbed the thin wall with frantic perilous haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top: the stones rolled from under my feet, the ivy branches I grasped gave way, the child clung round my neck in terror, and almost strangled me; at last I gained the summit.  I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening every moment.  The blast blew so strong I could not stand.  I sat down on the narrow ledge; I hushed the scared infant in my lap: you turned an angle of the road: I bent forward to take a last look; the wall crumbled; I was shaken; the child rolled from my knee, I lost my balance, fell, and woke.”

“Now, Jane, that is all.”

“All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come.  On waking, a gleam dazzled my eyes; I thought — Oh, it is daylight!  But I was mistaken; it was only candlelight.  Sophie, I supposed, had come in.  There was a light in the dressing-table, and the door of the closet, where, before going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open; I heard a rustling there.  I asked, ‘Sophie, what are you doing?’  No one answered; but a form emerged from the closet; it took the light, held it aloft, and surveyed the garments pendent from the portmanteau.  ‘Sophie!  Sophie!’  I again cried: and still it was silent.  I had risen up in bed, I bent forward: first surprise, then bewilderment, came over me; and then my blood crept cold through my veins.  Mr. Rochester, this was not Sophie, it was not Leah, it was not Mrs. Fairfax: it was not — no, I was sure of it, and am still — it was not even that strange woman, Grace Poole.”

“It must have been one of them,” interrupted my master.

“No, sir, I solemnly assure you to the contrary.  The shape standing before me had never crossed my eyes within the precincts of Thornfield Hall before; the height, the contour were new to me.”

“Describe it, Jane.”

“It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back.  I know not what dress she had on: it was white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell.”

“Did you see her face?”

“Not at first.  But presently she took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and turned to the mirror.  At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass.”

“And how were they?”

“Fearful and ghastly to me — oh, sir, I never saw a face like it!  It was a discoloured face — it was a savage face.  I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!”

“Ghosts are usually pale, Jane.”

“This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes.  Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?”

“You may.”

“Of the foul German spectre — the Vampyre.”

“Ah! — what did it do?”

“Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them.”

“Afterwards?”

“It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw dawn approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door.  Just at my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon me — she thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my eyes.  I was aware her lurid visage flamed over mine, and I lost consciousness: for the second time in my life — only the second time — I became insensible from terror.”

“Who was with you when you revived?”

“No one, sir, but the broad day.  I rose, bathed my head and face in water, drank a long draught; felt that though enfeebled I was not ill, and determined that to none but you would I impart this vision.  Now, sir, tell me who and what that woman was?”

“The creature of an over-stimulated brain; that is certain.  I must be careful of you, my treasure: nerves like yours were not made for rough handling.”

“Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in fault; the thing was real: the transaction actually took place.”

“And your previous dreams, were they real too?  Is Thornfield Hall a ruin?  Am I severed from you by insuperable obstacles?  Am I leaving you without a tear — without a kiss — without a word?”

“Not yet.”

“Am I about to do it?  Why, the day is already commenced which is to bind us indissolubly; and when we are once united, there shall be no recurrence of these mental terrors: I guarantee that.”

“Mental terrors, sir!  I wish I could believe them to be only such: I wish it more now than ever; since even you cannot explain to me the mystery of that awful visitant.”

“And since I cannot do it, Jane, it must have been unreal.”

“But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and when I looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the cheerful aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there — on the carpet — I saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis, — the veil, torn from top to bottom in two halves!”

I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder; he hastily flung his arms round me.  “Thank God!” he exclaimed, “that if anything malignant did come near you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed.  Oh, to think what might have happened!”

He drew his breath short, and strained me so close to him, I could scarcely pant.  After some minutes’ silence, he continued, cheerily —

“Now, Janet, I’ll explain to you all about it.  It was half dream, half reality.  A woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that woman was — must have been — Grace Poole.  You call her a strange being yourself: from all you know, you have reason so to call her — what did she do to me? what to Mason?  In a state between sleeping and waking, you noticed her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious as you were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own: the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black face, the exaggerated stature, were figments of imagination; results of nightmare: the spiteful tearing of the veil was real: and it is like her.  I see you would ask why I keep such a woman in my house: when we have been married a year and a day, I will tell you; but not now.  Are you satisfied, Jane?  Do you accept my solution of the mystery?”