Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (49 page)

“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 wäge 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.”

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?”