Jane Eyre (25 page)

“Evening approaches,” said I, as I looked towards the window. “I have never heard Mr Rochester’s voice or step in the house today, 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 Adèle 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 tonight, 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.

 I considered ways to mention the book I had heisted. What form of conversation would ensue from that? And would he ever—for my boldness that I would protest had indeed been an accident—take me in his arms to punish my transgression?

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 today, 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 tonight,” 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 tonight?”

“No—nor tomorrow 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.”

I valiantly pushed away my devastation. “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. You should have seen the dining room that day—how richly it was decorated, how brilliantly lit up! I should think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen present—all of the first county families and Miss Ingram was considered the belle of the evening.”

Was she the reason he had been looking at the book? Did he yearn to do those terrible things to Miss Ingram? “You saw her, you say, Mrs Fairfax, what was she like?”

“Yes, I saw her. The dining room doors were thrown open and, as it was Christmas-time, the servants were allowed to assemble in the hall, to hear some of the ladies sing and play. Mr Rochester would have me to come in, and I sat down in a quiet corner and watched them. I never saw a more splendid scene. The ladies were magnificently dressed—most of them—at least most of the younger ones—looked handsome, but Miss Ingram was certainly the queen.”

“And what was she like?”

“Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders, long, graceful neck, olive complexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr Rochester’s, large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then she had such a fine head of hair; raven-black and so becomingly arranged, a crown of thick plaits behind, and in front the longest, the glossiest curls I ever saw. She was dressed in pure white; an amber-coloured scarf was passed over her shoulder and across her breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below her knee. She wore an amber-coloured flower, too, in her hair, it contrasted well with the jetty mass of her curls.”

“She was greatly admired, of course?”

“Yes, indeed, and not only for her beauty, but for her accomplishments. She was one of the ladies who sang, a gentleman accompanied her on the piano. She and Mr Rochester sang a duet.”

“Mr Rochester? I was not aware he could sing.”

“Oh! He has a fine bass voice, and an excellent taste for music.”

“And Miss Ingram, what sort of a voice had she?”

“A very rich and powerful one, she sang delightfully. It was a treat to listen to her—and she played afterwards. I am no judge of music, but Mr Rochester is and I heard him say her execution was remarkably good.”

“And this beautiful and accomplished lady, she is not yet married?”

“It appears not, I fancy neither she nor her sister have very large fortunes. Old Lord Ingram’s estates were chiefly entailed, and the eldest son came in foreverything almost.”

“But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to her, Mr Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he not?”

“Oh! yes. But you see there is a considerable difference in age, Mr Rochester is nearly forty; she is but twenty-five.”

“What of that? More unequal matches are made every day.”

“True, yet I should scarcely fancy Mr Rochester would entertain an idea of the sort. But you eat nothing, you have scarcely tasted since you began tea.”

“No, I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let me have another cup?”

I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between Mr Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but Adèle came in, and the conversation was turned into another channel.

When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured to bring back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination’s boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense.

Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night—of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal;—I pronounced judgement to this effect.

That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.

“
You
,” I said, “a favourite with Mr Rochester?
You
gifted with the power of pleasing him?
You
of importance to him in any way? Go! Your folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens of preference—equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man of the world to a dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid dupe!—Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to yourself this morning the brief scene of last night?—Cover your face and be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it and, if discovered and responded to, must lead,
ignis-fatus
-like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication.

“Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence, tomorrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write under it, ‘Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain.’

“Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory—you have one prepared in your drawing-box. Take your palette, mix your freshest, finest, clearest tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate carefully the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in your softest shades and sweetest lines, according to the description given by Mrs Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental eye;—What! You revert to Mr Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel!—no sentiment!—no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution. Recall the august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and bust. Let the round and dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand. Omit neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire, aërial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call it ‘Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank.’

“Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them, say, ‘Mr Rochester might probably win that noble lady’s love, if he chose to strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this indigent and insignificant plebeian?’”

“I’ll do it,” I resolved, and having framed this determination, I grew calm, and fell asleep.

I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in crayons and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face enough, and when compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast was as great as self-control could desire. I derived benefit from the task, it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given force and fixedness to the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my heart.

 I took up my pencils again; it seemed my hand moved of its own will, unfettered by my determinations. I sketched Mr Rochester as well, from the waist up, as I remembered him from that night. The sable waves of his hair were more unruly than during the day. I slavishly worked on his stern features, his heavy brows, and those dark, dark eyes that seemed to see so much of me, even into the depths of my very soul, as if he read the unrequited longing there.

 Such ramblings of my imaginings! Mr Rochester had expressed his gratitude—to me it seemed most effusive—but perhaps no more so than he would to anyone who had boldly awakened him and doused the flames; only the feverish ramblings of a romantic mind—run wild from looking at explicit sketches—would make it something more. The master had grasped my hand and held it between his. How foolish to conjecture that it meant anything more, indeed, it had not. All the while, and unbeknownst to me, a simple servant, he’d been preparing to meet with Blanche Ingram.

 I tore the page into shreds, then I stood and tossed those tiny pieces, relinquishing them to the past as I did my ridiculous pinings.

Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of wholesome discipline to which I had thus forced my wayward feelings for him to submit. Thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a decent calm, which, had they found me unprepared, I should probably have been unequal to maintain, even externally.

Chapter Seventeen

A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr Rochester, ten days, and still he did not come. Mrs Fairfax said she should not be surprised if he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the Continent, and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to come; he had not unfrequently quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt and unexpected. When I heard this, I was beginning to feel a strange chill and failing at the heart. I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder—how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr Rochester’s movements a matter in which I had any cause to take a vital interest.

Not that I humbled myself by a slavish notion of inferiority, on the contrary, I just said, “You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protégée, and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him; so don’t make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not of your order. Keep to your caste, and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised.”

I went on with my day’s business tranquilly; but ever and anon vague suggestions kept wandering across my brain of reasons why I should quit Thornfield and I kept involuntarily framing advertisements and pondering conjectures about new situations, these thoughts I did not think to check; they might germinate and bear fruit if they could. Each night, I thought of him as I scanned the book I had secreted. Each night, I learnt more of my own body; each night, I imagined my touch was his.