Jane Eyre (70 page)

“Oh, I am glad!—I am glad!” I exclaimed.

St. John smiled. “Did I not say you neglected essential points to pursue trifles?” he asked. “You were serious when I told you you had got a fortune and now, for a matter of no moment, you are excited.”

“What can you mean? It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters and don’t care for a cousin, but I had nobody and now three relations—or two, if you don’t choose to be counted—are born into my world full-grown. I say again, I am glad!”

I walked fast through the room. I stopped, half suffocated with the thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle them—thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere long. I looked at the blank wall, it seemed a sky thick with ascending stars—every one lit me to a purpose or delight. Those who had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit. They were under a yoke—I could free them, they were scattered—I could reunite them, the independence, the affluence which was mine, might be theirs too. Were we not four? Twenty thousand pounds shared equally would be five thousand each, justice—enough and to spare, justice would be done—mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did not weigh on me, now it was not a mere bequest of coin—it was a legacy of life, hope, enjoyment.

How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot tell, but I perceived soon that Mr Rivers had placed a chair behind me, and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it. He also advised me to be composed. I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk about again.

“Write to Diana and Mary tomorrow,” I said, “and tell them to come home directly. Diana said they would both consider themselves rich with a thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well.”

“Tell me where I can get you a glass of water,” said St. John, “you must really make an effort to tranquilise your feelings.”

“Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you? Will it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and settle down like an ordinary mortal?”

“You wander, your head becomes confused. I have been too abrupt in communicating the news. It has excited you beyond your strength.”

“Mr Rivers! you quite put me out of patience, I am rational enough. It is you who misunderstand, or rather who affect to misunderstand.”

“Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should comprehend better.”

“Explain! What is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that twenty thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between the nephew and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to each? What I want is, that you should write to your sisters and tell them of the fortune that has accrued to them.”

“To you, you mean.”

“I have intimated my view of the case. I am incapable of taking any other. I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and connections. I like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House. I like Diana and Mary, and I will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary. It would please and benefit me to have five thousand pounds. It would torment and oppress me to have twenty thousand; which, moreover, could never be mine in justice, though it might in law. I abandon to you, then, what is absolutely superfluous to me. Let there be no opposition, and no discussion about it; let us agree amongst each other, and decide the point at once.”

“This is acting on first impulses, you must take days to consider such a matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid.”

“Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy, you see the justice of the case?”

“I
do
see a certain justice, but it is contrary to all custom. Besides, the entire fortune is your right, my uncle gained it by his own efforts, he was free to leave it to whom he would, he left it to you. After all, justice permits you to keep it, you may, with a clear conscience, consider it absolutely your own.”

“With me,” said I, “it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of conscience, I must indulge my feelings. I so seldom have had an opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy me for a year, I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught a glimpse—that of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation, and winning to myself lifelong friends.”

“You think so now,” rejoined St. John, “because you do not know what it is to possess, nor consequently to enjoy wealth, you cannot form a notion of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you; of the place it would enable you to take in society; of the prospects it would open to you, you cannot—”

“And you,” I interrupted, “cannot at all imagine the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers or sisters. I must and will have them now, you are not reluctant to admit me and own me, are you?”

“Jane, I will be your brother—my sisters will be your sisters—without stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights.”

“Brother? Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters? Yes, slaving amongst strangers! I, wealthy—gorged with gold I never earned and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and fraternisation! Close union! Intimate attachment!”

“But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness may be realised otherwise than by the means you contemplate, you may marry.”

“Nonsense, again! Marry! I don’t want to marry, and never shall marry.”

“That is saying too much, such hazardous affirmations are a proof of the excitement under which you labour.”

“It is not saying too much. I know what I feel, and how averse are my inclinations to the bare thought of marriage. No one would take me for love and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money speculation. And I do not want a stranger—unsympathising, alien, different from me. I want my kindred, those with whom I have full fellow-feeling. Say again you will be my brother, when you uttered the words I was satisfied, happy, repeat them, if you can, repeat them sincerely.”

“I think I can. I know I have always loved my own sisters and I know on what my affection for them is grounded—respect for their worth and admiration of their talents. You too have principle and mind, your tastes and habits resemble Diana’s and Mary’s; your presence is always agreeable to me. In your conversation I have already for some time found a salutary solace. I feel I can easily and naturally make room in my heart for you, as my third and youngest sister.”

“Thank you, that contents me for tonight. Now you had better go; for if you stay longer, you will perhaps irritate me afresh by some mistrustful scruple.”

“And the school, Miss Eyre? It must now be shut up, I suppose?”

“No. I will retain my post of mistress till you get a substitute.”

He smiled approbation, we shook hands, and he took leave.

I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and arguments I used, to get matters regarding the legacy settled as I wished. My task was a very hard one, but, as I was absolutely resolved—as my cousins saw at length that my mind was really and immutably fixed on making a just division of the property—as they must in their own hearts have felt the equity of the intention and must, besides, have been innately conscious that in my place they would have done precisely what I wished to do—they yielded at length so far as to consent to put the affair to arbitration. The judges chosen were Mr Oliver and an able lawyer, both coincided in my opinion, I carried my point. The instruments of transfer were drawn out, St. John, Diana, Mary, and I, each became possessed of a competency.

Chapter Thirty-Four

It was near Christmas by the time all was settled, the season of general holiday approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care that the parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully and to give somewhat when we have largely received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt with pleasure that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we parted, that consciousness was confirmed, they manifested their affection plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find I had really a place in their unsophisticated hearts, I promised them that never a week should pass in future that I did not visit them, and give them an hour’s teaching in their school.

Mr Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the key in my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some half-dozen of my best scholars, as decent, respectable, modest, and well-informed young women as could be found in the ranks of the British peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for after all, the British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most self-respecting of any in Europe, since those days I have seen paysannes and Bäuerinnen and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton girls.

“Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?” asked Mr Rivers, when they were gone. “Does not the consciousness of having done some real good in your day and generation give pleasure?”

“Doubtless.”

“And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to the task of regenerating your race be well spent?”

“Yes,” I said, “but I could not go on forever so, I want to enjoy my own faculties as well as to cultivate those of other people. I must enjoy them now; don’t recall either my mind or body to the school. I am out of it and disposed for full holiday.”

He looked grave. “What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince? What are you going to do?”

“To be active, as active as I can. And first I must beg you to set Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you.”

“Do you want her?”

“Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home in a week, and I want to have everything in order against their arrival.”

“I understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion. It is better so, Hannah shall go with you.”

“Tell her to be ready by tomorrow then and here is the schoolroom key, I will give you the key of my cottage in the morning.”

He took it. “You give it up very gleefully,” said he, “I don’t quite understand your light-heartedness, because I cannot tell what employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you are relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in life have you now?”

“My first aim will be to
clean down
—do you comprehend the full force of the expression?—to
clean down
Moor House from chamber to cellar; my next to rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision, afterwards I shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they come.”

St. John smiled slightly, still he was dissatisfied.

“It is all very well for the present,” said he, “but seriously, I trust that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little higher than domestic endearments and household joys.”

“The best things the world has!” I interrupted.

“No, Jane, no, this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt to make it so, nor of rest; do not turn slothful.”

“I mean, on the contrary, to be busy.”

“Jane, I excuse you for the present, two months’ grace I allow you for the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with this late-found charm of relationship, but
then
, I hope you will begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilised affluence. I hope your energies will then once more trouble you with their strength.”

I looked at him with surprise. “St. John,” I said, “I think you are almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as a queen, and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?”

“To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to your keeping and of which He will surely one day demand a strict account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiously—I warn you of that. And try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with which you throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don’t cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. Do you hear, Jane?”

“Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause to be happy, and I
will
be happy. Goodbye!”

Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked and so did Hannah, she was charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a house turned topsy-turvy—how I could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook. And really, after a day or two of confusion worse confounded, it was delightful by degrees to invoke order from the chaos ourselves had made. I had previously taken a journey to purchase some new furniture, my cousins having given me
carte blanche
to effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum having been set aside for that purpose. The ordinary sitting-room and bedrooms I left much as they were, for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure from seeing again the old homely tables, and chairs, and beds, than from the spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still some novelty was necessary, to give to their return the piquancy with which I wished it to be invested. Dark handsome new carpets and curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, answered the end. They looked fresh without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery. I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model of bright modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a specimen of wintry waste and desert dreariness without.