Jane Eyre (78 page)

 “You are ready, miss?”

 “I am, sir.” How I had missed this!

Mr Rochester moved with much more deftness than I imagined. He stood in a spot close to me, and he judged the distance by touching me and then adjusting his stance.

 He teased my quim mercilessly until I begged for him to bring me to completion.

 “Have you earnt it, miss?”

 “No, sir.”

 “Do you deserve it?”

 “No, sir!”

“Tell me, then, why I should relent.”

 I moved against his hand, beseechingly. I needed this so desperately. It was different with his hand than my own. “For the love of God, sir! I do not deserve it. I have not earnt it, but I beg you. I need this, sir. I am powerless against my desire for you. Give me what only you can!”

 He pulled away.

 I dropped my head with a pained exclamation.

 “The wait, my darling, will make it all the better.”

 “How long?” I demanded. “How long must I wait? The nights, the days, the weeks all interminable!”

 I was unprepared, and thus, rendered speechless when he cracked his hand smartly across my buttocks.

 My head came up sharply.

 “Much better,” he said approvingly, obviously having sensed the shift in my countenance.

 He beat me, it was punishment, reward, and apology all communicated in his hand and my answering tears.

 Thus he rendered us both to our baser natures, he as master, I as humble servant. Equals in reality and in agreement of our arrangement.

 “Now Jane, I shall have you.”

 I turned, supported by his strength. Kneeling, I undressed him. Seeing his power, unmarred by time or circumstance, I felt awe. “Sir, I had quite forgotten your size, I fear.”

 “I will ensure you are lubricated for my entry.”

 I fetched a safe from where he indicated, and helped him secure it in place.

 “Resume your position, miss, over the chair.”

 The angle would allow him to take me with confidence and at great depth, which I hungered for.

 I felt his hand on my quim. I was conquered! He manipulated my flesh. I became slick and needful. “Sir!”

 “You may orgasm, miss.”

 He continued his ministrations until I shattered! While I was still in the throes, valiantly struggling to find my breath, he claimed me. His impalement was furious, as if he were a warrior claiming victory over the vanquished.

 Mr Rochester imprisoned my hair, holding me in place, forcing me to arch my back, preventing me from struggling away as he made me his.

 I peaked another time before he gave into his own urges. I felt his manhood thicken and harden moments before I felt him stop moving, and then I heard his groan.

 He thrust several more times, much slower and with great intent as he emptied his testicles.

 We remained thus for a time. I was in my master’s arms. I was complete. I helped him dress, and I donned my own clothing. As he had in the past, he wrapped the safe in a handkerchief, and I relieved him of the burden, grateful to take care of this for him, for us. Things between us would not be as they had before, they would be different, and, perhaps, better.

“It is you—is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?”

“I am.”

“And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you are not a pining outcast amongst strangers?”

“No, sir! I am an independent woman now.”

“Independent! What do you mean, Jane?”

“My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds.”

“Ah! this is practical—this is real!” he cried. “I should never dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers, so animating and piquant, as well as soft, it cheers my withered heart. It puts life into it.What, Janet! Are you an independent woman? A rich woman?”

“If you won’t let me live with you, I can build a house of my own close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when you want company of an evening.”

“But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who will look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind lameter like me?”

“I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich, I am my own mistress.”

“And you will stay with me?”

“Certainly—unless you object. I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely. I will be your companion—to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live.”

He replied not, he seemed serious—abstracted. He sighed. He half-opened his lips as if to speak, he closed them again. I felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped conventionalities and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my inconsiderateness. I had indeed made my proposal from the idea that he wished and would ask me to be his wife, an expectation, not the less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that he would claim me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect escaping him and his countenance becoming more overcast, I suddenly remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing the fool unwittingly and I began gently to withdraw myself from his arms—but he eagerly snatched me closer.

“No—no—Jane, you must not go. No—I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your presence—the sweetness of your consolation, I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in myself—I must have you. The world may laugh—may call me absurd, selfish—but it does not signify. My very soul demands you, it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.”

“Well, sir, I will stay with you, I have said so.”

“Yes—but you understand one thing by staying with me and I understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be about my hand and chair—to wait on me as a kind little nurse—for you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to make sacrifices for those you pity—and that ought to suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you, do you think so? Come—tell me.”

“I will think what you like, sir, I am content to be only your nurse, if you think it better.”

“But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet, you are young—you must marry one day.”

“I don’t care about being married.”

“You should care, Janet, if I were what I once was, I would try to make you care—but—a sightless block!”

He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, and took fresh courage, these last words gave me an insight as to where the difficulty lay and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed a livelier vein of conversation.

“It is time someone undertook to rehumanise you,” said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks, “for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a ‘faux air’ of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain, your hair reminds me of eagles’ feathers, whether your nails are grown like birds’ claws or not, I have not yet noticed.”

“On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails,” he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. “It is a mere stump—a ghastly sight! Don’t you think so, Jane?”

“It is a pity to see it and a pity to see your eyes—and the scar of fire on your forehead, and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this and making too much of you.”

“I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my cicatrised visage.”

“Did you? Don’t tell me so—lest I should say something disparaging to your judgement. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire?”

“Yes; with the right eye I see a glow—a ruddy haze.”

“And you see the candles?”

“Very dimly—each is a luminous cloud.”

“Can you see me?”

“No, my fairy, but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you.”

“When do you take supper?”

“I never take supper.”

“But you shall have some tonight. I am hungry, so are you, I daresay, only you forget.”

Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order, I prepared him, likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I suited him, all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature, in his presence I thoroughly lived and he lived in mine. Blind as he was, smiles played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead, his lineaments softened and warmed.

After supper, he began to ask me many questions, of where I had been, what I had been doing, how I had found him out, but I gave him only very partial replies, it was too late to enter into particulars that night. Besides, I wished to touch no deep-thrilling chord—to open no fresh well of emotion in his heart, my sole present aim was to cheer him. Cheered, as I have said, he was, and yet but by fits. If a moment’s silence broke the conversation, he would turn restless, touch me, then say, “Jane.”

“You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?”

“I conscientiously believe so, Mr Rochester.”

“Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly rise on my lone hearth? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a hireling, and it was given me by you, I asked a question, expecting John’s wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear.”

“Because I had come in, in Mary’s stead, with the tray.”

“And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day, feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat, and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes, for her restoration I longed, far more than for that of my lost sight. How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? Tomorrow, I fear I shall find her no more.”

A commonplace, practical reply, out of the train of his own disturbed ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring for him in this frame of mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and remarked that they were scorched, and that I would apply something which would make them grow as broad and black as ever.

“Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit, when, at some fatal moment, you will again desert me—passing like a shadow, whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards undiscoverable?

“Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir?”

“What for, Jane?”

“Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather alarming, when I examine you close at hand, you talk of my being a fairy, but I am sure, you are more like a brownie.”

“Am I hideous, Jane?”

“Very, sir, you always were, you know.”

“Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever you have sojourned.”

“Yet I have been with good people; far better than you, a hundred times better people; possessed of ideas and views you never entertained in your life, quite more refined and exalted.”

“Who the deuce have you been with?”

“If you twist in that way you will make me pull the hair out of your head and then I think you will cease to entertain doubts of my substantiality.”

“Who have you been with, Jane?”

“You shall not get it out of me tonight, sir, you must wait till tomorrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know, be a sort of security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it. By the bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth with only a glass of water then, I must bring an egg at the least, to say nothing of fried ham.”

“You mocking changeling—fairy-born and human-bred! You make me feel as I have not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have had you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without the aid of the harp.”

“There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I’ll leave you. I have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am tired. Good night.”

“Just one word, Jane. Were there only ladies in the house where you have been?”

I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs.
A good idea!
I thought with glee.
I see I have the means of fretting him out of his melancholy for some time to come.

Very early the next morning I heard him up and astir, wandering from one room to another. As soon as Mary came down I heard the question, “Is Miss Eyre here?” Then, “Which room did you put her into? Was it dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants anything and when she will come down.”

I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast. Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he discovered my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to witness the subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat in his chair—still, but not at rest, expectant evidently, the lines of now habitual sadness marking his strong features. His countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be re-lit—and alas! It was not himself that could now kindle the lustre of animated expression, he was dependent on another for that office! I had meant to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the strong man touched my heart to the quick, still I accosted him with what vivacity I could.

“It is a bright, sunny morning, sir,” I said. “The rain is over and gone, and there is a tender shining after it, you shall have a walk soon.”

I had wakened the glow, his features beamed.

“Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not gone, not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high over the wood, but its song had no music for me, any more than the rising sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my Jane’s tongue to my ear—I am glad it is not naturally a silent one—all the sunshine I can feel is in her presence.”