Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontё
From Volume I, Chapter 1
"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no
money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's
children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense. Now,
I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they ARE mine; all the house belongs to me,
or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the
windows."
I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book
and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough,
however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and
cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings
succeeded.
"Wicked and cruel boy!" I said. "You are like a murderer--you are like a slave-driver--you are
like the Roman emperors!"
I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, &c.
Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to have declared aloud.
"What! what!" he cried. "Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana?
Won't I tell mama? but first--"
He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had closed with a
desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my
head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations
for the time predominated [ page ]over fear, and I received him in frantic sort. I don't very
well know what I did with my hands, but he called me "Rat! Rat!" and bellowed out aloud.
Aid was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she
now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard
the words "Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!"
"Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!"
Then Mrs. Reed subjoined "Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there." Four hands were immediately laid
upon me, and I was borne upstairs.
Volume I, Chapter 2
I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which greatly strengthened the
bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle
beside myself; or rather OUT of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a
moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel
slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.
"Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she's like a mad cat."
"For shame! for shame!" cried the lady's-maid. "What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike
a young gentleman, your benefactress's son! Your young master."
"Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?"
"No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think
over your wickedness."
They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had thrust me
upon a stool: my impulse was to rise from it like a spring; their two pair of hands arrested me
instantly.
"If you don't sit still, you must be tied down," said Bessie. "Miss Abbot, lend me your garters;
she would break mine directly."
Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature. This preparation for bonds,
and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a little of the excitement out of me.
"Don't take them off," I cried; "I will not stir."
In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands.
"Mind you don't," said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that I was really subsiding, she
loosened her hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot stood with folded arms, looking darkly and
doubtfully on my face, as incredulous of my sanity. [ page ]"She never did so before," at last
said Bessie, turning to the Abigail.
"But it was always in her," was the reply. "I've told Missis often my opinion about the child,
and Missis agreed with me. She's an underhand little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with
so much cover."
Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said--"You ought to be aware, Miss,
that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you
would have to go to the poorhouse."
I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very first recollections of
existence included hints of the same kind. This reproach of my dependence had become a
vague sing-song in my ear: very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible. Miss Abbot
joined in "And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed,
because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of
money, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself
agreeable to them."
"What we tell you is for your good," added Bessie, in no harsh voice, "you should try to be
useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have a home here; but if you become passionate
and rude, Missis will send you away, I am sure."
"Besides," said Miss Abbot, "God will punish her: He might strike her dead in the midst of
her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn't have
her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don't
repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away."
They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.
The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless
when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all
the accommodation it contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the
mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red
damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds
always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet
was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a
soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of
darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared
white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles
counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the head of the
bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.
[ page ]This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from
the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. The housemaid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quiet
dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret
drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a
miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room--the
spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur.
Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his last; here he lay in
state; hence his coffin was borne by the undertaker's men; and, since that day, a sense of
dreary consecration had guarded it from frequent intrusion.
My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, was a low ottoman
near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high,
dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left
were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty of
the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared
move, I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to
cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it
revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange
little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering
eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one
of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories represented as coming out
of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to
my stool.
Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for complete victory: my
blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter
vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal
present.
All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference, all his mother's aversion,
all the servants' partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well.
Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever condemned? Why
could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one's favour? Eliza, who was
headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid
spite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her beauty, her pink cheeks
and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity
for every fault. John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the
[ page ]necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped
the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the
conservatory: he called his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin,
similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk
attire; and he was still "her own darling." I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty;
and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from
noon to night.
My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had reproved John
for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrational
violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.
"Unjust!--unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though
transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to
achieve escape from insupportable oppression--as running away, or, if that could not be
effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.
What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult,
and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental
battle fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question--WHY I thus suffered; now, at
the distance of--I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.
I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with
Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little
did I love them. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not
sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament,
in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to
their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of
contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting,
handsome, romping child--though equally dependent and friendless--Mrs. Reed would have
endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of
the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the
scapegoat of the nursery.
Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o'clock, and the beclouded afternoon
was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase
window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone,
and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression,
fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so;
what thought had I been but just conceiving of starving myself to [ page ]death? That
certainly was a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead
Church an inviting bourne? In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by
this thought to recall his idea, I dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could not remember him;
but I knew that he was my own uncle--my mother's brother--that he had taken me when a
parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs.
Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably
considered she had kept this promise; and so she had, I dare say, as well as her nature would
permit her; but how could she really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnected with
her, after her husband's death, by any tie? It must have been most irksome to find herself
bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could not
love, and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family group.
A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted not--never doubted-- that if Mr. Reed had been
alive he would have treated me kindly; and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and
overshadowed walls-- occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaning
mirror--I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the
violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the
oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister's child, might
quit its abode--whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the departed--and rise
before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of
violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some
haloed face, bending over me with strange pity. This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt would
be terrible if realised: with all my might I endeavoured to stifle it--I endeavoured to be firm.
Shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room;
at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon
penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I
gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that
this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some one across
the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by
agitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another
world. My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the
rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke
down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort. Steps came running along
the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered.
[ page ]"Miss
Eyre, are you ill?" said Bessie.
"What a dreadful noise! it went quite through me!" exclaimed Abbot.
"Take me out! Let me go into the nursery!" was my cry.
"What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?" again demanded Bessie.
"Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come." I had now got hold of Bessie's hand,
and she did not snatch it from me.
"She has screamed out on purpose," declared Abbot, in some disgust. "And what a scream! If
she had been in great pain one would have excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all
here: I know her naughty tricks."
"What is all this?" demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed came along the
corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling stormily. "Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave
orders that Jane Eyre should be left in the red-room till I came to her myself."
"Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma'am," pleaded Bessie.
"Let her go," was the only answer. "Loose Bessie's hand, child: you cannot succeed in getting
out by these means, be assured. I abhor artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show
you that tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer, and it is only on
condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall liberate you then."
"O aunt! have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it--let me be punished some other way! I
shall be killed if--"
"Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:" and so, no doubt, she felt it. I was a precocious
actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean
spirit, and dangerous duplicity.
Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now frantic anguish and wild
sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me in, without farther parley. I heard her sweeping
away; and soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness closed
the scene.
From Volume I, Chapter 12
I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and
blackberries in autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but
whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of air stirred,
it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped
hawthorn and [ page ]hazel bushes were as still as the white, worn stones which causewayed
the middle of the path. Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now
browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the hedge, looked like single
russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.
This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the middle, I sat down on a stile
which led thence into a field. Gathering my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my
muff, I did not feel the cold, though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice covering
the causeway, where a little brooklet, now congealed, had overflowed after a rapid thaw some
days since. From my seat I could look down on Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall
was the principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose against the
west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, and sank crimson and clear behind
them. I then turned eastward.
On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but brightening
momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost in trees, sent up a blue smoke from its few
chimneys: it was yet a mile distant, but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin
murmurs of life. My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could not
tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks threading their passes.
That evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of the most
remote.
A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so far away and so clear: a
positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, which effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a
picture, the solid mass of a crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong
on the foreground, efface the aerial distance of azure hill, sunny horizon, and blended clouds
where tint melts into tint.
The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the lane yet hid it, but it
approached. I was just leaving the stile; yet, as the path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In
those days I was young, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the
memories of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred,
maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could give. As
this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered
certain of Bessie's tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a "Gytrash," which,
in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon
belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me.
It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp, I heard a rush
under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white
colour made him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie's
Gytrash--a lion-like creature [ page ]with long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however,
quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half
expected it would. The horse followed,--a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the
human being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and
goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce
covet shelter in the commonplace human form. No Gytrash was this,--only a traveller taking
the short cut to Millcote. He passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned: a sliding sound
and an exclamation of "What the deuce is to do now?" and a clattering tumble, arrested my
attention. Man and horse were down; they had slipped on the sheet of ice which glazed the
causeway. The dog came bounding back, and seeing his master in a predicament, and hearing
the horse groan, barked till the evening hills echoed the sound, which was deep in proportion
to his magnitude. He snuffed round the prostrate group, and then he ran up to me; it was all he
could do,--there was no other help at hand to summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to the
traveller, by this time struggling himself free of his steed. His efforts were so vigorous, I
thought he could not be much hurt; but I asked him the question "Are you injured, sir?"
I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was pronouncing some formula
which prevented him from replying to me directly.
"Can I do anything?" I asked again.
"You must just stand on one side," he answered as he rose, first to his knees, and then to his
feet. I did; whereupon began a heaving, stamping, clattering process, accompanied by a
barking and baying which removed me effectually some yards' distance; but I would not be
driven quite away till I saw the event. This was finally fortunate; the horse was re-established,
and the dog was silenced with a "Down, Pilot!" The traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and
leg, as if trying whether they were sound; apparently something ailed them, for he halted to
the stile whence I had just risen, and sat down.
I was in the mood for being useful, or at least officious, I think, for I now drew near him
again.
"If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch some one either from Thornfield Hall or from
Hay."
"Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones,--only a sprain;" and again he stood up and
tried his foot, but the result extorted an involuntary "Ugh!"
Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I could see him plainly.
His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur collared and steel clasped; its details were not
apparent, but I traced the general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest.
He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows
[ page ]looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth, but had not reached middleage; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had he been a
handsome, heroic-looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus questioning
him against his will, and offering my services unasked. I had hardly ever seen a handsome
youth; never in my life spoken to one. I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty,
elegance, gallantry, fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape, I
should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have sympathy with anything
in me, and should have shunned them as one would fire, lightning, or anything else that is
bright but antipathetic.
If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me when I addressed him; if he
had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with thanks, I should have gone on my way and
not felt any vocation to renew inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me
at my ease: I retained my station when he waved to me to go, and announced "I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary lane, till I see you are fit
to mount your horse."
He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes in my direction before.
"I should think you ought to be at home yourself," said he, "if you have a home in this
neighbourhood: where do you come from?"
"From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when it is moonlight: I will run
over to Hay for you with pleasure, if you wish it: indeed, I am going there to post a letter."
"You live just below--do you mean at that house with the battlements?" pointing to Thornfield
Hall, on which the moon cast a hoary gleam, bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods
that, by contrast with the western sky, now seemed one mass of shadow.
"Yes, sir."
"Whose house is it?"
"Mr. Rochester's."
"Do you know Mr. Rochester?"
"No, I have never seen him."
"He is not resident, then?"
"No."
"Can you tell me where he is?"
"I cannot."
"You are not a servant at the hall, of course. You are--" He stopped, ran his eye over my
dress, which, as usual, was quite simple: a black merino cloak, a black beaver bonnet; neither
of them half fine enough for a lady's-maid. He seemed puzzled to decide what I was; I helped
him.
"I am the governess."
[ page ]"Ah,
the governess!" he repeated; "deuce take me, if I had not forgotten! The
governess!" and again my raiment underwent scrutiny. In two minutes he rose from the stile:
his face expressed pain when he tried to move.
"I cannot commission you to fetch help," he said; "but you may help me a little yourself, if
you will be so kind."
"Yes, sir."
"You have not an umbrella that I can use as a stick?"
"No."
"Try to get hold of my horse's bridle and lead him to me: you are not afraid?"
I should have been afraid to touch a horse when alone, but when told to do it, I was disposed
to obey. I put down my muff on the stile, and went up to the tall steed; I endeavoured to catch
the bridle, but it was a spirited thing, and would not let me come near its head; I made effort
on effort, though in vain: meantime, I was mortally afraid of its trampling fore-feet. The
traveller waited and watched for some time, and at last he laughed.
"I see," he said, "the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all you can do is to aid
Mahomet to go to the mountain; I must beg of you to come here."
I came. "Excuse me," he continued: "necessity compels me to make you useful." He laid a
heavy hand on my shoulder, and leaning on me with some stress, limped to his horse. Having
once caught the bridle, he mastered it directly and sprang to his saddle; grimacing grimly as
he made the effort, for it wrenched his sprain.
"Now," said he, releasing his under lip from a hard bite, "just hand me my whip; it lies there
under the hedge."
I sought it and found it.
"Thank you; now make haste with the letter to Hay, and return as fast as you can."
A touch of a spurred heel made his horse first start and rear, and then bound away; the dog
rushed in his traces; all three vanished,
"Like heath that, in the wilderness, The wild wind whirls away."
I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and was gone for me: it WAS an
incident of no moment, no romance, no interest in a sense; yet it marked with change one
single hour of a monotonous life. My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was
pleased to have done something; trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was yet an active
thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive. The new face, too, was like a new picture
introduced to the gallery of memory; and it was dissimilar to all the others hanging there:
firstly, because it was masculine; and, secondly, because it was dark, strong, and stern. I had it
still before me when I entered Hay, and [ page ]slipped the letter into the post- office; I saw it
as I walked fast down-hill all the way home. When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute,
looked round and listened, with an idea that a horse's hoofs might ring on the causeway again,
and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like Newfoundland dog, might be again apparent: I
saw only the hedge and a pollard willow before me, rising up still and straight to meet the
moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among the trees round
Thornfield, a mile distant; and when I glanced down in the direction of the murmur, my eye,
traversing the hall-front, caught a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was late,
and I hurried on.
I did not like re-entering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; to cross
the silent hall, to ascend the darksome staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then
to meet tranquil Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only, was
to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk,--to slip again over my faculties the
viewless fetters of an uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of
security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it would have done
me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain struggling life, and to have
been taught by rough and bitter experience to long for the calm amidst which I now repined!
Yes, just as much good as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a "too easy chair" to take a
long walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances, as it would be
under his.
I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backwards and forwards on the
pavement; the shutters of the glass door were closed; I could not see into the interior; and both
my eyes and spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy house--from the grey-hollow filled with
rayless cells, as it appeared to me--to that sky expanded before me,--a blue sea absolved from
taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march; her orb seeming to look up as she left
the hill-tops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below her, and aspired to the
zenith, midnight dark in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; and for those
trembling stars that followed her course; they made my heart tremble, my veins glow when I
viewed them. Little things recall us to earth; the clock struck in the hall; that sufficed; I turned
from moon and stars, opened a side-door, and went in.
The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the high-hung bronze lamp; a warm glow
suffused both it and the lower steps of the oak staircase. This ruddy shine issued from the
great dining-room, whose two-leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the grate,
glancing on marble hearth and brass fire-irons, and revealing purple draperies and polished
furniture, in the most pleasant radiance. It revealed, too, a group near the mantelpiece: I had
scarcely caught it, and scarcely become [ page ]aware of a cheerful mingling of voices,
amongst which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adèle, when the door closed.
I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax's room; there was a fire there too, but no candle, and no Mrs.
Fairfax. Instead, all alone, sitting upright on the rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I
beheld a great black and white long-haired dog, just like the Gytrash of the lane. It was so like
it that I went forward and said--"Pilot" and the thing got up and came to me and snuffed me. I
caressed him, and he wagged his great tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone with,
and I could not tell whence he had come. I rang the bell, for I wanted a candle; and I wanted,
too, to get an account of this visitant. Leah entered.
"What dog is this?"
"He came with master."
"With whom?"
"With master--Mr. Rochester--he is just arrived."
"Indeed! and is Mrs. Fairfax with him?"
"Yes, and Miss Adèle; they are in the dining-room, and John is gone for a surgeon; for master
has had an accident; his horse fell and his ankle is sprained."
"Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?"
"Yes, coming down-hill; it slipped on some ice."
"Ah! Bring me a candle will you Leah?"
Leah brought it; she entered, followed by Mrs. Fairfax, who repeated the news; adding that
Mr. Carter the surgeon was come, and was now with Mr. Rochester: then she hurried out to
give orders about tea, and I went upstairs to take off my things.
From Volume I, Chapter 15
And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many associations,
all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room
was more cheering than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could
not, for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of
every description: in my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by
unjust severity to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once, when
sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with his head bent on his folded
arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features.
But I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say
FORMER, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate.
I believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than
such as circumstances had developed, [ page ]education instilled, or destiny encouraged. I
thought there were excellent materials in him; though for the present they hung together
somewhat spoiled and tangled. I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was,
and would have given much to assuage it.
Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I could not sleep for
thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, and told how his destiny had risen up
before him, and dared him to be happy at Thornfield.
"Why not?" I asked myself. "What alienates him from the house? Will he leave it again soon?
Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been
resident eight weeks. If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent
spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!"
I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any rate, I started wide awake on
hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I
wished I had kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were depressed. I
rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was hushed.
I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward tranquillity was broken. The
clock, far down in the hall, struck two. Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as
if fingers had swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery outside. I said, "Who is
there?" Nothing answered. I was chilled with fear.
All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the kitchen-door chanced to be left
open, not unfrequently found his way up to the threshold of Mr. Rochester's chamber: I had
seen him lying there myself in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down.
Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again through the whole
house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it was not fated that I should sleep that night.
A dream had scarcely approached my ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a marrowfreezing incident enough.
This was a demoniac laugh--low, suppressed, and deep--uttered, as it seemed, at the very
keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was near the door, and I thought at first the
goblin-laugher stood at my bedside--or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked
round, and could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural sound was reiterated: and I
knew it came from behind the panels. My first impulse was to rise and fasten the bolt; my
next, again to cry out, "Who is there?"
Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery towards the thirdstorey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut in that staircase; I heard it open and
close, and all was still. [ page ]"Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?"
thought I. Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs. Fairfax. I hurried on
my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the door with a trembling hand. There
was a candle burning just outside, and on the matting in the gallery. I was surprised at this
circumstance: but still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with
smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and left, to find whence these blue wreaths issued,
I became further aware of a strong smell of burning.
Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr. Rochester's, and the smoke
rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no more of Mrs. Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace
Poole, or the laugh: in an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame darted round
the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr. Rochester lay
stretched motionless, in deep sleep.
"Wake! wake!" I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the smoke had
stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the very sheets were kindling, I rushed to his
basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide and the other deep, and both were filled with water.
I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my
own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God's aid, succeeded in extinguishing the
flames which were devouring it.
The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I flung from my hand when
I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of the shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused
Mr. Rochester at last. Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him
fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of water.
"Is there a flood?" he cried.
"No, sir," I answered; "but there has been a fire: get up, do; you are quenched now; I will
fetch you a candle."
"In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?" he demanded. "What have
you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the room besides you? Have you plotted to
drown me?"
"I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven's name, get up. Somebody has plotted
something: you cannot too soon find out who and what it is."
From Volume II, Chapter 4
Oh, are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here since you left this
morning?"
"A stranger! -- no; who can it be? I expected no one; is he gone?"
"No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the liberty of installing himself
here till you returned."
"The devil he did! Did he give his name?"
"His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from Spanish Town, in Jamaica,
I think."
Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if to lead me to a chair. As I
spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive grip; the smile on his lips froze: apparently a spasm
caught his breath.
"Mason! -- the West Indies!" he said, in the tone one might fancy a speaking automaton to
enounce its single words; "Mason! -- the West Indies!" he reiterated; and he went over the
syllables three times, growing, in the intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes: he hardly
seemed to know what he was doing.
"Do you feel ill, sir?" I inquired.
"Jane, I've got a blow; I've got a blow, Jane!" He staggered.
"Oh, lean on me, sir."
"Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now."
"Yes, sir, yes; and my arm."
He sat down, and made me sit beside him. Holding my hand in both his own, he chafed it;
gazing on me, at the same time, with the most troubled and dreary look.
"My little friend!" said he, "I wish I were in a quiet island with only you; and trouble, and
danger, and hideous recollections removed from me."
"Can I help you, sir? -- I'd give my life to serve you."
"Jane, if aid is wanted, I'll seek it at your hands; I promise you that."
"Thank you, sir. Tell me what to do, -- I'll try, at least, to do it."
"Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from the dining-room: they will be at supper there; and
tell me if Mason is with them, and what he is doing."
I went. I found all the party in the dining-room at supper, as Mr. Rochester had said; they
were not seated at table, -- the supper was arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he
chose, and they stood about here and there in groups, their plates and glasses in their hands.
Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and conversation were general and animated. Mr.
Mason stood near the fire, talking to Colonel and Mrs. Dent, and appeared as merry as any of
them. I filled a wine-glass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me frowningly as I did so: she thought I
was taking a liberty, I daresay), and I returned to the library.
Mr. Rochester's extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more firm and stern. He
took the glass from my hand.
"Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!" he said. He swallowed the contents and returned it
to me. "What are they doing, Jane?"
"Laughing and talking, sir."
"They don't look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard something strange?"
"Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety."
"And Mason?"
"He was laughing too."
"If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would you do, Jane?"
"Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could."
He half smiled. "But if I were to go to them, and they only looked at me coldly, and
whispered sneeringly amongst each other, and then dropped off and left me one by one, what
then? Would you go with them?"
"I rather think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying with you."
"To comfort me?"
"Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could."
"And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?"
"I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I should care nothing about
it."
"Then, you could dare censure for my sake?"
"I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; as you, I am sure, do."
"Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in his ear that Mr.
Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show him in here and then leave me."
"Yes, sir."
I did his behest. The company all stared at me as I passed straight among them. I sought Mr.
Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him from the room: I ushered him into the
library, and then I went upstairs.
At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors repair to their chambers:
I distinguished Mr. Rochester's voice, and heard him say, "This way, Mason; this is your
room."
He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease. I was soon asleep.
Volume II, Chapter 5
I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to let down my windowblind. The consequence was, that when the moon, which was full and bright (for the night was
fine), came in her course to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me
through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me. Awaking in the dead of night, I
opened my eyes on her disk -- silver-white and crystal clear. It was beautiful, but too solemn;
I half rose, and stretched my arm to draw the curtain.
Good God! What a cry!
The night -- its silence -- its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound that
ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.
My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed. The cry died, and
was not renewed. Indeed, whatever being uttered that fearful shriek could not soon repeat it:
not the widest-winged condor on the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell
from the cloud shrouding his eyrie. The thing delivering such utterance must rest ere it could
repeat the effort.
It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And overhead -- yes, in the room just
above my chamber-ceiling -- I now heard a struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise;
and a half-smothered voice shouted "Help! help! help!" three times rapidly.
"Will no one come?" it cried; and then, while the staggering and stamping went on wildly, I
distinguished through plank and plaster:"Rochester! Rochester! for God's sake, come!"
A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery. Another step stamped on
the flooring above and something fell; and there was silence.
I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued from my apartment. The
sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations, terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after
door unclosed; one looked out and another looked out; [ page ]the gallery filled. Gentlemen
and ladies alike had quitted their beds; and "Oh! what is it?" -- "Who is hurt?" -- "What has
happened?" -- "Fetch a light!" -- "Is it fire?" -- "Are there robbers?" -- "Where shall we run?"
was demanded confusedly on all hands. But for the moonlight they would have been in
complete darkness. They ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled:
the confusion was inextricable.
"Where the devil is Rochester?" cried Colonel Dent. "I cannot find him in his bed."
"Here! here!" was shouted in return. "Be composed, all of you: I'm coming."
And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced with a candle: he
had just descended from the upper storey. One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his
arm: it was Miss Ingram.
"What awful event has taken place?" said she. "Speak! let us know the worst at once!"
"But don't pull me down or strangle me," he replied: for the Misses Eshton were clinging
about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white wrappers, were bearing down on him like
ships in full sail.
"All's right! -- all's right!" he cried. "It's a mere rehearsal of Much Ado about Nothing. Ladies,
keep off, or I shall wax dangerous."
And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming himself by an effort, he
added "A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She's an excitable, nervous person: she construed
her dream into an apparition, or something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with
fright. Now, then, I must see you all back into your rooms; for, till the house is settled, she
cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have the goodness to set the ladies the example. Miss
Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in evincing superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa,
return to your nests like a pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames" (to the dowagers), "you will
take cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in this chill gallery any longer."
And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived to get them all once more
enclosed in their separate dormitories. I did not wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated
unnoticed, as unnoticed I had left it.
Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed myself carefully. The sounds
I had heard after the scream, and the words that had been uttered, had probably been heard
only by me; for they had proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me that it
was not a servant's dream which had thus struck horror through the house; and that the
explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely an invention framed to pacify his guests. I
dressed, then, to be ready for [ page ]emergencies. When dressed, I sat a long time by the
window looking out over the silent grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew not
what. It seemed to me that some event must follow the strange cry, struggle, and call.
No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased gradually, and in about an hour
Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as a desert. It seemed that sleep and night had resumed
their empire. Meantime the moon declined: she was about to set. Not liking to sit in the cold
and darkness, I thought I would lie down on my bed, dressed as I was. I left the window, and
moved with little noise across the carpet; as I stooped to take off my shoes, a cautious hand
tapped low at the door.
"Am I wanted?" I asked.
"Are you up?" asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my master's.
"Yes, sir."
"And dressed?"
"Yes."
"Come out, then, quietly."
I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.
"I want you," he said: "come this way: take your time, and make no noise."
My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a cat. He glided up the
gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey: I had
followed and stood at his side.
"Have you a sponge in your room?" he asked in a whisper.
"Yes, sir."
"Have you any salts -- volatile salts?"
"Yes."
"Go back and fetch both."
I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer, and once more
retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a key in his hand: approaching one of the small,
black doors, he put it in the lock; he paused, and addressed me again.
"You don't turn sick at the sight of blood?"
"I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet."
I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no faintness.
"Just give me your hand," he said: "it will not do to risk a fainting fit."
I put my fingers into his. "Warm and steady," was his remark: he turned the key and opened
the door.
I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax showed me over the
house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there
was a door apparent, which had then been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out of
the room within: I heard thence a [ page ]snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog
quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, "Wait a minute," and he went
forward to the inner apartment. A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and
terminating in Grace Poole's own goblin ha! ha! SHE then was there. He made some sort of
arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him: he came out and
closed the door behind him.
"Here, Jane!" he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large bed, which with its
drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of the chamber. An easy-chair was near the
bed-head: a man sat in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant
back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognised in his pale
and seemingly lifeless face -- the stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side, and
one arm, was almost soaked in blood.
"Hold the candle," said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched a basin of water from the
washstand: "Hold that," said he. I obeyed. He took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the
corpse-like face; he asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils. Mr. Mason
shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester opened the shirt of the wounded man,
whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged away blood, trickling fast down.
"Is there immediate danger?" murmured Mr. Mason.
"Pooh! No -- a mere scratch. Don't be so overcome, man: bear up! I'll fetch a surgeon for you
now, myself: you'll be able to be removed by morning, I hope. Jane," he continued.
"Sir?"
"I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an hour, or perhaps two hours:
you will sponge the blood as I do when it returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of
water on that stand to his lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to him on any
pretext -- and -- Richard, it will be at the peril of your life if you speak to her: open your lips - agitate yourself- -and I'll not answer for the consequences."
Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move; fear, either of death or of
something else, appeared almost to paralyse him. Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge
into my hand, and I proceeded to use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then saying,
"Remember! -- No conversation," he left the room. I experienced a strange feeling as the key
grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating step ceased to be heard.
Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic cells; night around me; a
pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by
a single door: yes -- that was appalling -- the rest I [ page ]could bear; but I shuddered at the
thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me.
I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly countenance -- these blue, still lips
forbidden to unclose -- these eyes now shut, now opening, now wandering through the room,
now fixing on me, and ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand again and
again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling gore. I must see the light of
the unsnuffed candle wane on my employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique
tapestry round me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver
strangely over the doors of a great cabinet opposite -- whose front, divided into twelve panels,
bore, in grim design, the heads of the twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in
a frame; while above them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a dying Christ.
According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered here or glanced there, it was
now the bearded physician, Luke, that bent his brow; now St. John's long hair that waved; and
anon the devilish face of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed gathering life and
threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor -- of Satan himself -- in his subordinate's form.
Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for the movements of the wild beast
or the fiend in yonder side den. But since Mr. Rochester's visit it seemed spellbound: all the
night I heard but three sounds at three long intervals, -- a step creak, a momentary renewal of
the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human groan.
Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this that lived incarnate in this
sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled nor subdued by the owner? -- what
mystery, that broke out now in fire and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What
creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice, now of
a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?
And this man I bent over -- this commonplace, quiet stranger -- how had he become involved
in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at him? What made him seek this quarter of
the house at an untimely season, when he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr.
Rochester assign him an apartment below -- what brought him here! And why, now, was he
so tame under the violence or treachery done him? Why did he so quietly submit to the
concealment Mr. Rochester enforced? Why DID Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment? His
guest had been outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted
against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr.
Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester; that the impetuous will of the latter held complete
sway over the inertness of the former: the few words which had passed between them assured
me of this. [ page ]It was evident that in their former intercourse, the passive disposition of
the one had been habitually influenced by the active energy of the other: whence then had
arisen Mr. Rochester's dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason's arrival? Why had the mere
name of this unresisting individual -- whom his word now sufficed to control like a child -fallen on him, a few hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall on an oak?
Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered: "Jane, I have got a blow - I have got a blow, Jane." I could not forget how the arm had trembled which he rested on my
shoulder: and it was no light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the
vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester.
"When will he come? When will he come?" I cried inwardly, as the night lingered and
lingered -- as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened: and neither day nor aid arrived.
I had, again and again, held the water to Mason's white lips; again and again offered him the
stimulating salts: my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or mental suffering, or loss of
blood, or all three combined, were fast prostrating his strength. He moaned so, and looked so
weak, wild, and lost, I feared he was dying; and I might not even speak to him.
The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived streaks of grey light edging the
window curtains: dawn was then approaching. Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of
his distant kennel in the courtyard: hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted: in five minutes
more the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me my watch was relieved. It could not have
lasted more than two hours: many a week has seemed shorter.
Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to fetch.
"Now, Carter, be on the alert," he said to this last: "I give you but half-an-hour for dressing
the wound, fastening the bandages, getting the patient downstairs and all."
"But is he fit to move, sir?"
"No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his spirits must be kept up. Come, set to
work."
Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland blind, let in all the daylight he
could; and I was surprised and cheered to see how far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks
were beginning to brighten the east. Then he approached Mason, whom the surgeon was
already handling.
"Now, my good fellow, how are you?" he asked.
"She's done for me, I fear," was the faint reply.
"Not a whit! -- courage! This day fortnight you'll hardly be a pin the worse of it: you've lost a
little blood; that's all. Carter, assure him there's no danger."
"I can do that conscientiously," said Carter, who had now [ page ]undone the bandages;
"only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would not have bled so much -- but how is this?
The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there
have been teeth here!"
"She bit me," he murmured. "She worried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the knife
from her."
"You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at once," said Mr.
Rochester.
"But under such circumstances, what could one do?" returned Mason. "Oh, it was frightful!"
he added, shuddering. "And I did not expect it: she looked so quiet at first."
"I warned you," was his friend's answer; "I said -- be on your guard when you go near her.
Besides, you might have waited till to- morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to
attempt the interview to-night, and alone."
"I thought I could have done some good."
"You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear you: but, however, you have
suffered, and are likely to suffer enough for not taking my advice; so I'll say no more. Carter - hurry! -- hurry! The sun will soon rise, and I must have him off."
"Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to this other wound in the arm: she
has had her teeth here too, I think."
"She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart," said Mason.
I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust, horror, hatred,
warped his countenance almost to distortion; but he only said "Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don't repeat it."
"I wish I could forget it," was the answer.
"You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to Spanish Town, you may
think of her as dead and buried -- or rather, you need not think of her at all."
From Volume II, Chapter 8
"Must I move on, sir?" I asked. "Must I leave Thornfield?" [
I am sorry, Janet, but I believe indeed you must."
page ]"I
believe you must, Jane.
This was a blow: but I did not let it prostrate me.
"Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes."
"It is come now -- I must give it to-night."
"Then you ARE going to be married, sir?"
"Ex-act-ly -- pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the nail straight on the
head."
"Soon, sir?"
"Very soon, my -- that is, Miss Eyre: and you'll remember, Jane, the first time I, or Rumour,
plainly intimated to you that it was my intention to put my old bachelor's neck into the sacred
noose, to enter into the holy estate of matrimony -- to take Miss Ingram to my bosom, in short
(she's an extensive armful: but that's not to the point -- one can't have too much of such a very
excellent thing as my beautiful Blanche): well, as I was saying -- listen to me, Jane! You're
not turning your head to look after more moths, are you? That was only a lady-clock, child,
'flying away home.' I wish to remind you that it was you who first said to me, with that
discretion I respect in you -- with that foresight, prudence, and humility which befit your
responsible and dependent position -- that in case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little
Adèle had better trot forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur conveyed in this suggestion on the
character of my beloved; indeed, when you are far away, Janet, I'll try to forget it: I shall
notice only its wisdom; which is such that I have made it my law of action. Adèle must go to
school; and you, Miss Eyre, must get a new situation."
"Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I suppose -- " I was going to say, "I
suppose I may stay here, till I find another shelter to betake myself to:" but I stopped, feeling
it would not do to risk a long sentence, for my voice was not quite under command.
"In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom," continued Mr. Rochester; "and in the interim, I
shall myself look out for employment and an asylum for you."
"Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give -- "
"Oh, no need to apologise! I consider that when a dependent does her duty as well as you
have done yours, she has a sort of claim upon her employer for any little assistance he can
conveniently render her; indeed I have already, through my future mother-in-law, heard of a
place that I think will suit: it is to undertake the education of the five daughters of Mrs.
Dionysius O'Gall of Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland. You'll like Ireland, I think: they're
such warm-hearted people there, they say."
"It is a long way off, sir."
"No matter -- a girl of your sense will not object to the voyage or the distance." [
the voyage, but the distance: and then the sea is a barrier -- "
page ]"Not
"From what, Jane?"
"From England and from Thornfield: and -- "
"Well?"
"From YOU, sir."
I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of free will, my tears gushed out. I
did not cry so as to be heard, however; I avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O'Gall and
Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to my heart; and colder the thought of all the brine and foam,
destined, as it seemed, to rush between me and the master at whose side I now walked, and
coldest the remembrance of the wider ocean -- wealth, caste, custom intervened between me
and what I naturally and inevitably loved.
"It is a long way," I again said.
"It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland, I shall never see
you again, Jane: that's morally certain. I never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of a
fancy for the country. We have been good friends, Jane; have we not?"
"Yes, sir."
"And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the little time that remains
to them close to each other. Come! we'll talk over the voyage and the parting quietly half-anhour or so, while the stars enter into their shining life up in heaven yonder: here is the
chestnut tree: here is the bench at its old roots. Come, we will sit there in peace to-night,
though we should never more be destined to sit there together." He seated me and himself.
"It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my little friend on such weary
travels: but if I can't do better, how is it to be helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you
think, Jane?"
I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.
"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you -- especially when
you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and
inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little
frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad
between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I
should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, -- you'd forget me."
"That I NEVER should, sir: You know -- " Impossible to proceed.
"Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!"
In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I endured no longer; I was
obliged to yield, and I was shaken from head to foot with acute distress. When I did
[ page ]speak, it was only to express an impetuous wish that I had never been born, or never
come to Thornfield.
"Because you are sorry to leave it?"
The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and
struggling for full sway, and asserting a right to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and
reign at last: yes, -- and to speak.
"I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:- I love it, because I have lived in it a full and
delightful life, -- momentarily at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified.
I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion
with what is bright and energetic and high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence,
with what I delight in, -- with an original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have known you,
Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from
you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death."
"Where do you see the necessity?" he asked suddenly.
"Where? You, sir, have placed it before me."
"In what shape?"
"In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman, -- your bride."
"My bride! What bride? I have no bride!"
"But you will have."
"Yes; -- I will! -- I will!" He set his teeth.
"Then I must go:- you have said it yourself."
"No: you must stay! I swear it -- and the oath shall be kept."
"I tell you I must go!" I retorted, roused to something like passion. "Do you think I can stay to
become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton? -- a machine without feelings? and
can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water
dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am
soulless and heartless? You think wrong! -- I have as much soul as you, -- and full as much
heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as
hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now
through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; -- it is my spirit
that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's
feet, equal, -- as we are!"
"As we are!" repeated Mr. Rochester -- "so," he added, enclosing me in his arms. Gathering
me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips: "so, Jane!"
"Yes, so, sir," I rejoined: "and yet not so; for you are a married man -- or as good as a married
man, and wed to one inferior to you -- to one with whom you have no sympathy -- whom I do
not believe you truly love; for I have seen and heard [ page ]you sneer at her. I would scorn
such a union: therefore I am better than you -- let me go!"
"Where, Jane? To Ireland?"
"Yes -- to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now."
"Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in its
desperation."
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will,
which I now exert to leave you."
Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him.
"And your will shall decide your destiny," he said: "I offer you my hand, my heart, and a
share of all my possessions."
"You play a farce, which I merely laugh at."
"I ask you to pass through life at my side -- to be my second self, and best earthly
companion."
"For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by it."
"Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be still too."
A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through the boughs of the
chestnut: it wandered away -- away -- to an indefinite distance -- it died. The nightingale's
song was then the only voice of the hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat
quiet, looking at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before he spoke; he at last said "Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another."
"I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and cannot return."
"But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to marry."
I was silent: I thought he mocked me.
"Come, Jane -- come hither."
"Your bride stands between us."
He rose, and with a stride reached me.
"My bride is here," he said, again drawing me to him, "because my equal is here, and my
likeness. Jane, will you marry me?"
Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his grasp: for I was still incredulous.
"Do you doubt me, Jane?"
"Entirely."
"You have no faith in me?"
"Not a whit."
"Am I a liar in your eyes?" he asked passionately. "Little sceptic, you SHALL be convinced.
What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and that you know. What love has she for me?
None: as I have taken pains to prove: I caused a rumour to reach her that my fortune was not a
third of what was [ page ]supposed, and after that I presented myself to see the result; it was
coldness both from her and her mother. I would not -- I could not -- marry Miss Ingram. You - you strange, you almost unearthly thing! -- I love as my own flesh. You -- poor and obscure,
and small and plain as you are -- I entreat to accept me as a husband."
"What, me!" I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness -- and especially in his incivility -- to
credit his sincerity: "me who have not a friend in the world but you -- if you are my friend:
not a shilling but what you have given me?"
"You, Jane, I must have you for my own -- entirely my own. Will you be mine? Say yes,
quickly."
"Mr. Rochester, let me look at your face: turn to the moonlight."
"Why?"
"Because I want to read your countenance -- turn!"
"There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled, scratched page. Read on: only
make haste, for I suffer."
His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there were strong workings in
the features, and strange gleams in the eyes
"Oh, Jane, you torture me!" he exclaimed. "With that searching and yet faithful and generous
look, you torture me!"
"How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only feelings to you must be
gratitude and devotion -- they cannot torture."
"Gratitude!" he ejaculated; and added wildly -- "Jane accept me quickly. Say, Edward -- give
me my name -- Edward -- I will marry you."
"Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me to be your wife?"
"I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it."
"Then, sir, I will marry you."
"Edward -- my little wife!"
"Dear Edward!"
"Come to me -- come to me entirely now," said he; and added, in his deepest tone, speaking in
my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, "Make my happiness -- I will make yours."
"God pardon me!" he subjoined ere long; "and man meddle not with me: I have her, and will
hold her."
"There is no one to meddle, sir. I have no kindred to interfere."
"No -- that is the best of it," he said. And if I had loved him less I should have thought his
accent and look of exultation savage; but, sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of parting
-- called to the paradise of union -- I thought only of the bliss given me to drink in so
abundant a flow. Again and again he said, "Are you happy, Jane?" And again and again I
answered, "Yes." After which he murmured, "It will atone -- it will atone. Have I not found
her friendless, and cold, and [ page ]comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace
her? Is there not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves? It will expiate at God's
tribunal. I know my Maker sanctions what I do. For the world's judgment -- I wash my hands
thereof. For man's opinion -- I defy it."
But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we were all in shadow: I
could scarcely see my master's face, near as I was. And what ailed the chestnut tree? it
writhed and groaned; while wind roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us.
"We must go in," said Mr. Rochester: "the weather changes. I could have sat with thee till
morning, Jane."
"And so," thought I, "could I with you." I should have said so, perhaps, but a livid, vivid spark
leapt out of a cloud at which I was looking, and there was a crack, a crash, and a close rattling
peal; and I thought only of hiding my dazzled eyes against Mr. Rochester's shoulder.
The rain rushed down. He hurried me up the walk, through the grounds, and into the house;
but we were quite wet before we could pass the threshold. He was taking off my shawl in the
hall, and shaking the water out of my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax emerged from her
room. I did not observe her at first, nor did Mr. Rochester. The lamp was lit. The clock was on
the stroke of twelve.
"Hasten to take off your wet things," said he; "and before you go, good-night -- good-night,
my darling!"
He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked up, on leaving his arms, there stood the widow, pale,
grave, and amazed. I only smiled at her, and ran upstairs. "Explanation will do for another
time," thought I. Still, when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even
temporarily misconstrue what she had seen. But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and
loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the
lightning gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours' duration, I
experienced no fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my door in the course of it, to
ask if I was safe and tranquil: and that was comfort, that was strength for anything.
Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adèle came running in to tell me that the great
horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half
of it split away.
From Volume II, Chapter 11
"I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the
secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed), that if either of you know any impediment why ye
may not lawfully be joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well
assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's Word doth allow, are not
joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful."
He paused, as the custom is. When is the pause after that sentence ever broken by reply? Not,
perhaps, once in a hundred years. And the clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his
book, and had held his breath but for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was already
stretched towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to ask, "Wilt thou have this woman for
thy wedded wife?" -- when a distinct and near voice said "The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment."
The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did the same; Mr.
Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled under his feet: taking a firmer
footing, and not turning his head or eyes, he said, "Proceed."
Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep but low intonation. Presently
Mr. Wood said "I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been asserted, and evidence of its
truth or falsehood."
"The ceremony is quite broken off," subjoined the voice behind us. "I am in a condition to
prove my allegation: an insuperable impediment to this marriage exists."
Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid, making no movement but
to possess himself of my hand. What a hot and strong grasp he had! and how like quarried
marble was his pale, firm, massive front at this moment! How his eye shone, still watchful,
and yet wild beneath!
Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. "What is the nature of the impediment?" he asked. "Perhaps it
may be got over -- explained away?"
"Hardly," was the answer. "I have called it insuperable, and I speak advisedly."
The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued, uttering each word
distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly "It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr. Rochester has a wife now
living."
My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated to thunder -- my
blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no
danger of swooning. I looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His whole face was
colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He disavowed nothing: he seemed as if he
would defy all things. Without speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me
a human being, he only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side.
"Who are you?" he asked of the intruder.
"My name is Briggs, a solicitor of -- Street, London."
"And you would thrust on me a wife?"
"I would remind you of your lady's existence, sir, which the law recognises, if you do not."
"Favour me with an account of her -- with her name, her parentage, her place of abode."
"Certainly." Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read out in a sort of official,
nasal voice:"'I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October A.D. -- (a date of fifteen years back),
Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in the county of -, and of Ferndean Manor, in -
shire, England, was married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason,
merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at -- church, Spanish Town, Jamaica. The
record of the marriage will be found in the register of that church -- a copy of it is now in my
possession. Signed, Richard Mason.'"
"That -- if a genuine document -- may prove I have been married, but it does not prove that
the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still living."
"She was living three months ago," returned the lawyer.
"How do you know?"
"I have a witness to the fact, whose testimony even you, sir, will scarcely controvert."
"Produce him -- or go to hell."
"I will produce him first -- he is on the spot. Mr. Mason, have the goodness to step forward."
Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced, too, a sort of strong
convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run
through his frame. The second stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the background, now
drew near; a pale face looked over the solicitor's shoulder -- yes, it was Mason himself. Mr.
Rochester turned and glared at him. His eye, as I have often said, was a black eye: it had now
a tawny, nay, a bloody light in its gloom; and his face flushed -- olive cheek and hueless
forehead received a glow as from spreading, ascending heart-fire: and he stirred, lifted his
strong arm -- he could have struck Mason, dashed him on the church-floor, shocked by
ruthless blow the breath from his body -- but Mason shrank away, and cried faintly, "Good
God!" Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester -- his passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it
up: he only asked -- "What have YOU to say?"
An inaudible reply escaped Mason's white lips.
"The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again demand, what have you to say?"
"Sir -- sir," interrupted the clergyman, "do not forget you are in a sacred place." Then
addressing Mason, he inquired gently, "Are you aware, sir, whether or not this gentleman's
wife is still living?"
"Courage," urged the lawyer, -- "speak out."
"She is now living at Thornfield Hall," said Mason, in more articulate tones: "I saw her there
last April. I am her brother."
[…]
The morning had been a quiet morning enough -- all except the brief scene with the lunatic:
the transaction in the church had not been noisy; there was no explosion of passion, no loud
altercation, no dispute, no defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words had been
spoken, a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage made; some stern, short questions put
by Mr. Rochester; answers, explanations given, evidence adduced; an open admission of the
truth had been uttered by my master; then the living proof had been seen; the intruders were
gone, and all was over.
I was in my own room as usual -- just myself, without obvious change: nothing had smitten
me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where was the Jane Eyre of yesterday? -- where
was her life? -- where were her prospects?
Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman -- almost a bride, was a cold, solitary
girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate. A Christmas frost had come at
midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts
crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last
night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods,
which twelve hours since waved leafy and fragrant as groves between the tropics, now spread,
waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway. My hopes were all dead -- struck
with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt. I
looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill,
livid corpses that could never revive. I looked at my love: that feeling which was my master's
-- which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle;
sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr. Rochester's arms -- it could not
derive warmth from his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted -confidence destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been; for he was not what I
had thought him. I would not ascribe vice to him; I would not say he had betrayed me; but the
attribute of stainless truth was gone from his idea, and from his presence I must go: THAT I
perceived well. When -- how -- whither, I could not yet discern; but he himself, I doubted not,
would hurry me from Thornfield. Real affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had
been only fitful passion: that was balked; he would want me no more. I should fear even to
cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him. Oh, how blind had been my eyes! How
weak my conduct!
My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round me, and reflection
came in as black and confused a flow. Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to
have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote
mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength. I lay faint,
longing to be dead. One idea only still throbbed life-like within me -- a remembrance of God:
it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind, as
something that should be whispered, but no energy was found to express them "Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help."
It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it -- as I had neither joined my
hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips -- it came: in full heavy swing the torrent
poured over me. The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched,
my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. That bitter hour
cannot be described: in truth, "the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no
standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me."
From Volume III, Chapter 11
"Can there be life here?" I asked.
Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement--that narrow front-door was
unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the grange.
It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood on the step; a man without a
hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to feel whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised
him--it was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.
I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him--to examine him, myself unseen,
and alas! to him invisible. It was a sudden meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in
check by pain. I had no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation, my step from
hasty advance.
His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his port was still erect, his hair
was still raven black; nor were his features altered or sunk: not in one year's space, by any
sorrow, could his athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime blighted. But in his
countenance I saw a change: that looked desperate and brooding--that reminded me of some
wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe. The caged
eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless
Samson.
And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity?--if you do, you little know me. A
soft hope blest with my sorrow that soon I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and
on those lips so sternly sealed beneath it: but not yet. I would not accost him yet.
He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards the grass-plat. Where
was his daring stride now? Then he paused, as if he knew not which way to turn. He lifted his
hand and opened his eyelids; gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky, and toward
the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him was void darkness. He stretched his right
hand (the left arm, the mutilated one, he kept hidden in his bosom); he seemed to wish by
touch to gain an idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy still; for the trees were some
yards off where he stood. He relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and stood quiet and
mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this moment John approached
him from some quarter.
"Will you take my arm, sir?" he said; "there is a heavy shower coming on: had you not better
go in?"
"Let me alone," was the answer.
John withdrew without having observed me. Mr. Rochester now tried to walk about: vainly,-all was too uncertain. He groped his way back to the house, and, re-entering it, closed the
door.
I now drew near and knocked: John's wife opened for me. "Mary," I said, "how are you?"
She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her hurried "Is it really you, miss,
come at this late hour to this lonely place?" I answered by taking her hand; and then I
followed her into the kitchen, where John now sat by a good fire. I explained to them, in few
words, that I had heard all which had happened since I left Thornfield, and that I was come to
see Mr. Rochester. I asked John to go down to the turn-pike-house, where I had dismissed the
chaise, and bring my trunk, which I had left there: and then, while I removed my bonnet and
shawl, I questioned Mary as to whether I could be accommodated at the Manor House for the
night; and finding that arrangements to that effect, though difficult, would not be impossible, I
informed her I should stay. Just at this moment the parlour-bell rang.
"When you go in," said I, "tell your master that a person wishes to speak to him, but do not
give my name."
"I don't think he will see you," she answered; "he refuses everybody."
When she returned, I inquired what he had said. "You are to send in your name and your
business," she replied. She then proceeded to fill a glass with water, and place it on a tray,
together with candles.
"Is that what he rang for?" I asked.
"Yes: he always has candles brought in at dark, though he is blind."
"Give the tray to me; I will carry it in."
I took it from her hand: she pointed me out the parlour door. The tray shook as I held it; the
water spilt from the glass; my heart struck my ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for
me, and shut it behind me.
This parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low in the grate; and, leaning
over it, with his head supported against the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the
blind tenant of the room. His old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of the way, and
coiled up as if afraid of being inadvertently trodden upon. Pilot pricked up his ears when I
came in: then he jumped up with a yelp and a whine, and bounded towards me: he almost
knocked the tray from my hands. I set it on the table; then patted him, and said softly, "Lie
down!" Mr. Rochester turned mechanically to SEE what the commotion was: but as he SAW
nothing, he returned and sighed.
"Give me the water, Mary," he said.
I approached him with the now only half-filled glass; Pilot followed me, still excited.
"What is the matter?" he inquired.
"Down, Pilot!" I again said. He checked the water on its way to his lips, and seemed to listen:
he drank, and put the glass down. "This is you, Mary, is it not?"
"Mary is in the kitchen," I answered.
He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I stood, he did not touch me.
"Who is this? Who is this?" he demanded, trying, as it seemed, to SEE with those sightless
eyes-- unavailing and distressing attempt! "Answer me--speak again!" he ordered,
imperiously and aloud.
"Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was in the glass," I said.
"WHO is it? WHAT is it? Who speaks?"
"Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this evening," I answered.
"Great God!--what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?"
"No delusion--no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound
for frenzy."
"And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I CANNOT see, but I must feel, or my
heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever--whoever you are--be perceptible to the touch or
I cannot live!"
He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both mine.
"Her very fingers!" he cried; "her small, slight fingers! If so there must be more of her."
The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulder--neck--waist--I
was entwined and gathered to him.
"Is it Jane? WHAT is it? This is her shape--this is her size--"
"And this her voice," I added. "She is all here: her heart, too. God bless you, sir! I am glad to
be so near you again."
"Jane Eyre!--Jane Eyre," was all he said.
"My dear master," I answered, "I am Jane Eyre: I have found you out--I am come back to
you."
"In truth?--in the flesh? My living Jane?"
"You touch me, sir,--you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold like a corpse, nor vacant
like air, am I?"
"My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so
blest, after all my misery. It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have
clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus--and felt that she
loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me."
"Which I never will, sir, from this day."
"Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was
desolate and abandoned--my life dark, lonely, hopeless--my soul athirst and forbidden to
drink--my heart famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now,
you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before you go--embrace
me, Jane."
"There, sir--and there!"'
I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes--I swept his hair from his brow,
and kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all
this seized him.
"It is you--is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?"
"I am."
Mary Barton
Elizabeth Gaskell
Chapter 2
A MANCHESTER TEA-PARTY
"Polly, put the kettle on,
And let's have tea!
Polly, put the kettle on,
And we'll all have tea."
"Here we are, wife; did'st thou think thou'd lost us?" quoth hearty-voiced Wilson, as the two
women rose and shook themselves in preparation for their homeward walk. Mrs. Barton was
evidently soothed, if not cheered, by the unburdening of her fears and thoughts to her friend;
and her approving look went far to second her husband's invitation that the whole party
should adjourn from Green Heys Fields to tea, at the Bartons' house. The only faint opposition
was raised by Mrs. Wilson, on account of the lateness of the hour at which they would
probably return, which she feared on her babies' account.
"Now, hold your tongue, missis, will you," said her husband good-temperedly. "Don't you
know them brats never goes to sleep till long past ten? and haven't you a shawl, under which
you can tuck one lad's head, as safe as a bird's under its wing? And as for t'other one, I'll put it
in my pocket rather than not stay, now we are this far away from Ancoats."
"Or, I can lend you another shawl," suggested Mrs. Barton.
"Ay, anything rather than not stay."
The matter being decided the party proceeded home, through many half-finished streets, all so
like one another, that you might have easily been bewildered and lost your way. Not a step,
however, did our friends lose; down this entry, cutting off that corner, until they turned out of
one of these innumerable streets into a little paved court, having the backs of houses at the
end opposite to the opening, and a gutter running through the middle to carry off household
slops, washing suds, etc. The women who lived in the court were busy taking in strings of
caps, frocks, and various articles of linen, which hung from side to side, dangling so low, that
if our friends had been a few minutes' sooner, they would have had to stoop very much, or
else the half-wet clothes would have flapped in their faces: but although the evening seemed
yet early when they were in the open fields--among the pent-up houses, night, with its mists
and its darkness, had already begun to fall.
Many greetings were given and exchanged between the Wilsons and these women, for not
long ago they had also dwelt in this court.
Two rude lads, standing at a disorderly looking house-door, exclaimed, as Mary Barton (the
daughter) passed, "Eh, look! Polly Barton's getten[1] a sweetheart."
Of course this referred to young Wilson, who stole a look to see how Mary took the idea. He
saw her assume the air of a young fury, and to his next speech she answered not a word.
Mrs. Barton produced the key of the door from her pocket; and on entering the house-place it
seemed as if they were in total darkness, except one bright spot, which might be a cat's eye, or
might be, what it was, a red-hot fire, smouldering under a large piece of coal, which John
Barton immediately applied himself to break up, and the effect instantly produced was warm
and glowing light in every corner of the room. To add to this (although the coarse yellow
glare seemed lost in the ruddy glow from the fire), Mrs. Barton lighted a dip by sticking it in
the fire, and having placed it satisfactorily in a tin candlestick, began to look further about her,
on hospitable thoughts intent. The room was tolerably large, and possessed many
conveniences. On the right of the door, as you entered, was a longish window, with a broad
ledge. On each side of this, hung blue-and-white check curtains, which were now drawn, to
shut in the friends met to enjoy themselves. Two geraniums, unpruned and leafy, which stood
on the sill, formed a further defence from out-door pryers. In the corner between the window
and the fireside was a cupboard, apparently full of plates and dishes, cups and saucers, and
some more nondescript articles, for which one would have fancied their possessors could find
no use-- such as triangular pieces of glass to save carving knives and forks from dirtying
table-cloths. However, it was evident Mrs. Barton was proud of her crockery and glass, for
she left her cupboard door open, with a glance round of satisfaction and pleasure. On the
opposite side to the door and window was the staircase, and two doors; one of which (the
nearest to the fire) led into a sort of little back kitchen, where dirty work, such as washing up
dishes, might be done, and whose shelves served as larder, and pantry, and storeroom, and all.
The other door, which was considerably lower, opened into the coal-hole--the slanting closet
under the stairs; from which, to the fire-place, there was a gay-coloured piece of oil-cloth laid.
The place seemed almost crammed with furniture (sure sign of good times among the mills).
Beneath the window was a dresser, with three deep drawers. Opposite the fire-place was a
table, which I should call a Pembroke, only that it was made of deal, and I cannot tell how far
such a name may be applied to such humble material. On it, resting against the wall, was a
bright green japanned tea-tray, having a couple of scarlet lovers embracing in the middle. The
fire-light danced merrily on this, and really (setting all taste but that of a child's aside) it gave
a richness of colouring to that side of the room. It was in some measure propped up by a
crimson tea-caddy, also of japan ware. A round table on one branching leg, really for use,
stood in the corresponding corner to the cupboard; and, if you can picture all this, with a
washy, but clean stencilled pattern on the walls, you can form some idea of John Barton's
home.
The tray was soon hoisted down, and before the merry clatter of cups and saucers began, the
women disburdened themselves of their out-of-door things, and sent Mary upstairs with them.
Then came a long whispering, and chinking of money, to which Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were
too polite to attend; knowing, as they did full well, that it all related to the preparations for
hospitality; hospitality that, in their turn, they should have such pleasure in offering. So they
tried to be busily occupied with the children, and not to hear Mrs. Barton's directions to Mary.
"Run, Mary, dear, just round the corner, and get some fresh eggs at Tipping's (you may get
one apiece, that will be fivepence), and see if he has any nice ham cut, that he would let us
have a pound of."
"Say two pounds, missis, and don't be stingy," chimed in the husband.
"Well, a pound and a half, Mary. And get it Cumberland ham, for Wilson comes from thereaway, and it will have a sort of relish of home with it he'll like,--and Mary" (seeing the lassie
fain to be off), "you must get a pennyworth of milk and a loaf of bread--mind you get it fresh
and new--and, and--that's all, Mary."
"No, it's not all," said her husband. "Thou must get sixpennyworth of rum, to warm the tea;
thou'll get it at the 'Grapes.' And thou just go to Alice Wilson; he says she lives just right
round the corner, under 14, Barber Street" (this was addressed to his wife); "and tell her to
come and take her tea with us; she'll like to see her brother, I'll be bound, let alone Jane and
the twins."
"If she comes she must bring a tea-cup and saucer, for we have but half-a-dozen, and here's
six of us," said Mrs. Barton.
"Pooh, pooh, Jem and Mary can drink out of one, surely."
But Mary secretly determined to take care that Alice brought her tea-cup and saucer, if the
alternative was to be her sharing anything with Jem.
Alice Wilson had but just come in. She had been out all day in the fields, gathering wild herbs
for drinks and medicine, for in addition to her invaluable qualities as a sick nurse and her
worldly occupations as a washerwoman, she added a considerable knowledge of hedge and
field simples; and on fine days, when no more profitable occupation offered itself, she used to
ramble off into the lanes and meadows as far as her legs could carry her. This evening she had
returned loaded with nettles, and her first object was to light a candle and see to hang them up
in bunches in every available place in her cellar room. It was the perfection of cleanliness; in
one corner stood the modest-looking bed, with a check curtain at the head, the whitewashed
wall filling up the place where the corresponding one should have been. The floor was
bricked, and scrupulously clean, although so damp that it seemed as if the last washing would
never dry up. As the cellar window looked into an area in the street, down which boys might
throw stones, it was protected by an outside shutter, and was oddly festooned with all manner
of hedge-row, ditch, and field plants, which we are accustomed to call valueless, but which
have a powerful effect either for good or for evil, and are consequently much used among the
poor. The room was strewed, hung, and darkened with these bunches, which emitted no very
fragrant odour in their process of drying. In one corner was a sort of broad hanging shelf,
made of old planks, where some old hoards of Alice's were kept. Her little bit of crockeryware was ranged on the mantelpiece, where also stood her candlestick and box of matches. A
small cupboard contained at the bottom coals, and at the top her bread and basin of oatmeal,
her frying-pan, teapot, and a small tin saucepan, which served as a kettle, as well as for
cooking the delicate little messes of broth which Alice was sometimes able to manufacture for
a sick neighbour.
After her walk she felt chilly and weary, and was busy trying to light her fire with the damp
coals, and half-green sticks, when Mary knocked.
"Come in," said Alice, remembering, however, that she had barred the door for the night, and
hastening to make it possible for any one to come in.
"Is that you, Mary Barton?" exclaimed she, as the light from the candle streamed on the girl's
face. "How you are grown since I used to see you at my brother's! Come in, lass, come in."
"Please," said Mary, almost breathless, "mother says you're to come to tea, and bring your cup
and saucer, for George and Jane Wilson is with us, and the twins, and Jem. And you're to
make haste, please!"
"I'm sure it's very neighbourly and kind in your mother, and I'll come, with many thanks.
Stay, Mary, has your mother got any nettles for spring drink? If she hasn't, I'll take her some."
"No, I don't think she has."
Mary ran off like a hare to fulfil what, to a girl of thirteen, fond of power, was the more
interesting part of her errand--the money- spending part. And well and ably did she perform
her business, returning home with a little bottle of rum, and the eggs in one hand, while her
other was filled with some excellent red-and-white, smoke-flavoured, Cumberland ham,
wrapped up in paper.
She was at home, and frying ham, before Alice had chosen her nettles, put out her candle,
locked her door, and walked in a very foot-sore manner as far as John Barton's. What an
aspect of comfort did his house-place present, after her humble cellar! She did not think of
comparing; but for all that she felt the delicious glow of the fire, the bright light that revelled
in every corner of the room, the savoury smells, the comfortable sounds of a boiling kettle,
and the hissing, frizzling ham. With a little old-fashioned curtsey she shut the door, and
replied with a loving heart to the boisterous and surprised greeting of her brother.
And now all preparations being made, the party sat down; Mrs. Wilson in the post of honour,
the rocking-chair, on the right-hand side of the fire, nursing her baby, while its father, in an
opposite arm-chair, tried vainly to quiet the other with bread soaked in milk.
Mrs. Barton knew manners too well to do anything but sit at the tea-table and make tea,
though in her heart she longed to be able to superintend the frying of the ham, and cast many
an anxious look at Mary as she broke the eggs and turned the ham, with a very comfortable
portion of confidence in her own culinary powers. Jem stood awkwardly leaning against the
dresser, replying rather gruffly to his aunt's speeches, which gave him, he thought, the air of
being a little boy; whereas he considered himself as a young man, and not so very young
neither, as in two months he would be eighteen. Barton vibrated between the fire and the teatable, his only drawback being a fancy that every now and then his wife's face flushed and
contracted as if in pain.
At length the business actually began. Knives and forks, cups and saucers made a noise, but
human voices were still, for human beings were hungry and had no time to speak. Alice first
broke silence; holding her tea-cup with the manner of one proposing a toast, she said, "Here's
to absent friends. Friends may meet, but mountains never."
It was an unlucky toast or sentiment, as she instantly felt. Every one thought of Esther, the
absent Esther; and Mrs. Barton put down her food, and could not hide the fast-dropping tears.
Alice could have bitten her tongue out.
It was a wet blanket to the evening; for though all had been said and suggested in the fields
that could be said or suggested, every one had a wish to say something in the way of comfort
to poor Mrs. Barton, and a dislike to talk about anything else while her tears fell fast and
scalding. So George Wilson, his wife, and children set off early home, not before (in spite of
mal-a-propos speeches) they had expressed a wish that such meetings might often take place,
and not before John Barton had given his hearty consent; and declared that as soon as ever his
wife was well again they would have just such another evening.
"I will take care not to come and spoil it," thought poor Alice, and going up to Mrs. Barton,
she took her hand almost humbly, and said, "You don't know how sorry I am I said it."
To her surprise, a surprise that brought tears of joy into her eyes, Mary Barton put her arms
round her neck, and kissed the self- reproaching Alice. "You didn't mean any harm, and it was
me as was so foolish; only this work about Esther, and not knowing where she is, lies so
heavy on my heart. Good-night, and never think no more about it. God bless you, Alice."
Many and many a time, as Alice reviewed that evening in her after life, did she bless Mary
Barton for these kind and thoughtful words. But just then all she could say was, "Good-night,
Mary, and may God bless YOU."
1. ↑ "For he had geten him yet no benefice." --Prologue to Canterbury Tales.
Chapter 3
JOHN BARTONS GREAT TROUBLE
"But when the morn came dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed--she had
Another morn than ours."
--HOOD.
In the middle of that same night a neighbour of the Bartons was roused from her sound, wellearned sleep, by a knocking, which had at first made part of her dream; but starting up, as
soon as she became convinced of its reality, she opened the window, and asked who was
there?
"Me--John Barton," answered he, in a voice tremulous with agitation. "My missis is in labour,
and, for the love of God, step in while I run for th' doctor, for she's fearful bad."
While the woman hastily dressed herself, leaving the window still open, she heard the cries of
agony, which resounded in the little court in the stillness of the night. In less than five minutes
she was standing by Mrs. Barton's bedside, relieving the terrified Mary, who went about
where she was told like an automaton; her eyes tearless, her face calm, though deadly pale,
and uttering no sound, except when her teeth chattered for very nervousness.
The cries grew worse.
The doctor was very long in hearing the repeated rings at his night-bell, and still longer in
understanding who it was that made this sudden call upon his services; and then he begged
Barton just to wait while he dressed himself, in order that no time might be lost in finding the
court and house. Barton absolutely stamped with impatience, outside the doctor's door, before
he came down; and walked so fast homewards, that the medical man several times asked him
to go slower.
"Is she so very bad?" asked he.
"Worse, much worser than I ever saw her before," replied John.
No! she was not--she was at peace. The cries were still for ever. John had no time for
listening. He opened the latched door, stayed not to light a candle for the mere ceremony of
showing his companion up the stairs, so well known to himself; but, in two minutes, was in
the room, where lay the dead wife, whom he had loved with all the power of his strong heart.
The doctor stumbled upstairs by the fire-light, and met the awe-struck look of the neighbour,
which at once told him the state of things. The room was still, as he, with habitual tiptoe step,
approached the poor frail body, that nothing now could more disturb. Her daughter knelt by
the bedside, her face buried in the clothes, which were almost crammed into her mouth, to
keep down the choking sobs. The husband stood like one stupefied. The doctor questioned the
neighbour in whispers, and then approaching Barton, said, "You must go downstairs. This is a
great shock, but bear it like a man. Go down."
He went mechanically and sat down on the first chair. He had no hope. The look of death was
too clear upon her face. Still, when he heard one or two unusual noises, the thought burst on
him that it might only be a trance, a fit, a--he did not well know what--but not death! Oh, not
death! And he was starting up to go up-stairs again, when the doctor's heavy cautious creaking
footstep was heard on the stairs. Then he knew what it really was in the chamber above.
"Nothing could have saved her--there has been some shock to the system"--and so he went on,
but to unheeding ears, which yet retained his words to ponder on; words not for immediate
use in conveying sense, but to be laid by, in the store-house of memory, for a more convenient
season. The doctor, seeing the state of the case, grieved for the man; and, very sleepy, thought
it best to go, and accordingly wished him good-night--but there was no answer, so he let
himself out; and Barton sat on, like a stock or a stone, so rigid, so still. He heard the sounds
above, too, and knew what they meant. He heard the stiff unseasoned drawer, in which his
wife kept her clothes, pulled open. He saw the neighbour come down, and blunder about in
search of soap and water. He knew well what she wanted, and WHY she wanted them, but he
did not speak nor offer to help. At last she went, with some kindly meant words (a text of
comfort, which fell upon a deafened ear), and something about "Mary," but which Mary, in
his bewildered state, he could not tell.
He tried to realise it--to think it possible. And then his mind wandered off to other days, to far
different times. He thought of their courtship; of his first seeing her, an awkward beautiful
rustic, far too shiftless for the delicate factory work to which she was apprenticed; of his first
gift to her, a bead necklace, which had long ago been put by, in one of the deep drawers of the
dresser, to be kept for Mary. He wondered if it was there yet, and with a strange curiosity he
got up to feel for it; for the fire by this time was well nigh out, and candle he had none. His
groping hand fell on the piled-up tea-things, which at his desire she had left unwashed till
morning--they were all so tired. He was reminded of one of the daily little actions, which
acquire such power when they have been performed for the last time by one we love. He
began to think over his wife's daily round of duties: and something in the remembrance that
these would never more be done by her, touched the source of tears, and he cried aloud. Poor
Mary, meanwhile, had mechanically helped the neighbour in all the last attentions to the dead;
and when she was kissed and spoken to soothingly, tears stole quietly down her cheeks; but
she reserved the luxury of a full burst of grief till she should be alone. She shut the chamberdoor softly, after the neighbour was gone, and then shook the bed by which she knelt with her
agony of sorrow. She repeated, over and over again, the same words; the same vain,
unanswered address to her who was no more. "Oh, mother! mother, are you really dead! Oh,
mother, mother!"
At last she stopped, because it flashed across her mind that her violence of grief might disturb
her father. All was still below. She looked on the face so changed, and yet so strangely like.
She bent down to kiss it. The cold unyielding flesh struck a shudder to her heart, and hastily
obeying her impulse, she grasped the candle, and opened the door. Then she heard the sobs of
her father's grief; and quickly, quietly stealing down the steps, she knelt by him, and kissed
his hand. He took no notice at first; for his burst of grief would not be controlled. But when
her shriller sobs, her terrified cries (which she could not repress), rose upon his ear, he
checked himself.
"Child, we must be all to one another, now SHE is gone," whispered he.
"Oh, father, what can I do for you? Do tell me! I'll do anything."
"I know thou wilt. Thou must not fret thyself ill, that's the first thing I ask. Thou must leave
me and go to bed now, like a good girl as thou art."
"Leave you, father! oh, don't say so."
"Ay, but thou must: thou must go to bed, and try and sleep; thou'lt have enough to do and to
bear, poor wench, tomorrow."
Mary got up, kissed her father, and sadly went upstairs to the little closet, where she slept. She
thought it was of no use undressing, for that she could never, never sleep, so threw herself on
her bed in her clothes, and before ten minutes had passed away, the passionate grief of youth
had subsided into sleep.
Barton had been roused by his daughter's entrance, both from his stupor and from his
uncontrollable sorrow. He could think on what was to be done, could plan for the funeral,
could calculate the necessity of soon returning to his work, as the extravagance of the past
night would leave them short of money if he long remained away from the mill. He was in a
club, so that money was provided for the burial. These things settled in his own mind, he
recalled the doctor's words, and bitterly thought of the shock his poor wife had so recently
had, in the mysterious disappearance of her cherished sister. His feelings towards Esther
almost amounted to curses. It was she who had brought on all this sorrow. Her giddiness, her
lightness of conduct had wrought this woe. His previous thoughts about her had been tinged
with wonder and pity, but now he hardened his heart against her for ever.
One of the good influences over John Barton's life had departed that night. One of the ties
which bound him down to the gentle humanities of earth was loosened, and henceforward the
neighbours all remarked he was a changed man. His gloom and his sternness became habitual
instead of occasional. He was more obstinate. But never to Mary. Between the father and the
daughter there existed in full force that mysterious bond which unites those who have been
loved by one who is now dead and gone. While he was harsh and silent to others, he
humoured Mary with tender love: she had more of her own way than is common in any rank
with girls of her age. Part of this was the necessity of the case; for of course all the money
went through her hands, and the household arrangements were guided by her will and
pleasure. But part was her father's indulgence, for he left her, with full trust in her unusual
sense and spirit, to choose her own associates, and her own times for seeing them.
With all this, Mary had not her father's confidence in the matters which now began to occupy
him, heart and soul; she was aware that he had joined clubs, and become an active member of
the Trades' Union, but it was hardly likely that a girl of Mary's age (even when two or three
years had elapsed since her mother's death) should care much for the differences between the
employers and the employed--an eternal subject for agitation in the manufacturing districts,
which, however it may be lulled for a time, is sure to break forth again with fresh violence at
any depression of trade, showing that in its apparent quiet, the ashes had still smouldered in
the breasts of a few.
Among these few was John Barton. At all times it is a bewildering thing to the poor weaver to
see his employer removing from house to house, each one grander than the last, till he ends in
building one more magnificent than all, or withdraws his money from the concern, or sells his
mill, to buy an estate in the country, while all the time the weaver, who thinks he and his
fellows are the real makers of this wealth, is struggling on for bread for his children, through
the vicissitudes of lowered wages, short hours, fewer hands employed, etc. And when he
knows trade is bad, and could understand (at least partially) that there are not buyers enough
in the market to purchase the goods already made, and consequently that there is no demand
for more; when he would bear and endure much without complaining, could he also see that
his employers were bearing their share; he is, I say, bewildered and (to use his own word)
"aggravated" to see that all goes on just as usual with the millowners. Large houses are still
occupied, while spinners' and weavers' cottages stand empty, because the families that once
filled them are obliged to live in rooms or cellars. Carriages still roll along the streets,
concerts are still crowded by subscribers, the shops for expensive luxuries still find daily
customers, while the workman loiters away his unemployed time in watching these things,
and thinking of the pale, uncomplaining wife at home, and the wailing children asking in vain
for enough of food--of the sinking health, of the dying life of those near and dear to him. The
contrast is too great. Why should he alone suffer from bad times?
I know that this is not really the case; and I know what is the truth in such matters; but what I
wish to impress is what the workman feels and thinks. True, that with child-like
improvidence, good times will often dissipate his grumbling, and make him forget all
prudence and foresight.
But there are earnest men among these people, men who have endured wrongs without
complaining, but without ever forgetting or forgiving those whom (they believe) have caused
all this woe.
Among these was John Barton. His parents had suffered; his mother had died from absolute
want of the necessaries of life. He himself was a good, steady workman, and, as such, pretty
certain of steady employment. But he spent all he got with the confidence (you may also call
it improvidence) of one who was willing, and believed himself able, to supply all his wants by
his own exertions. And when his master suddenly failed, and all hands in the mill were turned
back, one Tuesday morning, with the news that Mr. Hunter had stopped, Barton had only a
few shillings to rely on; but he had good heart of being employed at some other mill, and
accordingly, before returning home, he spent some hours in going from factory to factory,
asking for work. But at every mill was some sign of depression of trade! some were working
short hours, some were turning off hands, and for weeks Barton was out of work, living on
credit. It was during this time that his little son, the apple of his eye, the cynosure of all his
strong power of love, fell ill of the scarlet fever. They dragged him through the crisis, but his
life hung on a gossamer thread. Everything, the doctor said, depended on good nourishment,
on generous living, to keep up the little fellow's strength, in the prostration in which the fever
had left him. Mocking words! when the commonest food in the house would not furnish one
little meal. Barton tried credit; but it was worn out at the little provision shops, which were
now suffering in their turn. He thought it would be no sin to steal, and would have stolen; but
he could not get the opportunity in the few days the child lingered. Hungry himself, almost to
an animal pitch of ravenousness, but with the bodily pain swallowed up in anxiety for his little
sinking lad, he stood at one of the shop windows where all edible luxuries are displayed;
haunches of venison, Stilton cheeses, moulds of jelly--all appetising sights to the common
passer-by. And out of this shop came Mrs. Hunter! She crossed to her carriage, followed by
the shopman loaded with purchases for a party. The door was quickly slammed to, and she
drove away; and Barton returned home with a bitter spirit of wrath in his heart to see his only
boy a corpse!
You can fancy, now, the hoards of vengeance in his heart against the employers. For there are
never wanting those who, either in speech or in print, find it their interest to cherish such
feelings in the working classes; who know how and when to rouse the dangerous power at
their command; and who use their knowledge with unrelenting purpose to either party.
So while Mary took her own way, growing more spirited every day, and growing in her
beauty too, her father was chairman at many a Trades' Union meeting; a friend of delegates,
and ambitious of being a delegate himself; a Chartist, and ready to do anything for his order.
But now times were good; and all these feelings were theoretical, not practical. His most
practical thought was getting Mary apprenticed to a dressmaker; for he had never left off
disliking a factory life for a girl, on more accounts than one.
Mary must do something. The factories being, as I said, out of the question, there were two
things open--going out to service and the dressmaking business; and against the first of these,
Mary set herself with all the force of her strong will. What that will might have been able to
achieve had her father been against her, I cannot tell; but he disliked the idea of parting with
her, who was the light of his hearth; the voice of his otherwise silent home. Besides, with his
ideas and feelings towards the higher classes, he considered domestic servitude as a species of
slavery; a pampering of artificial wants on the one side, a giving up of every right of leisure
by day and quiet rest by night on the other. How far his strong exaggerated feelings had any
foundation in truth, it is for you to judge. I am afraid that Mary's determination not to go to
service arose from far less sensible thoughts on the subject than her father's. Three years of
independence of action (since her mother's death such a time had now elapsed) had little
inclined her to submit to rules as to hours and associates, to regulate her dress by a mistress's
ideas of propriety, to lose the dear feminine privileges of gossiping with a merry neighbour,
and working night and day to help one who was sorrowful. Besides all this, the sayings of her
absent, the mysterious aunt Esther, had an unacknowledged influence over Mary. She knew
she was very pretty; the factory people as they poured from the mills, and in their freedom
told the truth (whatever it might be) to every passer-by, had early let Mary into the secret of
her beauty. If their remarks had fallen on an unheeding ear, there were always young men
enough, in a different rank from her own, who were willing to compliment the pretty weaver's
daughter as they met her in the streets. Besides, trust a girl of sixteen for knowing it well if
she is pretty; concerning her plainness she may be ignorant. So with this consciousness she
had early determined that her beauty should make her a lady; the rank she coveted the more
for her father's abuse; the rank to which she firmly believed her lost aunt Esther had arrived.
Now, while a servant must often drudge and be dirty, must be known as his servant by all who
visited at her master's house, a dressmaker's apprentice must (or so Mary thought) be always
dressed with a certain regard to appearances; must never soil her hands, and need never
redden or dirty her face with hard labour. Before my telling you so truly what folly Mary felt
or thought, injures her without redemption in your opinion, think what are the silly fancies of
sixteen years of age in every class, and under all circumstances. The end of all the thoughts of
father and daughter was, as I said before, Mary was to be a dressmaker; and her ambition
prompted her unwilling father to apply at all the first establishments, to know on what terms
of painstaking and zeal his daughter might be admitted into ever so humble a workwoman's
situation. But high premiums were asked at all; poor man! he might have known that without
giving up a day's work to ascertain the fact. He would have been indignant, indeed, had he
known that if Mary had accompanied him, the case might have been rather different, as her
beauty would have made her desirable as a show-woman. Then he tried second-rate places; at
all the payment of a sum of money was necessary, and money he had none. Disheartened and
angry, he went home at night, declaring it was time lost; that dressmaking was at all events a
troublesome business, and not worth learning. Mary saw that the grapes were sour, and the
next day she set out herself, as her father could not afford to lose another day's work; and
before night (as yesterday's experience had considerably lowered her ideas) she had engaged
herself as apprentice (so called, though there were no deeds or indentures to the bond) to a
certain Miss Simmonds, milliner and dressmaker, in a respectable little street leading off
Ardwick Green, where her business was duly announced in gold letters on a black ground,
enclosed in a bird's-eye maple frame, and stuck in the front-parlour window; where the
workwomen were called "her young ladies"; and where Mary was to work for two years
without any remuneration, on consideration of being taught the business; and where
afterwards she was to dine and have tea, with a small quarterly salary (paid quarterly because
so much more genteel than by the week), a VERY small one, divisible into a minute weekly
pittance. In summer she was to be there by six, bringing her day's meals during the first two
years; in winter she was not to come till after breakfast. Her time for returning home at night
must always depend upon the quantity of work Miss Simmonds had to do.
And Mary was satisfied; and seeing this, her father was contented too, although his words
were grumbling and morose; but Mary knew his ways, and coaxed and planned for the future
so cheerily, that both went to bed with easy if not happy hearts.
Middlemarch
Chapter 1
Since I can do no good because a woman,
Reach constantly at something that is near it.
The Maid's Tragedy: BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her
hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than
those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her
stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the
side of provincial fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible, - or
from one of our elder poets, - in a paragraph of to-day's newspaper. She was usually spoken
of as being remarkably clever, but with the addition that her sister Celia had more commonsense. Nevertheless, Celia wore scarcely more trimmings; and it was only to close observers
that her dress differed from her sister's, and had a shade of coquetry in its arrangements; for
Miss Brooke's plain dressing was due to mixed conditions, in most of which her sister shared.
The pride of being ladies had something to do with it: the Brooke connections, though not
exactly aristocratic, were unquestionably "good:" if you inquired backward for a generation or
two, you would not find any yard-measuring or parcel-tying forefathers - anything lower than
an admiral or a clergyman; and there was even an ancestor discernible as a Puritan gentleman
who served under Cromwell, but afterwards conformed, and managed to come out of all
political troubles as the proprietor of a respectable family estate. Young women of such birth,
living in a quiet country-house, and attending a village church hardly larger than a parlour,
naturally regarded frippery as the ambition of a huckster's daughter. Then there was well-bred
economy, which in those days made show in dress the first item to be deducted from, when
any margin was required for expenses more distinctive of rank. Such reasons would have been
enough to account for plain dress, quite apart from religious feeling; but in Miss Brooke's
case, religion alone would have determined it; and Celia mildly acquiesced in all her sister's
sentiments, only infusing them with that common-sense which is able to accept momentous
doctrines without any eccentric agitation. Dorothea knew many passages of Pascal's Pensées
and of Jeremy Taylor by heart; and to her the destinies of mankind, seen by the light of
Christianity, made the solicitudes of feminine fashion appear an occupation for Bedlam. She
could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life involving eternal consequences, with a keen
interest in gimp and artificial protrusions of drapery. Her mind was theoretic, and yearned by
its nature after some lofty conception of the world which might frankly include the parish of
Tipton and her own rule of conduct there; she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and
rash in embracing whatever seemed to her to have those aspects; likely to seek martyrdom, to
make retractations, and then to incur martyrdom after all in a quarter where she had not
sought it. Certainly such elements in the character of a marriageable girl tended to interfere
with her lot, and hinder it from being decided according to custom, by good looks, vanity, and
merely canine affection. With all this, she, the elder of the sisters, was not yet twenty, and
they had both been educated, since they were about twelve years old and had lost their
parents, on plans at once narrow and promiscuous, first in an English family and afterwards in
a Swiss family at Lausanne, their bachelor uncle and guardian trying in this way to remedy
the disadvantages of their orphaned condition.
It was hardly a year since they had come to live at Tipton Grange with their uncle, a man
nearly sixty, of acquiescent temper, miscellaneous opinions, and uncertain vote. He had
travelled in his younger years, and was held in this part of the county to have contracted a too
rambling habit of mind. Mr Brooke's conclusions were as difficult to predict as the weather: it
was only safe to say that he would act with benevolent intentions, and that he would spend as
little money as possible in carrying them out. For the most glutinously indefinite minds
enclose some hard grains of habit; and a man has been seen lax about all his own interests
except the retention of his snuff-box, concerning which he was watchful, suspicious, and
greedy of clutch.
In Mr Brooke the hereditary strain of Puritan energy was clearly in abeyance; but in his niece
Dorothea it glowed alike through faults and virtues, turning sometimes into impatience of her
uncle's talk or his way of "letting things be" on his estate, and making her long all the more
for the time when she would be of age and have some command of money for generous
schemes. She was regarded as an heiress; for not only had the sisters seven hundred a-year
each from their parents, but if Dorothea married and had a son, that son would inherit Mr
Brooke's estate, presumably worth about three thousand a-year - a rental which seemed wealth
to provincial families, still discussing Mr Peel's late conduct on the Catholic question,
innocent of future gold-fields, and of that gorgeous plutocracy which has so nobly exalted the
necessities of genteel life.
And how should Dorothea not marry? - a girl so handsome and with such prospects? Nothing
could hinder it but her love of extremes, and her insistence on regulating life according to
notions which might cause a wary man to hesitate before he made her an offer, or even might
lead her at last to refuse all offers. A young lady of some birth and fortune, who knelt
suddenly down on a brick floor by the side of a sick laborer and prayed fervidly as if she
thought herself living in the time of the Apostles - who had strange whims of fasting like a
Papist, and of sitting up at night to read old theological books! Such a wife might awaken you
some fine morning with a new scheme for the application of her income which would
interfere with political economy and the keeping of saddle-horses: a man would naturally
think twice before he risked himself in such fellowship. Women were expected to have weak
opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not
acted on. Sane people did what their neighbours did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one
might know and avoid them.
The rural opinion about the new young ladies, even among the cottagers, was generally in
favor of Celia, as being so amiable and innocent-looking, while Miss Brooke's large eyes
seemed, like her religion, too unusual and striking. Poor Dorothea! compared with her, the
innocent-looking Celia was knowing and worldly-wise; so much subtler is a human mind than
the outside tissues which make a sort of blazonry or clock-face for it.
Yet those who approached Dorothea, though prejudiced against her by this alarming hearsay,
found that she had a charm unaccountably reconcilable with it. Most men thought her
bewitching when she was on horseback. She loved the fresh air and the various aspects of the
country, and when her eyes and cheeks glowed with mingled pleasure she looked very little
like a devotee. Riding was an indulgence which she allowed herself in spite of conscientious
qualms; she felt that she enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward to
renouncing it.
She was open, ardent, and not in the least self-admiring; indeed, it was pretty to see how her
imagination adorned her sister Celia with attractions altogether superior to her own, and if any
gentleman appeared to come to the Grange from some other motive than that of seeing Mr
Brooke, she concluded that he must be in love with Celia: Sir James Chettam, for example,
whom she constantly considered from Celia's point of view, inwardly debating whether it
would be good for Celia to accept him. That he should be regarded as a suitor to herself would
have seemed to her a ridiculous irrelevance. Dorothea, with all her eagerness to know the
truths of life, retained very childlike ideas about marriage. She felt sure that she would have
accepted the judicious Hooker, if she had been born in time to save him from that wretched
mistake he made in matrimony; or John Milton when his blindness had come on; or any of the
other great men whose odd habits it would have been glorious piety to endure; but an amiable
handsome baronet, who said "Exactly" to her remarks even when she expressed uncertainty, how could he affect her as a lover? The really delightful marriage must be that where your
husband was a sort of father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it.
These peculiarities of Dorothea's character caused Mr Brooke to be all the more blamed in
neighboring families for not securing some middle-aged lady as guide and companion to his
nieces. But he himself dreaded so much the sort of superior woman likely to be available for
such a position, that he allowed himself to be dissuaded by Dorothea's objections, and was in
this case brave enough to defy the world - that is to say, Mrs. Cadwallader the Rector's wife,
and the small group of gentry with whom he visited in the northeast corner of Loamshire. So
Miss Brooke presided in her uncle's household, and did not at all dislike her new authority,
with the homage that belonged to it.
Sir James Chettam was going to dine at the Grange to-day with another gentleman whom the
girls had never seen, and about whom Dorothea felt some venerating expectation. This was
the Reverend Edward Casaubon, noted in the county as a man of profound learning,
understood for many years to be engaged on a great work concerning religious history; also as
a man of wealth enough to give lustre to his piety, and having views of his own which were to
be more clearly ascertained on the publication of his book. His very name carried an
impressiveness hardly to be measured without a precise chronology of scholarship.
Early in the day Dorothea had returned from the infant school which she had set going in the
village, and was taking her usual place in the pretty sitting-room which divided the bedrooms
of the sisters, bent on finishing a plan for some buildings (a kind of work which she delighted
in), when Celia, who had been watching her with a hesitating desire to propose something,
said "Dorothea, dear, if you don't mind - if you are not very busy - suppose we looked at mamma's
jewels to-day, and divided them? It is exactly six months to-day since uncle gave them to you,
and you have not looked at them yet."
Celia's face had the shadow of a pouting expression in it, the full presence of the pout being
kept back by an habitual awe of Dorothea and principle; two associated facts which might
show a mysterious electricity if you touched them incautiously. To her relief, Dorothea's eyes
were full of laughter as she looked up.
"What a wonderful little almanac you are, Celia! Is it six calendar or six lunar months?"
"It is the last day of September now, and it was the first of April when uncle gave them to
you. You know, he said that he had forgotten them till then. I believe you have never thought
of them since you locked them up in the cabinet here."
"Well, dear, we should never wear them, you know." Dorothea spoke in a full cordial tone,
half caressing, half explanatory. She had her pencil in her hand, and was making tiny sideplans on a margin.
Celia coloured, and looked very grave. "I think, dear, we are wanting in respect to mamma's
memory, to put them by and take no notice of them. And," she added, after hesitating a little,
with a rising sob of mortification, "necklaces are quite usual now; and Madame Poincon, who
was stricter in some things even than you are, used to wear ornaments. And Christians
generally - surely there are women in heaven now who wore jewels." Celia was conscious of
some mental strength when she really applied herself to argument.
"You would like to wear them?" exclaimed Dorothea, an air of astonished discovery
animating her whole person with a dramatic action which she had caught from that very
Madame Poincon who wore the ornaments. "Of course, then, let us have them out. Why did
you not tell me before? But the keys, the keys!" She pressed her hands against the sides of her
head and seemed to despair of her memory.
"They are here," said Celia, with whom this explanation had been long meditated and
prearranged.
"Pray open the large drawer of the cabinet and get out the jewel-box."
The casket was soon open before them, and the various jewels spread out, making a bright
parterre on the table. It was no great collection, but a few of the ornaments were really of
remarkable beauty, the finest that was obvious at first being a necklace of purple amethysts
set in exquisite gold work, and a pearl cross with five brilliants in it. Dorothea immediately
took up the necklace and fastened it round her sister's neck, where it fitted almost as closely as
a bracelet; but the circle suited the Henrietta-Maria style of Celia's head and neck, and she
could see that it did, in the pier-glass opposite.
"There, Celia! you can wear that with your Indian muslin. But this cross you must wear with
your dark dresses."
Celia was trying not to smile with pleasure. "O Dodo, you must keep the cross yourself."
"No, no, dear, no," said Dorothea, putting up her hand with careless deprecation.
"Yes, indeed you must; it would suit you - in your black dress, now," said Celia, insistingly.
"You MIGHT wear that."
"Not for the world, not for the world. A cross is the last thing I would wear as a trinket."
Dorothea shuddered slightly.
"Then you will think it wicked in me to wear it," said Celia, uneasily.
"No, dear, no," said Dorothea, stroking her sister's cheek. "Souls have complexions too: what
will suit one will not suit another."
"But you might like to keep it for mamma's sake."
"No, I have other things of mamma's - her sandal-wood box which I am so fond of - plenty of
things. In fact, they are all yours, dear. We need discuss them no longer. There - take away
your property."
Celia felt a little hurt. There was a strong assumption of superiority in this Puritanic toleration,
hardly less trying to the blond flesh of an unenthusiastic sister than a Puritanic persecution.
"But how can I wear ornaments if you, who are the elder sister, will never wear them?"
"Nay, Celia, that is too much to ask, that I should wear trinkets to keep you in countenance. If
I were to put on such a necklace as that, I should feel as if I had been pirouetting. The world
would go round with me, and I should not know how to walk."
Celia had unclasped the necklace and drawn it off. "It would be a little tight for your neck;
something to lie down and hang would suit you better," she said, with some satisfaction. The
complete unfitness of the necklace from all points of view for Dorothea, made Celia happier
in taking it. She was opening some ring-boxes, which disclosed a fine emerald with diamonds,
and just then the sun passing beyond a cloud sent a bright gleam over the table.
"How very beautiful these gems are!" said Dorothea, under a new current of feeling, as
sudden as the gleam. "It is strange how deeply colors seem to penetrate one, like scent I
suppose that is the reason why gems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St.
John. They look like fragments of heaven. I think that emerald is more beautiful than any of
them."
"And there is a bracelet to match it," said Celia. "We did not notice this at first."
"They are lovely," said Dorothea, slipping the ring and bracelet on her finely turned finger
and wrist, and holding them towards the window on a level with her eyes. All the while her
thought was trying to justify her delight in the colors by merging them in her mystic religious
joy.
"You WOULD like those, Dorothea," said Celia, rather falteringly, beginning to think with
wonder that her sister showed some weakness, and also that emeralds would suit her own
complexion even better than purple amethysts. "You must keep that ring and bracelet - if
nothing else. But see, these agates are very pretty and quiet."
"Yes! I will keep these - this ring and bracelet," said Dorothea. Then, letting her hand fall on
the table, she said in another tone - "Yet what miserable men find such things, and work at
them, and sell them!" She paused again, and Celia thought that her sister was going to
renounce the ornaments, as in consistency she ought to do.
"Yes, dear, I will keep these," said Dorothea, decidedly. "But take all the rest away, and the
casket."
She took up her pencil without removing the jewels, and still looking at them. She thought of
often having them by her, to feed her eye at these little fountains of pure colour.
"Shall you wear them in company?" said Celia, who was watching her with real curiosity as to
what she would do.
Dorothea glanced quickly at her sister. Across all her imaginative adornment of those whom
she loved, there darted now and then a keen discernment, which was not without a scorching
quality. If Miss Brooke ever attained perfect meekness, it would not be for lack of inward fire.
"Perhaps," she said, rather haughtily. "I cannot tell to what level I may sink."
Celia blushed, and was unhappy: she saw that she had offended her sister, and dared not say
even anything pretty about the gift of the ornaments which she put back into the box and
carried away. Dorothea too was unhappy, as she went on with her plan-drawing, questioning
the purity of her own feeling and speech in the scene which had ended with that little
explosion.
Celia's consciousness told her that she had not been at all in the wrong: it was quite natural
and justifiable that she should have asked that question, and she repeated to herself that
Dorothea was inconsistent: either she should have taken her full share of the jewels, or, after
what she had said, she should have renounced them altogether.
"I am sure - at least, I trust," thought Celia, "that the wearing of a necklace will not interfere
with my prayers. And I do not see that I should be bound by Dorothea's opinions now we are
going into society, though of course she herself ought to be bound by them. But Dorothea is
not always consistent."
Thus Celia, mutely bending over her tapestry, until she heard her sister calling her.
"Here, Kitty, come and look at my plan; I shall think I am a great architect, if I have not got
incompatible stairs and fireplaces."
As Celia bent over the paper, Dorothea put her cheek against her sister's arm caressingly.
Celia understood the action. Dorothea saw that she had been in the wrong, and Celia pardoned
her. Since they could remember, there had been a mixture of criticism and awe in the attitude
of Celia's mind towards her elder sister. The younger had always worn a yoke; but is there any
yoked creature without its private opinions?
Chapter 2
"Dime; no ves aquel caballero que hacia nosotros viene sobre un caballo rucio
rodado que trae puesto en la cabeza un yelmo de oro?" "Lo que veo y columbro,"
respondio Sancho, "no es sino un hombre sobre un as no pardo como el mio, que trae
sobre la cabeza una cosa que relumbra." "Pues ese es el yelmo de Mambrino,' dijo
Don Quijote."
CERVANTES.
"Seest thou not yon cavalier who cometh toward us on a dapple-gray steed, and
weareth a golden helmet?" "What I see,' answered Sancho, "is nothing but a man on a
gray ass like my own, who carries something shiny on his head." "Just so," answered
Don Quixote: "and that resplendent object is the helmet of Mambrino."
"Sir Humphry Davy?" said Mr Brooke, over the soup, in his easy smiling way, taking up Sir
James Chettam's remark that he was studying Davy's Agricultural Chemistry. "Well, now, Sir
Humphry Davy; I dined with him years ago at Cartwright's, and Wordsworth was there too the poet Wordsworth, you know. Now there was something singular. I was at Cambridge
when Wordsworth was there, and I never met him - and I dined with him twenty years
afterwards at Cartwright's. There's an oddity in things, now. But Davy was there: he was a
poet too. Or, as I may say, Wordsworth was poet one, and Davy was poet two. That was true
in every sense, you know."
Dorothea felt a little more uneasy than usual. In the beginning of dinner, the party being small
and the room still, these motes from the mass of a magistrate's mind fell too noticeably. She
wondered how a man like Mr Casaubon would support such triviality. His manners, she
thought, were very dignified; the set of his iron-gray hair and his deep eye-sockets made him
resemble the portrait of Locke. He had the spare form and the pale complexion which became
a student; as different as possible from the blooming Englishman of the red-whiskered type
represented by Sir James Chettam.
"I am reading the Agricultural Chemistry," said this excellent baronet, "because I am going to
take one of the farms into my own hands, and see if something cannot be done in setting a
good pattern of farming among my tenants. Do you approve of that, Miss Brooke?"
"A great mistake, Chettam," interposed Mr. Brooke, "going into electrifying your land and
that kind of thing, and making a parlor of your cow-house. It won't do. I went into science a
great deal myself at one time; but I saw it would not do. It leads to everything; you can let
nothing alone. No, no - see that your tenants don't sell their straw, and that kind of thing; and
give them draining-tiles, you know. But your fancy farming will not do - the most expensive
sort of whistle you can buy: you may as well keep a pack of hounds."
"Surely," said Dorothea, "it is better to spend money in finding out how men can make the
most of the land which supports them all, than in keeping dogs and horses only to gallop over
it. It is not a sin to make yourself poor in performing experiments for the good of all."
She spoke with more energy than is expected of so young a lady, but Sir James had appealed
to her. He was accustomed to do so, and she had often thought that she could urge him to
many good actions when he was her brother-in-law.
Mr. Casaubon turned his eyes very markedly on Dorothea while she was speaking, and
seemed to observe her newly.
"Young ladies don't understand political economy, you know," said Mr Brooke, smiling
towards Mr Casaubon. "I remember when we were all reading Adam Smith. There is a book,
now. I took in all the new ideas at one time - human perfectibility, now. But some say, history
moves in circles; and that may be very well argued; I have argued it myself. The fact is,
human reason may carry you a little too far - over the hedge, in fact. It carried me a good way
at one time; but I saw it would not do. I pulled up; I pulled up in time. But not too hard. I have
always been in favor of a little theory: we must have Thought; else we shall be landed back in
the dark ages. But talking of books, there is Southey's Peninsular War. I am reading that of a
morning. You know Southey?"
"No" said Mr Casaubon, not keeping pace with Mr Brooke's impetuous reason, and thinking
of the book only. "I have little leisure for such literature just now. I have been using up my
eyesight on old characters lately; the fact is, I want a reader for my evenings; but I am
fastidious in voices, and I cannot endure listening to an imperfect reader. It is a misfortune, in
some senses: I feed too much on the inward sources; I live too much with the dead. My mind
is something like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying mentally to
construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and confusing changes. But I find it necessary to
use the utmost caution about my eyesight."
This was the first time that Mr Casaubon had spoken at any length. He delivered himself with
precision, as if he had been called upon to make a public statement; and the balanced singsong neatness of his speech, occasionally corresponded to by a movement of his head, was the
more conspicuous from its contrast with good Mr Brooke's scrappy slovenliness. Dorothea
said to herself that Mr. Casaubon was the most interesting man she had ever seen, not
excepting even Monsieur Liret, the Vaudois clergyman who had given conferences on the
history of the Waldenses. To reconstruct a past world, doubtless with a view to the highest
purposes of truth - what a work to be in any way present at, to assist in, though only as a
lamp-holder! This elevating thought lifted her above her annoyance at being twitted with her
ignorance of political economy, that never-explained science which was thrust as an
extinguisher over all her lights.
"But you are fond of riding, Miss Brooke," Sir James presently took an opportunity of saying.
"I should have thought you would enter a little into the pleasures of hunting. I wish you would
let me send over a chestnut horse for you to try. It has been trained for a lady. I saw you on
Saturday cantering over the hill on a nag not worthy of you. My groom shall bring Corydon
for you every day, if you will only mention the time."
"Thank you, you are very good. I mean to give up riding. I shall not ride any more," said
Dorothea, urged to this brusque resolution by a little annoyance that Sir James would be
soliciting her attention when she wanted to give it all to Mr Casaubon.
"No, that is too hard," said Sir James, in a tone of reproach that showed strong interest. "Your
sister is given to self-mortification, is she not?" he continued, turning to Celia, who sat at his
right hand.
"I think she is," said Celia, feeling afraid lest she should say something that would not please
her sister, and blushing as prettily as possible above her necklace. "She likes giving up."
"If that were true, Celia, my giving-up would be self-indulgence, not self-mortification. But
there may be good reasons for choosing not to do what is very agreeable," said Dorothea.
Mr Brooke was speaking at the same time, but it was evident that Mr Casaubon was observing
Dorothea, and she was aware of it.
"Exactly," said Sir James. "You give up from some high, generous motive."
"No, indeed, not exactly. I did not say that of myself," answered Dorothea, reddening. Unlike
Celia, she rarely blushed, and only from high delight or anger. At this moment she felt angry
with the perverse Sir James. Why did he not pay attention to Celia, and leave her to listen to
Mr Casaubon? - if that learned man would only talk, instead of allowing himself to be talked
to by Mr Brooke, who was just then informing him that the Reformation either meant
something or it did not, that he himself was a Protestant to the core, but that Catholicism was
a fact; and as to refusing an acre of your ground for a Romanist chapel, all men needed the
bridle of religion, which, properly speaking, was the dread of a Hereafter.
"I made a great study of theology at one time," said Mr Brooke, as if to explain the insight just
manifested. "I know something of all schools. I knew Wilberforce in his best days. Do you
know Wilberforce?"
Mr Casaubon said, "No."
"Well, Wilberforce was perhaps not enough of a thinker; but if I went into Parliament, as I
have been asked to do, I should sit on the independent bench, as Wilberforce did, and work at
philanthropy."
Mr Casaubon bowed, and observed that it was a wide field.
"Yes," said Mr Brooke, with an easy smile, "but I have documents. I began a long while ago
to collect documents. They want arranging, but when a question has struck me, I have written
to somebody and got an answer. I have documents at my back. But now, how do you arrange
your documents?"
"In pigeon-holes partly," said Mr Casaubon, with rather a startled air of effort.
"Ah, pigeon-holes will not do. I have tried pigeon-holes, but everything gets mixed in pigeonholes: I never know whether a paper is in A or Z."
"I wish you would let me sort your papers for you, uncle," said Dorothea. "I would letter them
all, and then make a list of subjects under each letter."
Mr Casaubon gravely smiled approval, and said to Mr Brooke, "You have an excellent
secretary at hand, you perceive."
"No, no," said Mr Brooke, shaking his head; "I cannot let young ladies meddle with my
documents. Young ladies are too flighty."
Dorothea felt hurt. Mr. Casaubon would think that her uncle had some special reason for
delivering this opinion, whereas the remark lay in his mind as lightly as the broken wing of an
insect among all the other fragments there, and a chance current had sent it alighting on her.
When the two girls were in the drawing-room alone, Celia said "How very ugly Mr Casaubon is!"
"Celia! He is one of the most distinguished-looking men I ever saw. He is remarkably like the
portrait of Locke. He has the same deep eye-sockets."
"Had Locke those two white moles with hairs on them?"
"Oh, I dare say! when people of a certain sort looked at him," said Dorothea, walking away a
little.
"Mr Casaubon is so sallow."
"All the better. I suppose you admire a man with the complexion of a cochon de lait."
"Dodo!" exclaimed Celia, looking after her in surprise. "I never heard you make such a
comparison before."
"Why should I make it before the occasion came? It is a good comparison: the match is
perfect."
Miss Brooke was clearly forgetting herself, and Celia thought so.
"I wonder you show temper, Dorothea."
"It is so painful in you, Celia, that you will look at human beings as if they were merely
animals with a toilet, and never see the great soul in a man's face."
"Has Mr Casaubon a great soul?" Celia was not without a touch of naive malice.
"Yes, I believe he has," said Dorothea, with the full voice of decision. "Everything I see in
him corresponds to his pamphlet on Biblical Cosmology."
"He talks very little," said Celia
"There is no one for him to talk to."
Celia thought privately, "Dorothea quite despises Sir James Chettam; I believe she would not
accept him." Celia felt that this was a pity. She had never been deceived as to the object of the
baronet's interest. Sometimes, indeed, she had reflected that Dodo would perhaps not make a
husband happy who had not her way of looking at things; and stifled in the depths of her heart
was the feeling that her sister was too religious for family comfort. Notions and scruples were
like spilt needles, making one afraid of treading, or sitting down, or even eating.
When Miss Brooke was at the tea-table, Sir James came to sit down by her, not having felt her
mode of answering him at all offensive. Why should he? He thought it probable that Miss
Brooke liked him, and manners must be very marked indeed before they cease to be
interpreted by preconceptions either confident or distrustful. She was thoroughly charming to
him, but of course he theorized a little about his attachment. He was made of excellent human
dough, and had the rare merit of knowing that his talents, even if let loose, would not set the
smallest stream in the county on fire: hence he liked the prospect of a wife to whom he could
say, "What shall we do?" about this or that; who could help her husband out with reasons, and
would also have the property qualification for doing so. As to the excessive religiousness
alleged against Miss Brooke, he had a very indefinite notion of what it consisted in, and
thought that it would die out with marriage. In short, he felt himself to be in love in the right
place, and was ready to endure a great deal of predominance, which, after all, a man could
always put down when he liked. Sir James had no idea that he should ever like to put down
the predominance of this handsome girl, in whose cleverness he delighted. Why not? A man's
mind - what there is of it - has always the advantage of being masculine, - as the smallest
birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm, - and even his ignorance is of a
sounder quality. Sir James might not have originated this estimate; but a kind Providence
furnishes the limpest personality with a little gunk or starch in the form of tradition.
"Let me hope that you will rescind that resolution about the horse, Miss Brooke," said the
persevering admirer. "I assure you, riding is the most healthy of exercises."
"I am aware of it," said Dorothea, coldly. "I think it would do Celia good - if she would take
to it."
"But you are such a perfect horsewoman."
"Excuse me; I have had very little practice, and I should be easily thrown."
"Then that is a reason for more practice. Every lady ought to be a perfect horsewoman, that
she may accompany her husband."
"You see how widely we differ, Sir James. I have made up my mind that I ought not to be a
perfect horsewoman, and so I should never correspond to your pattern of a lady." Dorothea
looked straight before her, and spoke with cold brusquerie, very much with the air of a
handsome boy, in amusing contrast with the solicitous amiability of her admirer.
"I should like to know your reasons for this cruel resolution. It is not possible that you should
think horsemanship wrong."
"It is quite possible that I should think it wrong for me."
"Oh, why?" said Sir James, in a tender tone of remonstrance.
Mr Casaubon had come up to the table, teacup in hand, and was listening.
"We must not inquire too curiously into motives," he interposed, in his measured way. "Miss
Brooke knows that they are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the
grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light."
Dorothea coloured with pleasure, and looked up gratefully to the speaker. Here was a man
who could understand the higher inward life, and with whom there could be some spiritual
communion; nay, who could illuminate principle with the widest knowledge a man whose
learning almost amounted to a proof of whatever he believed!
Dorothea's inferences may seem large; but really life could never have gone on at any period
but for this liberal allowance of conclusions, which has facilitated marriage under the
difficulties of civilization. Has any one ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of
pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship?
"Certainly," said good Sir James. "Miss Brooke shall not be urged to tell reasons she would
rather be silent upon. I am sure her reasons would do her honor."
He was not in the least jealous of the interest with which Dorothea had looked up at Mr
Casaubon: it never occurred to him that a girl to whom he was meditating an offer of marriage
could care for a dried bookworm towards fifty, except, indeed, in a religious sort of way, as
for a clergyman of some distinction.
However, since Miss Brooke had become engaged in a conversation with Mr Casaubon about
the Vaudois clergy, Sir James betook himself to Celia, and talked to her about her sister;
spoke of a house in town, and asked whether Miss Brooke disliked London. Away from her
sister, Celia talked quite easily, and Sir James said to himself that the second Miss Brooke
was certainly very agreeable as well as pretty, though not, as some people pretended, more
clever and sensible than the elder sister. He felt that he had chosen the one who was in all
respects the superior; and a man naturally likes to look forward to having the best. He would
be the very Mawworm of bachelors who pretended not to expect it.
Chapter 3
Say, goddess, what ensued, when Raphaël,'
The affable archangel . . .
Eve
The story heard attentive, and was filled
With admiration, and deep muse, to hear
Of things so high and strange."
Paradise Lost, B. vii
If it had really occurred to Mr Casaubon to think of Miss Brooke as a suitable wife for him,
the reasons that might induce her to accept him were already planted in her mind, and by the
evening of the next day the reasons had budded and bloomed. For they had had a long
conversation in the morning, while Celia, who did not like the company of Mr Casaubon's
moles and sallowness, had escaped to the vicarage to play with the curate's ill-shod but merry
children.
Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of Mr Casaubon's mind,
seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine extension every quality she herself brought; had
opened much of her own experience to him, and had understood from him the scope of his
great work, also of attractively labyrinthine extent. For he had been as instructive as Milton's
"affable archangel"; and with something of the archangelic manner he told her how he had
undertaken to show (what indeed had been attempted before, but not with that thoroughness,
justice of comparison, and effectiveness of arrangement at which Mr Casaubon aimed) that all
the mythical systems or erratic mythical fragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition
originally revealed. Having once mastered the true position and taken a firm footing there, the
vast field of mythical constructions became intelligible, nay, luminous with the reflected light
of correspondences. But to gather in this great harvest of truth was no light or speedy work.
His notes already made a formidable range of volumes, but the crowning task would be to
condense these voluminous still-accumulating results and bring them, like the earlier vintage
of Hippocratic books, to fit a little shelf. In explaining this to Dorothea, Mr Casaubon
expressed himself nearly as he would have done to a fellow-student, for he had not two styles
of talking at command: it is true that when he used a Greek or Latin phrase he always gave the
English with scrupulous care, but he would probably have done this in any case. A learned
provincial clergyman is accustomed to think of his acquaintances as of "lords, knyghtes, and
other noble and worthi men, that conne Latyn but lytille."
Dorothea was altogether captivated by the wide embrace of this conception. Here was
something beyond the shallows of ladies' school literature: here was a living Bossuet, whose
work would reconcile complete knowledge with devoted piety; here was a modern Augustine
who united the glories of doctor and saint.
The sanctity seemed no less clearly marked than the learning, for when Dorothea was
impelled to open her mind on certain themes which she could speak of to no one whom she
had before seen at Tipton, especially on the secondary importance of ecclesiastical forms and
articles of belief compared with that spiritual religion, that submergence of self in communion
with Divine perfection which seemed to her to be expressed in the best Christian books of
widely distant ages, she found in Mr Casaubon a listener who understood her at once, who
could assure her of his own agreement with that view when duly tempered with wise
conformity, and could mention historical examples before unknown to her.
"He thinks with me," said Dorothea to herself, "or rather, he thinks a whole world of which
my thought is but a poor twopenny mirror. And his feelings too, his whole experience - what a
lake compared with my little pool!"
Miss Brooke argued from words and dispositions not less unhesitatingly than other young
ladies of her age. Signs are small measurable things, but interpretations are illimitable, and in
girls of sweet, ardent nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as a
sky, and colored by a diffused thimbleful of matter in the shape of knowledge. They are not
always too grossly deceived; for Sinbad himself may have fallen by good-luck on a true
description, and wrong reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions: starting
a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we now and then arrive
just where we ought to be. Because Miss Brooke was hasty in her trust, it is not therefore
clear that Mr Casaubon was unworthy of it.
He stayed a little longer than he had intended, on a slight pressure of invitation from Mr
Brooke, who offered no bait except his own documents on machine-breaking and rickburning. Mr Casaubon was called into the library to look at these in a heap, while his host
picked up first one and then the other to read aloud from in a skipping and uncertain way,
passing from one unfinished passage to another with a "Yes, now, but here!" and finally
pushing them all aside to open the journal of his youthful Continental travels.
"Look here - here is all about Greece. Rhamnus, the ruins of Rhamnus - you are a great
Grecian, now. I don't know whether you have given much study to the topography. I spent no
end of time in making out these things - Helicon, now. Here, now! - `We started the next
morning for Parnassus, the double-peaked Parnassus.' All this volume is about Greece, you
know," Mr Brooke wound up, rubbing his thumb transversely along the edges of the leaves as
he held the book forward.
Mr Casaubon made a dignified though somewhat sad audience; bowed in the right place, and
avoided looking at anything documentary as far as possible, without showing disregard or
impatience; mindful that this desultoriness was associated with the institutions of the country,
and that the man who took him on this severe mental scamper was not only an amiable host,
but a landholder and custos rotulorum. Was his endurance aided also by the reflection that Mr
Brooke was the uncle of Dorothea?
Certainly he seemed more and more bent on making her talk to him, on drawing her out, as
Celia remarked to herself; and in looking at her his face was often lit up by a smile like pale
wintry sunshine. Before he left the next morning, while taking a pleasant walk with Miss
Brooke along the gravelled terrace, he had mentioned to her that he felt the disadvantage of
loneliness, the need of that cheerful companionship with which the presence of youth can
lighten or vary the serious toils of maturity. And he delivered this statement with as much
careful precision as if he had been a diplomatic envoy whose words would be attended with
results. Indeed, Mr Casaubon was not used to expect that he should have to repeat or revise
his communications of a practical or personal kind. The inclinations which he had deliberately
stated on the 2d of October he would think it enough to refer to by the mention of that date;
judging by the standard of his own memory, which was a volume where a vide supra could
serve instead of repetitions, and not the ordinary long-used blotting-book which only tells of
forgotten writing. But in this case Mr Casaubon's confidence was not likely to be falsified, for
Dorothea heard and retained what he said with the eager interest of a fresh young nature to
which every variety in experience is an epoch.
It was three o'clock in the beautiful breezy autumn day when Mr Casaubon drove off to his
Rectory at Lowick, only five miles from Tipton; and Dorothea, who had on her bonnet and
shawl, hurried along the shrubbery and across the park that she might wander through the
bordering wood with no other visible companionship than that of Monk, the Great St. Bernard
dog, who always took care of the young ladies in their walks. There had risen before her the
girl's vision of a possible future for herself to which she looked forward with trembling hope,
and she wanted to wander on in that visionary future without interruption. She walked briskly
in the brisk air, the colour rose in her cheeks, and her straw bonnet (which our contemporaries
might look at with conjectural curiosity as at an obsolete form of basket) fell a little backward.
She would perhaps be hardly characterized enough if it were omitted that she wore her brown
hair flatly braided and coiled behind so as to expose the outline of her head in a daring
manner at a time when public feeling required the meagreness of nature to be dissimulated by
tall barricades of frizzed curls and bows, never surpassed by any great race except the
Feejeean. This was a trait of Miss Brooke's asceticism. But there was nothing of an ascetic's
expression in her bright full eyes, as she looked before her, not consciously seeing, but
absorbing into the intensity of her mood, the solemn glory of the afternoon with its long
swathes of light between the far-off rows of limes, whose shadows touched each other.
All people, young or old (that is, all people in those ante-reform times), would have thought
her an interesting object if they had referred the glow in her eyes and cheeks to the newly
awakened ordinary images of young love: the illusions of Chloe about Strephon have been
sufficiently consecrated in poetry, as the pathetic loveliness of all spontaneous trust ought to
be. Miss Pippin adoring young Pumpkin, and dreaming along endless vistas of unwearying
companionship, was a little drama which never tired our fathers and mothers, and had been
put into all costumes. Let but Pumpkin have a figure which would sustain the disadvantages
of the shortwaisted swallow-tail, and everybody felt it not only natural but necessary to the
perfection of womanhood, that a sweet girl should be at once convinced of his virtue, his
exceptional ability, and above all, his perfect sincerity. But perhaps no persons then living certainly none in the neighbourhood of Tipton - would have had a sympathetic understanding
for the dreams of a girl whose notions about marriage took their colour entirely from an
exalted enthusiasm about the ends of life, an enthusiasm which was lit chiefly by its own fire,
and included neither the niceties of the trousseau, the pattern of plate, nor even the honours
and sweet joys of the blooming matron.
It had now entered Dorothea's mind that Mr Casaubon might wish to make her his wife, and
the idea that he would do so touched her with a sort of reverential gratitude. How good of him
- nay, it would be almost as if a winged messenger had suddenly stood beside her path and
held out his hand towards her! For a long while she had been oppressed by the indefiniteness
which hung in her mind, like a thick summer haze, over all her desire to made her life greatly
effective. What could she do, what ought she to do? - she, hardly more than a budding
woman, but yet with an active conscience and a great mental need, not to be satisfied by a
girlish instruction comparable to the nibblings and judgments of a discursive mouse. With
some endowment of stupidity and conceit, she might have thought that a Christian young lady
of fortune should find her ideal of life in village charities, patronage of the humbler clergy,
the perusal of Female Scripture Characters, unfolding the private experience of Sara under
the Old Dispensation, and Dorcas under the New, and the care of her soul over her
embroidery in her own boudoir - with a background of prospective marriage to a man who, if
less strict than herself, as being involved in affairs religiously inexplicable, might be prayed
for and seasonably exhorted. From such contentment poor Dorothea was shut out. The
intensity of her religious disposition, the coercion it exercised over her life, was but one
aspect of a nature altogether ardent, theoretic, and intellectually consequent: and with such a
nature struggling in the bands of a narrow teaching, hemmed in by a social life which seemed
nothing but a labyrinth of petty courses, a walled-in maze of small paths that led no whither,
the outcome was sure to strike others as at once exaggeration and inconsistency. The thing
which seemed to her best, she wanted to justify by the completest knowledge; and not to live
in a pretended admission of rules which were never acted on. Into this soul-hunger as yet all
her youthful passion was poured; the union which attracted her was one that would deliver her
from her girlish subjection to her own ignorance, and give her the freedom of voluntary
submission to a guide who would take her along the grandest path.
"I should learn everything then," she said to herself, still walking quickly along the bridle road
through the wood. "It would be my duty to study that I might help him the better in his great
works. There would be nothing trivial about our lives. Every-day things with us would mean
the greatest things. It would be like marrying Pascal. I should learn to see the truth by the
same light as great men have seen it by. And then I should know what to do, when I got older:
I should see how it was possible to lead a grand life here - now - in England. I don't feel sure
about doing good in any way now: everything seems like going on a mission to a people
whose language I don't know; - unless it were building good cottages - there can be no doubt
about that. Oh, I hope I should be able to get the people well housed in Lowick! I will draw
plenty of plans while I have time."
Dorothea checked herself suddenly with self-rebuke for the presumptuous way in which she
was reckoning on uncertain events, but she was spared any inward effort to change the
direction of her thoughts by the appearance of a cantering horseman round a turning of the
road. The well-groomed chestnut horse and two beautiful setters could leave no doubt that the
rider was Sir James Chettam. He discerned Dorothea, jumped off his horse at once, and,
having delivered it to his groom, advanced towards her with something white on his arm, at
which the two setters were barking in an excited manner.
"How delightful to meet you, Miss Brooke," he said, raising his hat and showing his sleekly
waving blond hair. "It has hastened the pleasure I was looking forward to."
Miss Brooke was annoyed at the interruption. This amiable baronet, really a suitable husband
for Celia, exaggerated the necessity of making himself agreeable to the elder sister. Even a
prospective brother-in-law may be an oppression if he will always be presupposing too good
an understanding with you, and agreeing with you even when you contradict him. The thought
that he had made the mistake of paying his addresses to herself could not take shape: all her
mental activity was used up in persuasions of another kind. But he was positively obtrusive at
this moment, and his dimpled hands were quite disagreeable. Her roused temper made her
colour deeply, as she returned his greeting with some haughtiness.
Sir James interpreted the heightened colour in the way most gratifying to himself, and thought
he never saw Miss Brooke looking so handsome.
"I have brought a little petitioner," he said, "or rather, I have brought him to see if he will be
approved before his petition is offered." He showed the white object under his arm, which
was a tiny Maltese puppy, one of nature's most naive toys.
"It is painful to me to see these creatures that are bred merely as pets," said Dorothea, whose
opinion was forming itself that very moment (as opinions will) under the heat of irritation.
"Oh, why?" said Sir James, as they walked forward.
"I believe all the petting that is given them does not make them happy. They are too helpless:
their lives are too frail. A weasel or a mouse that gets its own living is more interesting. I like
to think that the animals about us have souls something like our own, and either carry on their
own little affairs or can be companions to us, like Monk here. Those creatures are parasitic."
"I am so glad I know that you do not like them," said good Sir James. "I should never keep
them for myself, but ladies usually are fond of these Maltese dogs. Here, John, take this dog,
will you?"
The objectionable puppy, whose nose and eyes were equally black and expressive, was thus
got rid of, since Miss Brooke decided that it had better not have been born. But she felt it
necessary to explain.
"You must not judge of Celia's feeling from mine. I think she likes these small pets. She had a
tiny terrier once, which she was very fond of. It made me unhappy, because I was afraid of
treading on it. I am rather short-sighted."
"You have your own opinion about everything, Miss Brooke, and it is always a good
opinion."
What answer was possible to such stupid complimenting?
"Do you know, I envy you that," Sir James said, as they continued walking at the rather brisk
pace set by Dorothea.
"I don't quite understand what you mean."
"Your power of forming an opinion. I can form an opinion of persons. I know when I like
people. But about other matters, do you know, I have often a difficulty in deciding. One hears
very sensible things said on opposite sides."
"Or that seem sensible. Perhaps we don't always discriminate between sense and nonsense."
Dorothea felt that she was rather rude.
"Exactly," said Sir James. "But you seem to have the power of discrimination."
"On the contrary, I am often unable to decide. But that is from ignorance. The right
conclusion is there all the same, though I am unable to see it."
"I think there are few who would see it more readily. Do you know, Lovegood was telling me
yesterday that you had the best notion in the world of a plan for cottages - quite wonderful for
a young lady, he thought. You had a real GENUS, to use his expression. He said you wanted
Mr Brooke to build a new set of cottages, but he seemed to think it hardly probable that your
uncle would consent. Do you know, that is one of the things I wish to do - I mean, on my own
estate. I should be so glad to carry out that plan of yours, if you would let me see it. Of course,
it is sinking money; that is why people object to it. Labourers can never pay rent to make it
answer. But, after all, it is worth doing."
"Worth doing! yes, indeed," said Dorothea, energetically, forgetting her previous small
vexations. "I think we deserve to be beaten out of our beautiful houses with a scourge of small
cords - all of us who let tenants live in such sties as we see round us. Life in cottages might be
happier than ours, if they were real houses fit for human beings from whom we expect duties
and affections."
"Will you show me your plan?"
"Yes, certainly. I dare say it is very faulty. But I have been examining all the plans for
cottages in Loudon's book, and picked out what seem the best things. Oh what a happiness it
would be to set the pattern about here! I think instead of Lazarus at the gate, we should put the
pigsty cottages outside the park-gate."
Dorothea was in the best temper now. Sir James, as brother in-law, building model cottages
on his estate, and then, perhaps, others being built at Lowick, and more and more elsewhere in
imitation - it would be as if the spirit of Oberlin had passed over the parishes to make the life
of poverty beautiful!
Sir James saw all the plans, and took one away to consult upon with Lovegood. He also took
away a complacent sense that he was making great progress in Miss Brooke's good opinion.
The Maltese puppy was not offered to Celia; an omission which Dorothea afterwards thought
of with surprise; but she blamed herself for it. She had been engrossing Sir James. After all, it
was a relief that there was no puppy to tread upon.
Celia was present while the plans were being examined, and observed Sir James's illusion.
"He thinks that Dodo cares about him, and she only cares about her plans. Yet I am not certain
that she would refuse him if she thought he would let her manage everything and carry out all
her notions. And how very uncomfortable Sir James would be! I cannot bear notions."
It was Celia's private luxury to indulge in this dislike. She dared not confess it to her sister in
any direct statement, for that would be laying herself open to a demonstration that she was
somehow or other at war with all goodness. But on safe opportunities, she had an indirect
mode of making her negative wisdom tell upon Dorothea, and calling her down from her
rhapsodic mood by reminding her that people were staring, not listening. Celia was not
impulsive: what she had to say could wait, and came from her always with the same quiet
staccato evenness. When people talked with energy and emphasis she watched their faces and
features merely. She never could understand how well-bred persons consented to sing and
open their mouths in the ridiculous manner requisite for that vocal exercise.
It was not many days before Mr Casaubon paid a morning visit, on which he was invited
again for the following week to dine and stay the night. Thus Dorothea had three more
conversations with him, and was convinced that her first impressions had been just. He was
all she had at first imagined him to be: almost everything he had said seemed like a specimen
from a mine, or the inscription on the door of a museum which might open on the treasures of
past ages; and this trust in his mental wealth was all the deeper and more effective on her
inclination because it was now obvious that his visits were made for her sake. This
accomplished man condescended to think of a young girl, and take the pains to talk to her, not
with absurd compliment, but with an appeal to her understanding, and sometimes with
instructive correction. What delightful companionship! Mr Casaubon seemed even
unconscious that trivialities existed, and never handed round that small-talk of heavy men
which is as acceptable as stale bride-cake brought forth with an odor of cupboard. He talked
of what he was interested in, or else he was silent and bowed with sad civility. To Dorothea
this was adorable genuineness, and religious abstinence from that artificiality which uses up
the soul in the efforts of pretence. For she looked as reverently at Mr Casaubon's religious
elevation above herself as she did at his intellect and learning. He assented to her expressions
of devout feeling, and usually with an appropriate quotation; he allowed himself to say that he
had gone through some spiritual conflicts in his youth; in short, Dorothea saw that here she
might reckon on understanding, sympathy, and guidance. On one - only one - of her favourite
themes she was disappointed. Mr Casaubon apparently did not care about building cottages,
and diverted the talk to the extremely narrow accommodation which was to be had in the
dwellings of the ancient Egyptians, as if to check a too high standard. After he was gone,
Dorothea dwelt with some agitation on this indifference of his; and her mind was much
exercised with arguments drawn from the varying conditions of climate which modify human
needs, and from the admitted wickedness of pagan despots. Should she not urge these
arguments on Mr Casaubon when he came again? But further reflection told her that she was
presumptuous in demanding his attention to such a subject; he would not disapprove of her
occupying herself with it in leisure moments, as other women expected to occupy themselves
with their dress and embroidery - would not forbid it when - Dorothea felt rather ashamed as
she detected herself in these speculations. But her uncle had been invited to go to Lowick to
stay a couple of days: was it reasonable to suppose that Mr Casaubon delighted in Mr
Brooke's society for its own sake, either with or without documents?
Meanwhile that little disappointment made her delight the more in Sir James Chettam's
readiness to set on foot the desired improvements. He came much oftener than Mr Casaubon,
and Dorothea ceased to find him disagreeable since he showed himself so entirely in earnest;
for he had already entered with much practical ability into Lovegood's estimates, and was
charmingly docile. She proposed to build a couple of cottages, and transfer two families from
their old cabins, which could then be pulled down, so that new ones could be built on the old
sites. Sir James said "Exactly," and she bore the word remarkably well.
Certainly these men who had so few spontaneous ideas might be very useful members of
society under good feminine direction, if they were fortunate in choosing their sisters-in-law!
It is difficult to say whether there was or was not a little wilfulness in her continuing blind to
the possibility that another sort of choice was in question in relation to her. But her life was
just now full of hope and action: she was not only thinking of her plans, but getting down
learned books from the library and reading many things hastily (that she might be a little less
ignorant in talking to Mr Casaubon), all the while being visited with conscientious
questionings whether she were not exalting these poor doings above measure and
contemplating them with that self-satisfaction which was the last doom of ignorance and
folly.
Chapter 5
Hard students are commonly troubled with gowts, catarrhs, rheums, cachexia,
bradypepsia, bad eyes, stone, and collick, crudities, oppilations, vertigo, winds,
consumptions, and all such diseases as come by over-much sitting: they are most part
lean, dry, ill-colored . . . and all through immoderate pains and extraordinary studies.
If you will not believe the truth of this, look upon great Tostatus and Thomas
Aquainas' works; and tell me whether those men took pains.
BURTON'S Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 1, s. 2.
This was Mr Casaubon's letter.
MY DEAR MISS BROOKE, - I have your guardian's permission to address you on a subject
than which I have none more at heart. I am not, I trust, mistaken in the recognition of some
deeper correspondence than that of date in the fact that a consciousness of need in my own
life had arisen contemporaneously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted with you.
For in the first hour of meeting you, I had an impression of your eminent and perhaps
exclusive fitness to supply that need (connected, I may say, with such activity of the
affections as even the preoccupations of a work too special to be abdicated could not
uninterruptedly dissimulate); and each succeeding opportunity for observation has given the
impression an added depth by convincing me more emphatically of that fitness which I had
preconceived, and thus evoking more decisively those affections to which I have but now
referred. Our conversations have, I think, made sufficiently clear to you the tenor of my life
and purposes: a tenor unsuited, I am aware, to the commoner order of minds. But I have
discerned in you an elevation of thought and a capability of devotedness, which I had hitherto
not conceived to be compatible either with the early bloom of youth or with those graces of
sex that may be said at once to win and to confer distinction when combined, as they notably
are in you, with the mental qualities above indicated. It was, I confess, beyond my hope to
meet with this rare combination of elements both solid and attractive, adapted to supply aid in
graver labours and to cast a charm over vacant hours; and but for the event of my introduction
to you (which, let me again say, I trust not to be superficially coincident with foreshadowing
needs, but providentially related thereto as stages towards the completion of a life's plan), I
should presumably have gone on to the last without any attempt to lighten my solitariness by
a matrimonial union.
Such, my dear Miss Brooke, is the accurate statement of my feelings; and I rely on your kind
indulgence in venturing now to ask you how far your own are of a nature to confirm my
happy presentiment. To be accepted by you as your husband and the earthly guardian of your
welfare, I should regard as the highest of providential gifts. In return I can at least offer you
an affection hitherto unwasted, and the faithful consecration of a life which, however short in
the sequel, has no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find records
such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame. I await the expression of your
sentiments with an anxiety which it would be the part of wisdom (were it possible) to divert
by a more arduous labour than usual. But in this order of experience I am still young, and in
looking forward to an unfavourable possibility I cannot but feel that resignation to solitude
will be more difficult after the temporary illumination of hope. In any case, I shall remain,
yours with sincere devotion,
EDWARD CASAUBON.
Dorothea trembled while she read this letter; then she fell on her knees, buried her face, and
sobbed. She could not pray: under the rush of solemn emotion in which thoughts became
vague and images floated uncertainly, she could but cast herself, with a childlike sense of
reclining, in the lap of a divine consciousness which sustained her own. She remained in that
attitude till it was time to dress for dinner.
How could it occur to her to examine the letter, to look at it critically as a profession of love?
Her whole soul was possessed by the fact that a fuller life was opening before her: she was a
neophyte about to enter on a higher grade of initiation. She was going to have room for the
energies which stirred uneasily under the dimness and pressure of her own ignorance and the
petty peremptoriness of the world's habits.
Now she would be able to devote herself to large yet definite duties; now she would be
allowed to live continually in the light of a mind that she could reverence. This hope was not
unmixed with the glow of proud delight - the joyous maiden surprise that she was chosen by
the man whom her admiration had chosen. All Dorothea's passion was transfused through a
mind struggling towards an ideal life; the radiance of her transfigured girlhood fell on the first
object that came within its level. The impetus with which inclination became resolution was
heightened by those little events of the day which had roused her discontent with the actual
conditions of her life.
After dinner, when Celia was playing an "air, with variations," a small kind of tinkling which
symbolized the aesthetic part of the young ladies' education, Dorothea went up to her room to
answer Mr Casaubon's letter. Why should she defer the answer? She wrote it over three times,
not because she wished to change the wording, but because her hand was unusually uncertain,
and she could not bear that Mr Casaubon should think her handwriting bad and illegible. She
piqued herself on writing a hand in which each letter was distinguishable without any large
range of conjecture, and she meant to make much use of this accomplishment, to save Mr
Casaubon's eyes. Three times she wrote.
MY DEAR MR CASAUBON, - I am very grateful to you for loving me, and thinking me
worthy to be your wife. I can look forward to no better happiness than that which would be
one with yours. If I said more, it would only be the same thing written out at greater length,
for I cannot now dwell on any other thought than that I may be through life, yours devotedly,
DOROTHEA BROOKE.
Later in the evening she followed her uncle into the library to give him the letter, that he
might send it in the morning. He was surprised, but his surprise only issued in a few moments'
silence, during which he pushed about various objects on his writing-table, and finally stood
with his back to the fire, his glasses on his nose, looking at the address of Dorothea's letter.
"Have you thought enough about this, my dear?" he said at last.
"There was no need to think long, uncle. I know of nothing to make me vacillate. If I changed
my mind, it must be because of something important and entirely new to me."
"Ah! - then you have accepted him? Then Chettam has no chance? Has Chettam offended you
- offended you, you know? What is it you don't like in Chettam?"
"There is nothing that I like in him," said Dorothea, rather impetuously.
Mr Brooke threw his head and shoulders backward as if some one had thrown a light missile
at him. Dorothea immediately felt some self-rebuke, and said "I mean in the light of a husband. He is very kind, I think - really very good about the
cottages. A well-meaning man."
"But you must have a scholar, and that sort of thing? Well, it lies a little in our family. I had it
myself - that love of knowledge, and going into everything - a little too much - it took me too
far; though that sort of thing doesn't often run in the female-line; or it runs underground like
the rivers in Greece, you know - it comes out in the sons. Clever sons, clever mothers. I went
a good deal into that, at one time. However, my dear, I have always said that people should do
as they like in these things, up to a certain point. I couldn't, as your guardian, have consented
to a bad match. But Casaubon stands well: his position is good. I am afraid Chettam will be
hurt, though, and Mrs. Cadwallader will blame me."
That evening, of course, Celia knew nothing of what had happened. She attributed Dorothea's
abstracted manner, and the evidence of further crying since they had got home, to the temper
she had been in about Sir James Chettam and the buildings, and was careful not to give
further offence: having once said what she wanted to say, Celia had no disposition to recur to
disagreeable subjects. It had been her nature when a child never to quarrel with any one-only
to observe with wonder that they quarrelled with her, and looked like turkey-cocks;
whereupon she was ready to play at cat's cradle with them whenever they recovered
themselves. And as to Dorothea, it had always been her way to find something wrong in her
sister's words, though Celia inwardly protested that she always said just how things were, and
nothing else: she never did and never could put words together out of her own head. But the
best of Dodo was, that she did not keep angry for long together. Now, though they had hardly
spoken to each other all the evening, yet when Celia put by her work, intending to go to bed, a
proceeding in which she was always much the earlier, Dorothea, who was seated on a low
stool, unable to occupy herself except in meditation, said, with the musical intonation which
in moments of deep but quiet feeling made her speech like a fine bit of recitative "Celia, dear, come and kiss me," holding her arms open as she spoke.
Celia knelt down to get the right level and gave her little butterfly kiss, while Dorothea
encircled her with gentle arms and pressed her lips gravely on each cheek in turn.
"Don't sit up, Dodo, you are so pale to-night: go to bed soon," said Celia, in a comfortable
way, without any touch of pathos.
"No, dear, I am very, very happy," said Dorothea, fervently.
"So much the better," thought Celia. "But how strangely Dodo goes from one extreme to the
other."
The next day, at luncheon, the butler, handing something to Mr Brooke, said, "Jonas is come
back, sir, and has brought this letter."
Mr Brooke read the letter, and then, nodding toward Dorothea, said, "Casaubon, my dear: he
will be here to dinner; he didn't wait to write more - didn't wait, you know."
It could not seem remarkable to Celia that a dinner guest should be announced to her sister
beforehand, but, her eyes following the same direction as her uncle's, she was struck with the
peculiar effect of the announcement on Dorothea. It seemed as if something like the reflection
of a white sunlit wing had passed across her features, ending in one of her rare blushes. For
the first time it entered into Celia's mind that there might be something more between Mr
Casaubon and her sister than his delight in bookish talk and her delight in listening. Hitherto
she had classed the admiration for this "ugly" and learned acquaintance with the admiration
for Monsieur Liret at Lausanne, also ugly and learned. Dorothea had never been tired of
listening to old Monsieur Liret when Celia's feet were as cold as possible, and when it had
really become dreadful to see the skin of his bald head moving about. Why then should her
enthusiasm not extend to Mr Casaubon simply in the same way as to Monsieur Liret? And it
seemed probable that all learned men had a sort of schoolmaster's view of young people.
But now Celia was really startled at the suspicion which had darted into her mind. She was
seldom taken by surprise in this way, her marvellous quickness in observing a certain order of
signs generally preparing her to expect such outward events as she had an interest in. Not that
she now imagined Mr Casaubon to be already an accepted lover: she had only begun to feel
disgust at the possibility that anything in Dorothea's mind could tend towards such an issue.
Here was something really to vex her about Dodo: it was all very well not to accept Sir James
Chettam, but the idea of marrying Mr Casaubon! Celia felt a sort of shame mingled with a
sense of the ludicrous. But perhaps Dodo, if she were really bordering on such an
extravagance, might be turned away from it: experience had often shown that her
impressibility might be calculated on. The day was damp, and they were not going to walk
out, so they both went up to their sitting-room; and there Celia observed that Dorothea,
instead of settling down with her usual diligent interest to some occupation, simply leaned her
elbow on an open book and looked out of the window at the great cedar silvered with the
damp. She herself had taken up the making of a toy for the curate's children, and was not
going to enter on any subject too precipitately.
Dorothea was in fact thinking that it was desirable for Celia to know of the momentous
change in Mr Casaubon's position since he had last been in the house: it did not seem fair to
leave her in ignorance of what would necessarily affect her attitude towards him; but it was
impossible not to shrink from telling her. Dorothea accused herself of some meanness in this
timidity: it was always odious to her to have any small fears or contrivances about her actions,
but at this moment she was seeking the highest aid possible that she might not dread the
corrosiveness of Celia's pretty carnally minded prose. Her reverie was broken, and the
difficulty of decision banished, by Celia's small and rather guttural voice speaking in its usual
tone, of a remark aside or a "by the bye."
"Is any one else coming to dine besides Mr Casaubon?"
"Not that I know of."
"I hope there is some one else. Then I shall not hear him eat his soup so."
"What is there remarkable about his soup-eating?"
"Really, Dodo, can't you hear how he scrapes his spoon? And he always blinks before he
speaks. I don't know whether Locke blinked, but I'm sure I am sorry for those who sat
opposite to him if he did."
"Celia," said Dorothea, with emphatic gravity, "pray don't make any more observations of that
kind."
"Why not? They are quite true," returned Celia, who had her reasons for persevering, though
she was beginning to be a little afraid.
"Many things are true which only the commonest minds observe."
"Then I think the commonest minds must be rather useful. I think it is a pity Mr Casaubon's
mother had not a commoner mind: she might have taught him better." Celia was inwardly
frightened, and ready to run away, now she had hurled this light javelin.
Dorothea's feelings had gathered to an avalanche, and there could be no further preparation.
"It is right to tell you, Celia, that I am engaged to marry Mr Casaubon."
Perhaps Celia had never turned so pale before. The paper man she was making would have
had his leg injured, but for her habitual care of whatever she held in her hands. She laid the
fragile figure down at once, and sat perfectly still for a few moments. When she spoke there
was a tear gathering
"Oh, Dodo, I hope you will be happy." Her sisterly tenderness could not but surmount other
feelings at this moment, and her fears were the fears of affection.
Dorothea was still hurt and agitated.
"It is quite decided, then?" said Celia, in an awed under tone. "And uncle knows?"
"I have accepted Mr Casaubon's offer. My uncle brought me the letter that contained it; he
knew about it beforehand."
"I beg your pardon, if I have said anything to hurt you, Dodo," said Celia, with a slight sob.
She never could have thought that she should feel as she did. There was something funereal in
the whole affair, and Mr Casaubon seemed to be the officiating clergyman, about whom it
would be indecent to make remarks.
"Never mind, Kitty, do not grieve. We should never admire the same people. I often offend in
something of the same way; I am apt to speak too strongly of those who don't please me."
In spite of this magnanimity Dorothea was still smarting: perhaps as much from Celia's
subdued astonishment as from her small criticisms. Of course all the world round Tipton
would be out of sympathy with this marriage. Dorothea knew of no one who thought as she
did about life and its best objects.
Nevertheless before the evening was at an end she was very happy. In an hour's tête-à-tête
with Mr Casaubon she talked to him with more freedom than she had ever felt before, even
pouring out her joy at the thought of devoting herself to him, and of learning how she might
best share and further all his great ends. Mr Casaubon was touched with an unknown delight
(what man would not have been?) at this childlike unrestrained ardour: he was not surprised
(what lover would have been?) that he should be the object of it.
"My dear young lady - Miss Brooke - Dorothea!" he said, pressing her hand between his
hands, "this is a happiness greater than I had ever imagined to be in reserve for me. That I
should ever meet with a mind and person so rich in the mingled graces which could render
marriage desirable, was far indeed from my conception. You have all - nay, more than all those qualities which I have ever regarded as the characteristic excellences of womanhood.
The great charm of your sex is its capability of an ardent self-sacrificing affection, and herein
we see its fitness to round and complete the existence of our own. Hitherto I have known few
pleasures save of the severer kind: my satisfactions have been those of the solitary student. I
have been little disposed to gather flowers that would wither in my hand, but now I shall
pluck them with eagerness, to place them in your bosom."
No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention: the frigid rhetoric at the
end was as sincere as the bark of a dog, or the cawing of an amorous rook. Would it not be
rash to conclude that there was no passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike us as the
thin music of a mandolin?
Dorothea's faith supplied all that Mr Casaubon's words seemed to leave unsaid: what believer
sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for
whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.
"I am very ignorant - you will quite wonder at my ignorance," said Dorothea. "I have so many
thoughts that may be quite mistaken; and now I shall be able to tell them all to you, and ask
you about them. But," she added, with rapid imagination of Mr Casaubon's probable feeling,
"I will not trouble you too much; only when you are inclined to listen to me. You must often
be weary with the pursuit of subjects in your own track. I shall gain enough if you will take
me with you there."
"How should I be able now to persevere in any path without your companionship?" said Mr
Casaubon, kissing her candid brow, and feeling that heaven had vouchsafed him a blessing in
every way suited to his peculiar wants. He was being unconsciously wrought upon by the
charms of a nature which was entirely without hidden calculations either for immediate
effects or for remoter ends. It was this which made Dorothea so childlike, and, according to
some judges, so stupid, with all her reputed cleverness; as, for example, in the present case of
throwing herself, metaphorically speaking, at Mr Casaubon's feet, and kissing his
unfashionable shoe-ties as if he were a Protestant Pope. She was not in the least teaching Mr
Casaubon to ask if he were good enough for her, but merely asking herself anxiously how she
could be good enough for Mr Casaubon. Before he left the next day it had been decided that
the marriage should take place within six weeks. Why not? Mr Casaubon's house was ready.
It was not a parsonage, but a considerable mansion, with much land attached to it. The
parsonage was inhabited by the curate, who did all the duty except preaching the morning
sermon.
Vanity Fair
William Makepeace Thackeray
Chiswick Mall
While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove
up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton’s academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a
large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a
three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. A black servant, who reposed on
the box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up
opposite Miss Pinkerton’s shining brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of
young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old brick house. Nay,
the acute observer might have recognized the little red nose of good-natured Miss Jemima
Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the window of that lady’s own drawingroom.
“It is Mrs. Sedley’s coach, sister,” said Miss Jemima. “Sambo, the black servant, has just rung
the bell; and the coachman has a new red waistcoat.”
“Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident to Miss Sedley’s departure, Miss
Jemima?” asked Miss Pinkerton herself, that majestic lady; the Semiramis of Hammersmith,
the friend of Doctor Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself.
“The girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks, sister,” replied Miss Jemima; “we
have made her a bow-pot.”
“Say a bouquet, sister Jemima, ’tis more genteel.”
“Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put up two bottles of the gillyflower water
for Mrs. Sedley, and the receipt for making it, in Amelia’s box.”
“And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss Sedley’s account. This is it, is it?
Very good--ninety-three pounds, four shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John Sedley,
Esquire, and to seal this billet which I have written to his lady.”
In Miss Jemima’s eyes an autograph letter of her sister, Miss Pinkerton, was an object of as
deep veneration as would have been a letter from a sovereign. Only when her pupils quitted
the establishment, or when they were about to be married, and once, when poor Miss Birch
died of the scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to write personally to the parents of her
pupils; and it was Jemima’s opinion that if anything could console Mrs. Birch for her
daughter’s loss, it would be that pious and eloquent composition in which Miss Pinkerton
announced the event.
In the present instance Miss Pinkerton’s “billet” was to the following effect:-The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18
Madam,--After her six years’ residence at the Mall, I have the honour and happiness of
presenting Miss Amelia Sedley to her parents, as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a
fitting position in their polished and refined circle. Those virtues which characterize the
young English gentlewoman, those accomplishments which become her birth and station, will
not be found wanting in the amiable Miss Sedley, whose industry and obedience have
endeared her to her instructors, and whose delightful sweetness of temper has charmed her
aged and her youthful companions.
In music, in dancing, in orthography, in every variety of embroidery and needlework, she will
be found to have realized her friends’ fondest wishes. In geography there is still much to be
desired; and a careful and undeviating use of the backboard, for four hours daily during the
next three years, is recommended as necessary to the acquirement of that dignified
deportment and carriage, so requisite for every young lady of fashion.
In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley will be found worthy of an
establishment which has been honoured by the presence of The Great Lexicographer, and the
patronage of the admirable Mrs. Chapone. In leaving the Mall, Miss Amelia carries with her
the hearts of her companions, and the affectionate regards of her mistress, who has the honour
to subscribe herself,
Madam,
Your most obliged humble servant,
Barbara Pinkerton
P.S.--Miss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley. It is particularly requested that Miss Sharp’s stay
in Russell Square may not exceed ten days. The family of distinction with whom she is
engaged, desire to avail themselves of her services as soon as possible.
This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to write her own name, and Miss Sedley’s, in
the fly-leaf of a Johnson’s Dictionary-- the interesting work which she invariably presented to
her scholars, on their departure from the Mall. On the cover was inserted a copy of “Lines
addressed to a young lady on quitting Miss Pinkerton’s school, at the Mall; by the late revered
Doctor Samuel Johnson.” In fact, the Lexicographer’s name was always on the lips of this
majestic woman, and a visit he had paid to her was the cause of her reputation and her
fortune.
Being commanded by her elder sister to get “the Dictionary” from the cupboard, Miss Jemima
had extracted two copies of the book from the receptacle in question. When Miss Pinkerton
had finished the inscription in the first, Jemima, with rather a dubious and timid air, handed
her the second.
“For whom is this, Miss Jemima?” said Miss Pinkerton, with awful coldness.
“For Becky Sharp,” answered Jemima, trembling very much, and blushing over her withered
face and neck, as she turned her back on her sister. “For Becky Sharp: she’s going too.”
“MISS JEMINA!” exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the largest capitals. “Are you in your senses?
Replace the Dixonary in the closet, and never venture to take such a liberty in future.”
“Well, sister, it’s only two-and-ninepence, and poor Becky will be miserable if she don’t get
one.”
“Send Miss Sedley instantly to me,” said Miss Pinkerton. And so venturing not to say another
word, poor Jemima trotted off, exceedingly flurried and nervous.
Miss Sedley’s papa was a merchant in London, and a man of some wealth; whereas Miss
Sharp was an articled pupil, for whom Miss Pinkerton had done, as she thought, quite enough,
without conferring upon her at parting the high honour of the Dixonary.
Although schoolmistresses’ letters are to be trusted no more nor less than churchyard
epitaphs; yet, as it sometimes happens that a person departs this life who is really deserving of
all the praises the stone cutter carves over his bones; who is a good Christian, a good parent,
child, wife, or husband; who actually does leave a disconsolate family to mourn his loss; so in
academies of the male and female sex it occurs every now and then that the pupil is fully
worthy of the praises bestowed by the disinterested instructor. Now, Miss Amelia Sedley was
a young lady of this singular species; and deserved not only all that Miss Pinkerton said in her
praise, but had many charming qualities which that pompous old Minerva of a woman could
not see, from the differences of rank and age between her pupil and herself.
For she could not only sing like a lark, or a Mrs. Billington, and dance like Hillisberg or
Parisot; and embroider beautifully; and spell as well as a Dixonary itself; but she had such a
kindly, smiling, tender, gentle, generous heart of her own, as won the love of everybody who
came near her, from Minerva herself down to the poor girl in the scullery, and the one-eyed
tart-woman’s daughter, who was permitted to vend her wares once a week to the young ladies
in the Mall. She had twelve intimate and bosom friends out of the twenty-four young ladies.
Even envious Miss Briggs never spoke ill of her; high and mighty Miss Saltire (Lord Dexter’s
granddaughter) allowed that her figure was genteel; and as for Miss Swartz, the rich woollyhaired mulatto from St. Kitt’s, on the day Amelia went away, she was in such a passion of
tears that they were obliged to send for Dr. Floss, and half tipsify her with salvolatile. Miss
Pinkerton’s attachment was, as may be supposed from the high position and eminent virtues
of that lady, calm and dignified; but Miss Jemima had already whimpered several times at the
idea of Amelia’s departure; and, but for fear of her sister, would have gone off in downright
hysterics, like the heiress (who paid double) of St. Kitt’s. Such luxury of grief, however, is
only allowed to parlour-boarders. Honest Jemima had all the bills, and the washing, and the
mending, and the puddings, and the plate and crockery, and the servants to superintend. But
why speak about her? It is probable that we shall not hear of her again from this moment to
the end of time, and that when the great filigree iron gates are once closed on her, she and her
awful sister will never issue therefrom into this little world of history.
But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm in saying, at the outset of our
acquaintance, that she was a dear little creature; and a great mercy it is, both in life and in
novels, which (and the latter especially) abound in villains of the most sombre sort, that we
are to have for a constant companion so guileless and good-natured a person. As she is not a
heroine, there is no need to describe her person; indeed I am afraid that her nose was rather
short than otherwise, and her cheeks a great deal too round and red for a heroine; but her face
blushed with rosy health, and her lips with the freshest of smiles, and she had a pair of eyes
which sparkled with the brightest and honestest good-humour, except indeed when they filled
with tears, and that was a great deal too often; for the silly thing would cry over a dead
canary-bird; or over a mouse, that the cat haply had seized upon; or over the end of a novel,
were it ever so stupid; and as for saying an unkind word to her, were any persons hard-hearted
enough to do so--why, so much the worse for them. Even Miss Pinkerton, that austere and
godlike woman, ceased scolding her after the first time, and though she no more
comprehended sensibility than she did Algebra, gave all masters and teachers particular orders
to treat Miss Sedley with the utmost gentleness, as harsh treatment was injurious to her.
So that when the day of departure came, between her two customs of laughing and crying,
Miss Sedley was greatly puzzled how to act. She was glad to go home, and yet most woefully
sad at leaving school. For three days before, little Laura Martin, the orphan, followed her
about like a little dog. She had to make and receive at least fourteen presents--to make
fourteen solemn promises of writing every week: “Send my letters under cover to my
grandpapa, the Earl of Dexter,” said Miss Saltire (who, by the way, was rather shabby).
“Never mind the postage, but write every day, you dear darling,” said the impetuous and
woolly-headed, but generous and affectionate Miss Swartz; and the orphan little Laura Martin
(who was just in round-hand), took her friend’s hand and said, looking up in her face
wistfully, “Amelia, when I write to you I shall call you Mamma.” All which details, I have no
doubt, Jones, who reads this book at his Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish,
trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental. Yes; I can see Jones at this minute (rather flushed
with his joint of mutton and half pint of wine), taking out his pencil and scoring under the
words “foolish, twaddling,” &c., and adding to them his own remark of “Quite true.” Well, he
is a lofty man of genius, and admires the great and heroic in life and novels; and so had better
take warning and go elsewhere.
Well, then. The flowers, and the presents, and the trunks, and bonnet-boxes of Miss Sedley
having been arranged by Mr. Sambo in the carriage, together with a very small and weatherbeaten old cow’s-skin trunk with Miss Sharp’s card neatly nailed upon it, which was delivered
by Sambo with a grin, and packed by the coachman with a corresponding sneer--the hour for
parting came; and the grief of that moment was considerably lessened by the admirable
discourse which Miss Pinkerton addressed to her pupil. Not that the parting speech caused
Amelia to philosophise, or that it armed her in any way with a calmness, the result of
argument; but it was intolerably dull, pompous, and tedious; and having the fear of her
schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, Miss Sedley did not venture, in her presence, to give
way to any ebullitions of private grief. A seed-cake and a bottle of wine were produced in the
drawing-room, as on the solemn occasions of the visits of parents, and these refreshments
being partaken of, Miss Sedley was at liberty to depart.
“You’ll go in and say good-by to Miss Pinkerton, Becky!” said Miss Jemima to a young lady
of whom nobody took any notice, and who was coming downstairs with her own bandbox.
“I suppose I must,” said Miss Sharp calmly, and much to the wonder of Miss Jemima; and the
latter having knocked at the door, and receiving permission to come in, Miss Sharp advanced
in a very unconcerned manner, and said in French, and with a perfect accent, “Mademoiselle,
je viens vous faire mes adieux.”
Miss Pinkerton did not understand French; she only directed those who did: but biting her lips
and throwing up her venerable and Roman-nosed head (on the top of which figured a large
and solemn turban), she said, “Miss Sharp, I wish you a good morning.” As the Hammersmith
Semiramis spoke, she waved one hand, both by way of adieu, and to give Miss Sharp an
opportunity of shaking one of the fingers of the hand which was left out for that purpose.
Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with a very frigid smile and bow, and quite declined to
accept the proffered honour; on which Semiramis tossed up her turban more indignantly than
ever. In fact, it was a little battle between the young lady and the old one, and the latter was
worsted. “Heaven bless you, my child,” said she, embracing Amelia, and scowling the while
over the girl’s shoulder at Miss Sharp. “Come away, Becky,” said Miss Jemima, pulling the
young woman away in great alarm, and the drawing-room door closed upon them for ever.
Then came the struggle and parting below. Words refuse to tell it. All the servants were there
in the hall--all the dear friend--all the young ladies--the dancing-master who had just arrived;
and there was such a scuffling, and hugging, and kissing, and crying, with the hysterical
YOOPS of Miss Swartz, the parlour-boarder, from her room, as no pen can depict, and as the
tender heart would fain pass over. The embracing was over; they parted--that is, Miss Sedley
parted from her friends. Miss Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some minutes before.
Nobody cried for leaving her.
Sambo of the bandy legs slammed the carriage door on his young weeping mistress. He
sprang up behind the carriage. “Stop!” cried Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate with a parcel.
“It’s some sandwiches, my dear,” said she to Amelia. “You may be hungry, you know; and
Becky, Becky Sharp, here’s a book for you that my sister--that is, I--Johnson’s Dixonary, you
know; you mustn’t leave us without that. Good-by. Drive on, coachman. God bless you!”
And the kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome with emotion.
But, lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put her pale face out of the window and
actually flung the book back into the garden.
This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror. “Well, I never"-- said she--"what an
audacious"--Emotion prevented her from completing either sentence. The carriage rolled
away; the great gates were closed; the bell rang for the dancing lesson. The world is before
the two young ladies; and so, farewell to Chiswick Mall.
In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the
Campaign
When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act mentioned in the last chapter, and had seen
the Dixonary, flying over the pavement of the little garden, fall at length at the feet of the
astonished Miss Jemima, the young lady’s countenance, which had before worn an almost
livid look of hatred, assumed a smile that perhaps was scarcely more agreeable, and she sank
back in the carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying--"So much for the Dixonary; and, thank
God, I’m out of Chiswick.”
Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as Miss Jemima had been; for,
consider, it was but one minute that she had left school, and the impressions of six years are
not got over in that space of time. Nay, with some persons those awes and terrors of youth last
for ever and ever. I know, for instance, an old gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me one
morning at breakfast, with a very agitated countenance, “I dreamed last night that I was
flogged by Dr. Raine.” Fancy had carried him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that
evening. Dr. Raine and his rod were just as awful to him in his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as
they had been at thirteen. If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even
at the age of threescore and eight, and had said in awful voice, “Boy, take down your pant--”?
Well, well, Miss Sedley was exceedingly alarmed at this act of insubordination.
“How could you do so, Rebecca?” at last she said, after a pause.
“Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order me back to the black-hole?” said
Rebecca, laughing.
“No: but--”
“I hate the whole house,” continued Miss Sharp in a fury. “I hope I may never set eyes on it
again. I wish it were in the bottom of the Thames, I do; and if Miss Pinkerton were there, I
wouldn’t pick her out, that I wouldn’t. O how I should like to see her floating in the water
yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming after her, and her nose like the beak of a
wherry.”
“Hush!” cried Miss Sedley.
“Why, will the black footman tell tales?” cried Miss Rebecca, laughing. “He may go back and
tell Miss Pinkerton that I hate her with all my soul; and I wish he would; and I wish I had a
means of proving it, too. For two years I have only had insults and outrage from her. I have
been treated worse than any servant in the kitchen. I have never had a friend or a kind word,
except from you. I have been made to tend the little girls in the lower schoolroom, and to talk
French to the Misses, until I grew sick of my mother tongue. But that talking French to Miss
Pinkerton was capital fun, wasn’t it? She doesn’t know a word of French, and was too proud
to confess it. I believe it was that which made her part with me; and so thank Heaven for
French. Vive la France! Vive l’Empereur! Vive Bonaparte!”
“O Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame!” cried Miss Sedley; for this was the greatest blasphemy
Rebecca had as yet uttered; and in those days, in England, to say, “Long live Bonaparte!” was
as much as to say, “Long live Lucifer!” “How can you--how dare you have such wicked,
revengeful thoughts?”
“Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural,” answered Miss Rebecca. “I’m no angel.” And, to
say the truth, she certainly was not.
For it may be remarked in the course of this little conversation (which took place as the coach
rolled along lazily by the river side) that though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occasion
to thank Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding her of some person whom she
hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her enemies to some sort of perplexity or
confusion; neither of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude, or such as would
be put forward by persons of a kind and placable disposition. Miss Rebecca was not, then, in
the least kind or placable. All the world used her ill, said this young misanthropist, and we
may be pretty certain that persons whom all the world treats ill, deserve entirely the treatment
they get. The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own
face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a
jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice. This is certain, that if the
world neglected Miss Sharp, she never was known to have done a good action in behalf of
anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-four young ladies should all be as amiable as the
heroine of this work, Miss Sedley (whom we have selected for the very reason that she was
the best-natured of all, otherwise what on earth was to have prevented us from putting up
Miss Swartz, or Miss Crump, or Miss Hopkins, as heroine in her place!) it could not be
expected that every one should be of the humble and gentle temper of Miss Amelia Sedley;
should take every opportunity to vanquish Rebecca’s hard-heartedness and ill-humour; and,
by a thousand kind words and offices, overcome, for once at least, her hostility to her kind.
Miss Sharp’s father was an artist, and in that quality had given lessons of drawing at Miss
Pinkerton’s school. He was a clever man; a pleasant companion; a careless student; with a
great propensity for running into debt, and a partiality for the tavern. When he was drunk, he
used to beat his wife and daughter; and the next morning, with a headache, he would rail at
the world for its neglect of his genius, and abuse, with a good deal of cleverness, and
sometimes with perfect reason, the fools, his brother painters. As it was with the utmost
difficulty that he could keep himself, and as he owed money for a mile round Soho, where he
lived, he thought to better his circumstances by marrying a young woman of the French
nation, who was by profession an opera-girl. The humble calling of her female parent Miss
Sharp never alluded to, but used to state subsequently that the Entrechats were a noble family
of Gascony, and took great pride in her descent from them. And curious it is that as she
advanced in life this young lady’s ancestors increased in rank and splendour.
Rebecca’s mother had had some education somewhere, and her daughter spoke French with
purity and a Parisian accent. It was in those days rather a rare accomplishment, and led to her
engagement with the orthodox Miss Pinkerton. For her mother being dead, her father, finding
himself not likely to recover, after his third attack of delirium tremens, wrote a manly and
pathetic letter to Miss Pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her protection, and so
descended to the grave, after two bailiffs had quarrelled over his corpse. Rebecca was
seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was bound over as an articled pupil; her duties
being to talk French, as we have seen; and her privileges to live cost free, and, with a few
guineas a year, to gather scraps of knowledge from the professors who attended the school.
She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and with eyes habitually cast down:
when they looked up they were very large, odd, and attractive; so attractive that the Reverend
Mr. Crisp, fresh from Oxford, and curate to the Vicar of Chiswick, the Reverend Mr.
Flowerdew, fell in love with Miss Sharp; being shot dead by a glance of her eyes which was
fired all the way across Chiswick Church from the school-pew to the reading-desk. This
infatuated young man used sometimes to take tea with Miss Pinkerton, to whom he had been
presented by his mamma, and actually proposed something like marriage in an intercepted
note, which the one-eyed apple-woman was charged to deliver. Mrs. Crisp was summoned
from Buxton, and abruptly carried off her darling boy; but the idea, even, of such an eagle in
the Chiswick dovecot caused a great flutter in the breast of Miss Pinkerton, who would have
sent away Miss Sharp but that she was bound to her under a forfeit, and who never could
thoroughly believe the young lady’s protestations that she had never exchanged a single word
with Mr. Crisp, except under her own eyes on the two occasions when she had met him at tea.
By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the establishment, Rebecca Sharp
looked like a child. But she had the dismal precocity of poverty. Many a dun had she talked
to, and turned away from her father’s door; many a tradesman had she coaxed and wheedled
into good-humour, and into the granting of one meal more. She sate commonly with her
father, who was very proud of her wit, and heard the talk of many of his wild companions-often but ill-suited for a girl to hear. But she never had been a girl, she said; she had been a
woman since she was eight years old. Oh, why did Miss Pinkerton let such a dangerous bird
into her cage?
The fact is, the old lady believed Rebecca to be the meekest creature in the world, so
admirably, on the occasions when her father brought her to Chiswick, used Rebecca to
perform the part of the ingenue; and only a year before the arrangement by which Rebecca
had been admitted into her house, and when Rebecca was sixteen years old, Miss Pinkerton
majestically, and with a little speech, made her a present of a doll--which was, by the way, the
confiscated property of Miss Swindle, discovered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours.
How the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the evening party (it
was on the occasion of the speeches, when all the professors were invited) and how Miss
Pinkerton would have raged had she seen the caricature of herself which the little mimic,
Rebecca, managed to make out of her doll. Becky used to go through dialogues with it; it
formed the delight of Newman Street, Gerrard Street, and the Artists’ quarter: and the young
painters, when they came to take their gin-and-water with their lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial
senior, used regularly to ask Rebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at home: she was as well known
to them, poor soul! as Mr. Lawrence or President West. Once Rebecca had the honour to pass
a few days at Chiswick; after which she brought back Jemima, and erected another doll as
Miss Jemmy: for though that honest creature had made and given her jelly and cake enough
for three children, and a seven-shilling piece at parting, the girl’s sense of ridicule was far
stronger than her gratitude, and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as pitilessly as her sister.
The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the Mall as to her home. The rigid formality of
the place suffocated her: the prayers and the meals, the lessons and the walks, which were
arranged with a conventual regularity, oppressed her almost beyond endurance; and she
looked back to the freedom and the beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret,
that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief for her father. She had
a little room in the garret, where the maids heard her walking and sobbing at night; but it was
with rage, and not with grief. She had not been much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness
taught her to feign. She had never mingled in the society of women: her father, reprobate as
he was, was a man of talent; his conversation was a thousand times more agreeable to her than
the talk of such of her own sex as she now encountered. The pompous vanity of the old
schoolmistress, the foolish good-humour of her sister, the silly chat and scandal of the elder
girls, and the frigid correctness of the governesses equally annoyed her; and she had no soft
maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the younger children, with
whose care she was chiefly intrusted, might have soothed and interested her; but she lived
among them two years, and not one was sorry that she went away. The gentle tender-hearted
Amelia Sedley was the only person to whom she could attach herself in the least; and who
could help attaching herself to Amelia?
The happiness the superior advantages of the young women round about her, gave Rebecca
inexpressible pangs of envy. “What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an Earl’s granddaughter,” she said of one. “How they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her hundred
thousand pounds! I am a thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for all
her wealth. I am as well bred as the Earl’s grand-daughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet
every one passes me by here. And yet, when I was at my father’s, did not the men give up
their gayest balls and parties in order to pass the evening with me?” She determined at any
rate to get free from the prison in which she found herself, and now began to act for herself,
and for the first time to make connected plans for the future.
She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place offered her; and as she was
already a musician and a good linguist, she speedily went through the little course of study
which was considered necessary for ladies in those days. Her music she practised incessantly,
and one day, when the girls were out, and she had remained at home, she was overheard to
play a piece so well that Minerva thought, wisely, she could spare herself the expense of a
master for the juniors, and intimated to Miss Sharp that she was to instruct them in music for
the future.
The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonishment of the majestic mistress of the
school. “I am here to speak French with the children,” Rebecca said abruptly, “not to teach
them music, and save money for you. Give me money, and I will teach them.”
Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her from that day. “For five-and-thirty
years,” she said, and with great justice, “I never have seen the individual who has dared in my
own house to question my authority. I have nourished a viper in my bosom.”
“A viper--a fiddlestick,” said Miss Sharp to the old lady, almost fainting with astonishment.
“You took me because I was useful. There is no question of gratitude between us. I hate this
place, and want to leave it. I will do nothing here but what I am obliged to do.”
It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware she was speaking to Miss
Pinkerton? Rebecca laughed in her face, with a horrid sarcastic demoniacal laughter, that
almost sent the schoolmistress into fits. “Give me a sum of money,” said the girl, “and get rid
of me--or, if you like better, get me a good place as governess in a nobleman’s family--you
can do so if you please.” And in their further disputes she always returned to this point, “Get
me a situation--we hate each other, and I am ready to go.”
Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she had a Roman nose and a turban, and was as tall as a
grenadier, and had been up to this time an irresistible princess, had no will or strength like that
of her little apprentice, and in vain did battle against her, and tried to overawe her. Attempting
once to scold her in public, Rebecca hit upon the before-mentioned plan of answering her in
French, which quite routed the old woman. In order to maintain authority in her school, it
became necessary to remove this rebel, this monster, this serpent, this firebrand; and hearing
about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley’s family was in want of a governess, she actually
recommended Miss Sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as she was. “I cannot,
certainly,” she said, “find fault with Miss Sharp’s conduct, except to myself; and must allow
that her talents and accomplishments are of a high order. As far as the head goes, at least, she
does credit to the educational system pursued at my establishment.”
And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to her conscience, and the
indentures were cancelled, and the apprentice was free. The battle here described in a few
lines, of course, lasted for some months. And as Miss Sedley, being now in her seventeenth
year, was about to leave school, and had a friendship for Miss Sharp ("’tis the only point in
Amelia’s behaviour,” said Minerva, “which has not been satisfactory to her mistress"), Miss
Sharp was invited by her friend to pass a week with her at home, before she entered upon her
duties as governess in a private family.
Thus the world began for these two young ladies. For Amelia it was quite a new, fresh,
brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it. It was not quite a new one for Rebecca--(indeed, if
the truth must be told with respect to the Crisp affair, the tart-woman hinted to somebody,
who took an affidavit of the fact to somebody else, that there was a great deal more than was
made public regarding Mr. Crisp and Miss Sharp, and that his letter was in answer to another
letter). But who can tell you the real truth of the matter? At all events, if Rebecca was not
beginning the world, she was beginning it over again.
By the time the young ladies reached Kensington turnpike, Amelia had not forgotten her
companions, but had dried her tears, and had blushed very much and been delighted at a
young officer of the Life Guards, who spied her as he was riding by, and said, “A dem fine
gal, egad!” and before the carriage arrived in Russell Square, a great deal of conversation had
taken place about the Drawing-room, and whether or not young ladies wore powder as well as
hoops when presented, and whether she was to have that honour: to the Lord Mayor’s ball she
knew she was to go. And when at length home was reached, Miss Amelia Sedley skipped out
on Sambo’s arm, as happy and as handsome a girl as any in the whole big city of London.
Both he and coachman agreed on this point, and so did her father and mother, and so did
every one of the servants in the house, as they stood bobbing, and curtseying, and smiling, in
the hall to welcome their young mistress.
You may be sure that she showed Rebecca over every room of the house, and everything in
every one of her drawers; and her books, and her piano, and her dresses, and all her necklaces,
brooches, laces, and gimcracks. She insisted upon Rebecca accepting the white cornelian and
the turquoise rings, and a sweet sprigged muslin, which was too small for her now, though it
would fit her friend to a nicety; and she determined in her heart to ask her mother’s
permission to present her white Cashmere shawl to her friend. Could she not spare it? and had
not her brother Joseph just brought her two from India?
When Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere shawls which Joseph Sedley had brought
home to his sister, she said, with perfect truth, “that it must be delightful to have a brother,”
and easily got the pity of the tender-hearted Amelia for being alone in the world, an orphan
without friends or kindred.
“Not alone,” said Amelia; “you know, Rebecca, I shall always be your friend, and love you as
a sister--indeed I will.”
“Ah, but to have parents, as you have--kind, rich, affectionate parents, who give you
everything you ask for; and their love, which is more precious than all! My poor papa could
give me nothing, and I had but two frocks in all the world! And then, to have a brother, a dear
brother! Oh, how you must love him!”
Amelia laughed.
“What! don’t you love him? you, who say you love everybody?”
“Yes, of course, I do--only--”
“Only what?”
“Only Joseph doesn’t seem to care much whether I love him or not. He gave me two fingers
to shake when he arrived after ten years’ absence! He is very kind and good, but he scarcely
ever speaks to me; I think he loves his pipe a great deal better than his"--but here Amelia
checked herself, for why should she speak ill of her brother? “He was very kind to me as a
child,” she added; “I was but five years old when he went away.”
“Isn’t he very rich?” said Rebecca. “They say all Indian nabobs are enormously rich.”
“I believe he has a very large income.”
“And is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman?”
“La! Joseph is not married,” said Amelia, laughing again.
Perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to Rebecca, but that young lady did not appear to
have remembered it; indeed, vowed and protested that she expected to see a number of
Amelia’s nephews and nieces. She was quite disappointed that Mr. Sedley was not married;
she was sure Amelia had said he was, and she doted so on little children.
“I think you must have had enough of them at Chiswick,” said Amelia, rather wondering at
the sudden tenderness on her friend’s part; and indeed in later days Miss Sharp would never
have committed herself so far as to advance opinions, the untruth of which would have been
so easily detected. But we must remember that she is but nineteen as yet, unused to the art of
deceiving, poor innocent creature! and making her own experience in her own person. The
meaning of the above series of queries, as translated in the heart of this ingenious young
woman, was simply this: “If Mr. Joseph Sedley is rich and unmarried, why should I not marry
him? I have only a fortnight, to be sure, but there is no harm in trying.” And she determined
within herself to make this laudable attempt. She redoubled her caresses to Amelia; she kissed
the white cornelian necklace as she put it on; and vowed she would never, never part with it.
When the dinner-bell rang she went downstairs with her arm round her friend’s waist, as is the
habit of young ladies. She was so agitated at the drawing-room door, that she could hardly
find courage to enter. “Feel my heart, how it beats, dear!” said she to her friend.
“No, it doesn’t,” said Amelia. “Come in, don’t be frightened. Papa won’t do you any harm.”
Rebecca Is in Presence of the Enemy
A very stout, puffy man, in buckskins and Hessian boots, with several immense neckcloths
that rose almost to his nose, with a red striped waistcoat and an apple green coat with steel
buttons almost as large as crown pieces (it was the morning costume of a dandy or blood of
those days) was reading the paper by the fire when the two girls entered, and bounced off his
arm-chair, and blushed excessively, and hid his entire face almost in his neckcloths at this
apparition.
“It’s only your sister, Joseph,” said Amelia, laughing and shaking the two fingers which he
held out. “I’ve come home for good, you know; and this is my friend, Miss Sharp, whom you
have heard me mention.”
“No, never, upon my word,” said the head under the neckcloth, shaking very much--"that is,
yes--what abominably cold weather, Miss"--and herewith he fell to poking the fire with all his
might, although it was in the middle of June.
“He’s very handsome,” whispered Rebecca to Amelia, rather loud.
“Do you think so?” said the latter. “I’ll tell him.”
“Darling! not for worlds,” said Miss Sharp, starting back as timid as a fawn. She had
previously made a respectful virgin-like curtsey to the gentleman, and her modest eyes gazed
so perseveringly on the carpet that it was a wonder how she should have found an opportunity
to see him.
“Thank you for the beautiful shawls, brother,” said Amelia to the fire poker. “Are they not
beautiful, Rebecca?”
“O heavenly!” said Miss Sharp, and her eyes went from the carpet straight to the chandelier.
Joseph still continued a huge clattering at the poker and tongs, puffing and blowing the while,
and turning as red as his yellow face would allow him. “I can’t make you such handsome
presents, Joseph,” continued his sister, “but while I was at school, I have embroidered for you
a very beautiful pair of braces.”
“Good Gad! Amelia,” cried the brother, in serious alarm, “what do you mean?” and plunging
with all his might at the bell-rope, that article of furniture came away in his hand, and
increased the honest fellow’s confusion. “For heaven’s sake see if my buggy’s at the door. I
can’t wait. I must go. D--that groom of mine. I must go.”
At this minute the father of the family walked in, rattling his seals like a true British merchant.
“What’s the matter, Emmy?” says he.
“Joseph wants me to see if his--his buggy is at the door. What is a buggy, Papa?”
“It is a one-horse palanquin,” said the old gentleman, who was a wag in his way.
Joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter; in which, encountering the eye of Miss
Sharp, he stopped all of a sudden, as if he had been shot.
“This young lady is your friend? Miss Sharp, I am very happy to see you. Have you and
Emmy been quarrelling already with Joseph, that he wants to be off?”
“I promised Bonamy of our service, sir,” said Joseph, “to dine with him.”
“O fie! didn’t you tell your mother you would dine here?”
“But in this dress it’s impossible.”
“Look at him, isn’t he handsome enough to dine anywhere, Miss Sharp?”
On which, of course, Miss Sharp looked at her friend, and they both set off in a fit of laughter,
highly agreeable to the old gentleman.
“Did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those at Miss Pinkerton’s?” continued he,
following up his advantage.
“Gracious heavens! Father,” cried Joseph.
“There now, I have hurt his feelings. Mrs. Sedley, my dear, I have hurt your son’s feelings. I
have alluded to his buckskins. Ask Miss Sharp if I haven’t? Come, Joseph, be friends with
Miss Sharp, and let us all go to dinner.”
“There’s a pillau, Joseph, just as you like it, and Papa has brought home the best turbot in
Billingsgate.”
“Come, come, sir, walk downstairs with Miss Sharp, and I will follow with these two young
women,” said the father, and he took an arm of wife and daughter and walked merrily off.
If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart upon making the conquest of this big beau,
I don’t think, ladies, we have any right to blame her; for though the task of husband-hunting is
generally, and with becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their mammas,
recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delicate matters for her, and that
if she did not get a husband for herself, there was no one else in the wide world who would
take the trouble off her hands. What causes young people to “come out,” but the noble
ambition of matrimony? What sends them trooping to watering-places? What keeps them
dancing till five o’clock in the morning through a whole mortal season? What causes them to
labour at pianoforte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a fashionable master at a guinea a
lesson, and to play the harp if they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln
Green toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring down some “desirable” young
man with those killing bows and arrows of theirs? What causes respectable parents to take up
their carpets, set their houses topsy-turvy, and spend a fifth of their year’s income in ball
suppers and iced champagne? Is it sheer love of their species, and an unadulterated wish to
see young people happy and dancing? Psha! they want to marry their daughters; and, as
honest Mrs. Sedley has, in the depths of her kind heart, already arranged a score of little
schemes for the settlement of her Amelia, so also had our beloved but unprotected Rebecca
determined to do her very best to secure the husband, who was even more necessary for her
than for her friend. She had a vivid imagination; she had, besides, read the Arabian Nights and
Guthrie’s Geography; and it is a fact that while she was dressing for dinner, and after she had
asked Amelia whether her brother was very rich, she had built for herself a most magnificent
castle in the air, of which she was mistress, with a husband somewhere in the background (she
had not seen him as yet, and his figure would not therefore be very distinct); she had arrayed
herself in an infinity of shawls, turbans, and diamond necklaces, and had mounted upon an
elephant to the sound of the march in Bluebeard, in order to pay a visit of ceremony to the
Grand Mogul. Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to construct
you, and many a fanciful young creature besides Rebecca Sharp has indulged in these
delightful day-dreams ere now!
Joseph Sedley was twelve years older than his sister Amelia. He was in the East India
Company’s Civil Service, and his name appeared, at the period of which we write, in the
Bengal division of the East India Register, as collector of Boggley Wollah, an honourable and
lucrative post, as everybody knows: in order to know to what higher posts Joseph rose in the
service, the reader is referred to the same periodical.
Boggley Wollah is situated in a fine, lonely, marshy, jungly district, famous for snipeshooting, and where not unfrequently you may flush a tiger. Ramgunge, where there is a
magistrate, is only forty miles off, and there is a cavalry station about thirty miles farther; so
Joseph wrote home to his parents, when he took possession of his collectorship. He had lived
for about eight years of his life, quite alone, at this charming place, scarcely seeing a Christian
face except twice a year, when the detachment arrived to carry off the revenues which he had
collected, to Calcutta.
Luckily, at this time he caught a liver complaint, for the cure of which he returned to Europe,
and which was the source of great comfort and amusement to him in his native country. He
did not live with his family while in London, but had lodgings of his own, like a gay young
bachelor. Before he went to India he was too young to partake of the delightful pleasures of a
man about town, and plunged into them on his return with considerable assiduity. He drove
his horses in the Park; he dined at the fashionable taverns (for the Oriental Club was not as yet
invented); he frequented the theatres, as the mode was in those days, or made his appearance
at the opera, laboriously attired in tights and a cocked hat.
On returning to India, and ever after, he used to talk of the pleasure of this period of his
existence with great enthusiasm, and give you to understand that he and Brummel were the
leading bucks of the day. But he was as lonely here as in his jungle at Boggley Wollah. He
scarcely knew a single soul in the metropolis: and were it not for his doctor, and the society of
his blue-pill, and his liver complaint, he must have died of loneliness. He was lazy, peevish,
and a bon-vivan; the appearance of a lady frightened him beyond measure; hence it was but
seldom that he joined the paternal circle in Russell Square, where there was plenty of gaiety,
and where the jokes of his good-natured old father frightened his amour-propre. His bulk
caused Joseph much anxious thought and alarm; now and then he would make a desperate
attempt to get rid of his superabundant fat; but his indolence and love of good living speedily
got the better of these endeavours at reform, and he found himself again at his three meals a
day. He never was well dressed; but he took the hugest pains to adorn his big person, and
passed many hours daily in that occupation. His valet made a fortune out of his wardrobe: his
toilet-table was covered with as many pomatums and essences as ever were employed by an
old beauty: he had tried, in order to give himself a waist, every girth, stay, and waistband then
invented. Like most fat men, he would have his clothes made too tight, and took care they
should be of the most brilliant colours and youthful cut. When dressed at length, in the
afternoon, he would issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the Park; and then would come
back in order to dress again and go and dine with nobody at the Piazza Coffee-House. He was
as vain as a girl; and perhaps his extreme shyness was one of the results of his extreme vanity.
If Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first entrance into life, she is a young
person of no ordinary cleverness.
The first move showed considerable skill. When she called Sedley a very handsome man, she
knew that Amelia would tell her mother, who would probably tell Joseph, or who, at any rate,
would be pleased by the compliment paid to her son. All mothers are. If you had told Sycorax
that her son Caliban was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she
was. Perhaps, too, Joseph Sedley would overhear the compliment--Rebecca spoke loud
enough--and he did hear, and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine man) the praise
thrilled through every fibre of his big body, and made it tingle with pleasure. Then, however,
came a recoil. “Is the girl making fun of me?” he thought, and straightway he bounced
towards the bell, and was for retreating, as we have seen, when his father’s jokes and his
mother’s entreaties caused him to pause and stay where he was. He conducted the young lady
down to dinner in a dubious and agitated frame of mind. “Does she really think I am
handsome?” thought he, “or is she only making game of me?” We have talked of Joseph
Sedley being as vain as a girl. Heaven help us! the girls have only to turn the tables, and say
of one of their own sex, “She is as vain as a man,” and they will have perfect reason. The
bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin over their toilettes, quite as
proud of their personal advantages, quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as any
coquette in the world.
Downstairs, then, they went, Joseph very red and blushing, Rebecca very modest, and holding
her green eyes downwards. She was dressed in white, with bare shoulders as white as snow-the picture of youth, unprotected innocence, and humble virgin simplicity. “I must be very
quiet,” thought Rebecca, “and very much interested about India.”
Now we have heard how Mrs. Sedley had prepared a fine curry for her son, just as he liked it,
and in the course of dinner a portion of this dish was offered to Rebecca. “What is it?” said
she, turning an appealing look to Mr. Joseph.
“Capital,” said he. His mouth was full of it: his face quite red with the delightful exercise of
gobbling. “Mother, it’s as good as my own curries in India.”
“Oh, I must try some, if it is an Indian dish,” said Miss Rebecca. “I am sure everything must
be good that comes from there.”
“Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear,” said Mr. Sedley, laughing.
Rebecca had never tasted the dish before.
“Do you find it as good as everything else from India?” said Mr. Sedley.
“Oh, excellent!” said Rebecca, who was suffering tortures with the cayenne pepper.
“Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp,” said Joseph, really interested.
“A chili,” said Rebecca, gasping. “Oh yes!” She thought a chili was something cool, as its
name imported, and was served with some. “How fresh and green they look,” she said, and
put one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no longer.
She laid down her fork. “Water, for Heaven’s sake, water!” she cried. Mr. Sedley burst out
laughing (he was a coarse man, from the Stock Exchange, where they love all sorts of
practical jokes). “They are real Indian, I assure you,” said he. “Sambo, give Miss Sharp some
water.”
The paternal laugh was echoed by Joseph, who thought the joke capital. The ladies only
smiled a little. They thought poor Rebecca suffered too much. She would have liked to choke
old Sedley, but she swallowed her mortification as well as she had the abominable curry
before it, and as soon as she could speak, said, with a comical, good-humoured air, “I ought to
have remembered the pepper which the Princess of Persia puts in the cream-tarts in the
Arabian Nights. Do you put cayenne into your cream-tarts in India, sir?”
Old Sedley began to laugh, and thought Rebecca was a good-humoured girl. Joseph simply
said, “Cream-tarts, Miss? Our cream is very bad in Bengal. We generally use goats’ milk;
and, ’gad, do you know, I’ve got to prefer it!”
“You won’t like everything from India now, Miss Sharp,” said the old gentleman; but when
the ladies had retired after dinner, the wily old fellow said to his son, “Have a care, Joe; that
girl is setting her cap at you.”
“Pooh! nonsense!” said Joe, highly flattered. “I recollect, sir, there was a girl at Dumdum, a
daughter of Cutler of the Artillery, and afterwards married to Lance, the surgeon, who made a
dead set at me in the year ’4--at me and Mulligatawney, whom I mentioned to you before
dinner--a devilish good fellow Mulligatawney--he’s a magistrate at Budgebudge, and sure to
be in council in five years. Well, sir, the Artillery gave a ball, and Quintin, of the King’s 14th,
said to me, ‘Sedley,’ said he, ’I bet you thirteen to ten that Sophy Cutler hooks either you or
Mulligatawney before the rains.’ ‘Done,’ says I; and egad, sir--this claret’s very good.
Adamson’s or Carbonell’s?”
A slight snore was the only reply: the honest stockbroker was asleep, and so the rest of
Joseph’s story was lost for that day. But he was always exceedingly communicative in a
man’s party, and has told this delightful tale many scores of times to his apothecary, Dr.
Gollop, when he came to inquire about the liver and the blue-pill.
Being an invalid, Joseph Sedley contented himself with a bottle of claret besides his Madeira
at dinner, and he managed a couple of plates full of strawberries and cream, and twenty-four
little rout cakes that were lying neglected in a plate near him, and certainly (for novelists have
the privilege of knowing everything) he thought a great deal about the girl upstairs. “A nice,
gay, merry young creature,” thought he to himself. “How she looked at me when I picked up
her handkerchief at dinner! She dropped it twice. Who’s that singing in the drawing-room?
’Gad! shall I go up and see?”
But his modesty came rushing upon him with uncontrollable force. His father was asleep: his
hat was in the hall: there was a hackney-coach standing hard by in Southampton Row. “I’ll go
and see the Forty Thieves,” said he, “and Miss Decamp’s dance”; and he slipped away gently
on the pointed toes of his boots, and disappeared, without waking his worthy parent.
“There goes Joseph,” said Amelia, who was looking from the open windows of the drawingroom, while Rebecca was singing at the piano.
“Miss Sharp has frightened him away,” said Mrs. Sedley. “Poor Joe, why will he be so shy?”